Chassis Completion

Aside from the fact that the hub carriers for the front have to rotate for steering, the front end suspension arms went together almost identically to the rear. Since the front does steer, the assembly included the steering linkage. The steering linkage is adjustable, which means that the front end toe-in can be adjusted as well as the camber. Unlike the rear, the toe-in for the front can be adjusted to tweak how much the front end slides, which will obviously affect how the car steers into and through the drift.

Not a whole lot new to report, although I'm beginning to wish that I had gone ahead and ordered the optional aluminum propellor shaft, since it appears that the car has to be completely disassembled to do so. I'll just have to put my faith in the engineers at Tamiya and believe that they adequately designed the plastic stocker to take the power that will be delivered by the included motor. I'm guessing that as long as I'm not sticking in a significantly stronger motor, I should be fine.

My current overall impression of the TT-01D kit is very positive. It's interesting to note the differences between my off-road trucks and this on-road car, like the fact that the diff case is integrated into the tub chassis and split vertically along the same axis as the wheel axles instead of along the major axis of the car. The instructions are very good and easy to follow. In fact, I'd say that you have to try and screw things up, since it gives diagrams, labels, and parts references galore all in four different languages. The only two things that I think can be improved at this time are a) include the adhesive for the little metal mystery plates on the front and rear skid plates, and b) design the tree molds such that all of the parts that you need to assemble each section are on as few different trees as possible. These are minor issues, and fortunately the instructions and parts diagrams mitigate them. And with that, I'm going to call it a day on this project, because the next step is to build the shocks, and I don't really feel like filling shock tubes with oil when I'm really tired.