Tommy R
I wanna be Dave
Hey folks,
I've been through a few cars in my effort to try drifting. I first picked up a Hot Bodies Cyclone. When that didn't work to my liking I stepped it up and got an Xray T3 touring car. I still had issues getting the handling I wanted so I sold it and quit drifting for a while. Then I later picked up a Sakura D3 with countersteer. After spending a lot of time trying to get it to handle like I wanted, I eventually gave up on it and sold it, as well. I was pretty frustrated with drifting altogether.
Then the other day my buddy, Cory (Stang Killa SS), posted up that he picked up a rear wheel drive drifter. What the WHAT?? RWD?? Is he crazy? I know folks have done it, but isn't it crazy difficult to control a RWD drifter? I could barely control an AWD car. So I started researching and it turns out there are several RWD drifters on the market these days. :shock: I began to reconsider a drifter in the hopes that these companies have addressed the inherent problems with trying to drift a RWD RC car, i.e. weight balance, steering throw, etc. It appears pretty much all of the ones I was considering also included gyros, which I've read are pretty much mandatory for a RWD car unless you're an RC god. I'm not. 
Since I was very skeptical of being able to control a RWD drifter I didn't want to invest much money. I also wanted one with a mid/front motor setup as it seems pretty popular. So I narrowed it down to two cars. The first was the MST FXX-D (or something), which is their budget RWD car for about $160. It's mostly all plastic. Sure you can upgrade to aluminum bits, but a little research made me painfully aware of the cost for such upgrades. Ouch!
The other car was the Eagle Racing TT02-FRD. "Who's Eagle Racing?" I asked. Never heard of them. Well, best I can tell is they made upgrade parts for Tamiya cars and eventually just started making their own based on their hop-up parts. I could be wrong, but that's my best guess. Evidently, it's a small company, but there's a guy on youtube (bluestar4u) who has built several Eagle Racing chassis and he has numerous, helpful write-ups to get them set up. So I eventually but the bullet on a new ER TT02-FRD. I'm going to try RWD drifting. May God have mercy on us all!
Here's bluestar4u's (real name is Patrick) youtube channel if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/user/blueststar4u
It arrived assembled, which I'm never a fan of. I applied CA to the carbon fiber to protect it (and me) from splinters. I also applied Loctite where appropriate. I also ordered a new body (Pandora S13 Silvia), a Speed Passion Reventon R ESC, and a Speed Passion 10.5 motor. For a servo I picked up a Savox 1251 super speed servo. It may actually be TOO fast! But anyway, after a few weeks I had it up and running and played around on the tile floor in the kitchen. It was challenging, but promising. Soon I was doing pretty tight figure 8's, which I couldn't even do with my AWD cars! :shock:
Here's a couple pics of the chassis with the electronics in it.
Yeah, the steering throw is pretty bonkers!
I've been through a few cars in my effort to try drifting. I first picked up a Hot Bodies Cyclone. When that didn't work to my liking I stepped it up and got an Xray T3 touring car. I still had issues getting the handling I wanted so I sold it and quit drifting for a while. Then I later picked up a Sakura D3 with countersteer. After spending a lot of time trying to get it to handle like I wanted, I eventually gave up on it and sold it, as well. I was pretty frustrated with drifting altogether.
Then the other day my buddy, Cory (Stang Killa SS), posted up that he picked up a rear wheel drive drifter. What the WHAT?? RWD?? Is he crazy? I know folks have done it, but isn't it crazy difficult to control a RWD drifter? I could barely control an AWD car.
So I started researching and it turns out there are several RWD drifters on the market these days. :shock: I began to reconsider a drifter in the hopes that these companies have addressed the inherent problems with trying to drift a RWD RC car, i.e. weight balance, steering throw, etc. It appears pretty much all of the ones I was considering also included gyros, which I've read are pretty much mandatory for a RWD car unless you're an RC god. I'm not. Since I was very skeptical of being able to control a RWD drifter I didn't want to invest much money. I also wanted one with a mid/front motor setup as it seems pretty popular. So I narrowed it down to two cars. The first was the MST FXX-D (or something), which is their budget RWD car for about $160. It's mostly all plastic. Sure you can upgrade to aluminum bits, but a little research made me painfully aware of the cost for such upgrades. Ouch!
The other car was the Eagle Racing TT02-FRD. "Who's Eagle Racing?" I asked. Never heard of them. Well, best I can tell is they made upgrade parts for Tamiya cars and eventually just started making their own based on their hop-up parts. I could be wrong, but that's my best guess. Evidently, it's a small company, but there's a guy on youtube (bluestar4u) who has built several Eagle Racing chassis and he has numerous, helpful write-ups to get them set up. So I eventually but the bullet on a new ER TT02-FRD. I'm going to try RWD drifting. May God have mercy on us all!
Here's bluestar4u's (real name is Patrick) youtube channel if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/user/blueststar4u
It arrived assembled, which I'm never a fan of. I applied CA to the carbon fiber to protect it (and me) from splinters. I also applied Loctite where appropriate. I also ordered a new body (Pandora S13 Silvia), a Speed Passion Reventon R ESC, and a Speed Passion 10.5 motor. For a servo I picked up a Savox 1251 super speed servo. It may actually be TOO fast! But anyway, after a few weeks I had it up and running and played around on the tile floor in the kitchen. It was challenging, but promising. Soon I was doing pretty tight figure 8's, which I couldn't even do with my AWD cars! :shock:
Here's a couple pics of the chassis with the electronics in it.
Yeah, the steering throw is pretty bonkers!
Ah well, it looks okay from a distance and will eventually be a "drift missile" so no worries. I was, however, very pleased with how the hood came out. Here's some pics. The battery isn't installed so it's sitting higher than normal.
I also tried running with no rear weight at all. I was at 53% rear weight, but after the video I removed over 65g from the tail of the car in hopes of reducing rear grip under power. It helped, but not as much as I'd hoped.
I picked it up directly from Patrick, who is "bluestar4u" on youtube who does all the how-to videos on Eagle products. He had an ebay store where he was distributing the cars. He got everything from Broadtech.
