ARD CER. Sold.

Almost one and a half year, since I bought my ARD CER. It was my first serious chassis, that made me grow in a way, I could never imagine. Before it, I only had HPI sprint, where settings didn't mean anything, and drifting was for fun only. ARD changed the game, oriented me to getting familiar with settings and made me excited about championships.

DL Verossa. Color first

Hello there my fellow friends.

Keeping a blog up to date can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

For the third time, I'll try to bring it up and running. Luckily for me, a lot has happened since my last visit.

Here is something to start with - DL Verossa. 

Purpose for this build was a necessity for a Vertex promo body for my shop.

After a while, I made the most random pattern I could imagine and picked my paint leftovers, which were green and orange. Pretty random.

Looks weird and unfinished now. Next thing to do - carbon, to add a little "special" in this promo body

DL-86 recent progress

Updating the blog was really tought for a couple of weeks now. But I'm back on it, hopefully with a lot of new stuff.

To start up - a taste of Dl-86 that is getting into its shape.

Digging deeper: ARD CER steering mod V.3

I missed out on V.2 modification. Basically I wanted more lock, so I just widened the steering rack with a new custom tensioner plate. Nothing interesting.

But recently, i found that trimmed plastic C-hubs and plastic arms tend to flex a lot. And therefore, I have more play than I could. So I decided to swap my front Suspension for DIB one. This is functional, expensive, and it is RED!!!

Still, I need 4 bearings, new longer camber turnbuckles, and a TS plate to extend the knuckles.  A few more DIB parts are to come, like shock mounts f.e.

The steering geo is so wrong in this picture. Let's hope I can fix that efficiently.

Red, Stiff, awesome. Never mind the weird turnbuckle.

Rebuilding the Arena for better

Sorry, guys. It's been a while since I posted anything, because mostly, nothing has really been happening.

Recently, our local track was finished and tested. To the great disappointment, the track turned out really narrow and hard to drive. Driving it alone is a tricky thing, let alone couple drives. I am not talking about trains, because skill level does not allow us to do that yet(

After a while, we decided to make some corrections, which actually, made track a lot better. Longer bridge allowed to widen the main line, however now we have to make a "blind" switch on a rather high speed which is not very cool. 

Stay tuned for another update this week, with pictures and videos. Track already has hanging clipping points and markings.

AASBO/TRA Kyoto GT 86: part 4

Yet, another huge milestone in my project.

Silver and black are covered in PS-55 matt paint, rear diffusor and fog lights are painted with black from the outside, most of the window trims are on, and most important - body panels are glued to the body. I still need to trim them and make more realistic by adding some parts to them.

AASBO/TRA Kyoto GT 86: part 3

Finally I managed to find some time on my project. Studies are hard, so I can only work on it on weekends. This time I painted the body and 1.5 fenders. Still, I have to spray black and silver with PS-55 and paint rear diffuser and fog lights with black from the outside. Plenty of work to do.

AASBO/TRA Kyoto GT 86: part 2

Another day spent, rubbing off 3 layers of old paint from my lovely BMW. One of rear arches is now almost ready, thought I made some mistakes during cutting. But I know how to correct them. Black color will hide everything)

Arch came out a bit wider than I thought it would. Who knew I'd ever need a spacer for a +12 wheel.

Picture starts to clear up

AASBO/TRA Kyoto GT 86: part 1

Boom. Here comes the new project. This should be the most awesome one I have by this moment.
Tamiya Gt86 body + custom fenders (previously trashed Yokomo BMW) and a custom paint job.

Latest video update: 09 September

Here is the lates video, filmed during the weekend training. This is not in the best quality and somehow does not include some great shots, but still show some skills. We now have 3 drivers in our drift trains and we try hard to go up to 4. Thats a huge progress for all of us.

Here you go. Don't expect more than 480p :-(

CVD mod. The hard way.

Now you all remember the previous post, about the easy way. Today I tried something more hard.
Basically, I had 45mm square wide angle dog-bones. They did not fit the CVD cup, because the ball joint was too big. So, I had to widen the cup, and also widen the pin holes.
Everything turned out great. No play, very smooth, and stiff - almost like a factory CVD. Angle increase is significant, as you can see from the picture below. Now I will have to find a way to increase Steering rack travel to handle these nearly 60 degrees of lock.

Stock (left) dog bone compared to Square wide angle (right) dog bone

Onevia gets Uras'd; part 3. Finished

Here it is. Not as wide as I expected. Only +5-6 mm in total on the rear and +3-4mm on the front. Can't even fit my +12 wheels. +8 are still pretty good though.
I can't tell exactly, what I feel. One minute - I love it, other - I hate it. Maybe I should refresh the front bumper too...

Onevia gets Uras'd; part 2

It was such a shame to find out, that white LRP paint turned out to be pearl white (Scumbag salesman).
To me, it was more like a pearl base for white color. But anyway, I had no will to go to the farthest end of the city for another overpriced 150 can of paint, so I backed the parts with tiny coat of this pearl white, and then with silver. Of course, colors did not match, since body is backed with white. I am thinking of respraying the whole car from the outside.

ARD CER torque rods

It's not a secret, that ARD has some play in front suspension arms and C-hubs. Not critical at all, but still a bit frustrating. 

Some time ago, I saw this mod on one of Malaysian (or somewhere in that Area) forum. As I was explained then - it increases the stiffness of the whole front, and removes all of the play. I was surprised, how stiff the chassis became. 121 Spur clearance is pretty tight.

 And it almost does not influence the suspension work at all.

Onevia gets Uras'd; part 1

It's always nice to get of a shelf, a body that you don't run to much. Sometimes, you look at it, and think that it has to be "refreshed" in a way. So, that's what I did. Set of Uras fenders to refresh my first self-made oldie Onevia. 

Nice fitment for +10 rear and +12 front, especially with that tires.

Achieved almost perfect fitment today, and will paint tomorrow.

Random weekend outdoor footage

Small compilation of outdoor footage, starring my lovely dog.
HD available on youtube.

ARD CER D11 CVD mod: the cheap way

SO, I have finally finished the steering mod. It's the simplest and cheapest way to give your CVD's a few more degrees of lock. Basically you just have to shave off the material that stops the dog bone from moving further into the cup. Simple as that. Also, had to shave off some material from C-hubs. 

I think the increase is around 2-3 degrees. Is it enough - judge for yourself.

Latest video Update: 13.07.2012

I haven't posted a video for a while. Partly because no one wants to film anything, and partly because not all people like to ride tandem rides, and just do freakish stuff when I try to follow them.

But I finally found a solution to both problems, and made a video. 

Beter to watch on Youtube.

Spice Toyota Vellfire

Earlier this week, my new mate came to me during practice and asked, If I could make him a favor and paint the body. He did not say, what kind of body it was, but he only told me the colors he wanted - white body with a red stripe. That were the colors that I had left from my previous works, so I said "Yes, why not".