Real drifter Masato Kawabata was driving his Toyo Tires 591hp modified Nissan S13 240SX in an event, and managed to pull this off. It’s not quite reversing into the corner, but this judgement is just on another level!

See if you can do this with your TT-01!

Normally you’re looking at paying around £15 to £20 ($25 – $35 per set for originals from Yokomo or HPI etc, but now there are some really cool looking sets from one of my favourite eBay shops Revolution

Here are some examples below, they lead to the current auction so apologies if it’s ended, just click here to go direct to the Revolution shop.

TOYO Decals click here

ROTORA Decals click here

Monster Energy decals click here

Searching through eBay is a little boring and frustrating at times, as a lot of ‘toys’ and other useless junk comes up.

Here’s my easy search tip for REAL RC Drift parts, cars and other stuff that you’re after – not toys!

Go to;

Home – Buy – Toys & Games – Radio-Controlled-Cars

Once there cut and paste this into the ‘Search’ bar where you normally type;

drift -takara -xmod -x-mod -xmods -eztec -stunt -BNIB -1:12 -1/12 -MINIZ -MINI-Z -1/16

This should bring up mostly real RC stuff, but have a play about see what works best for you!

Having a LED light systems adds great realism to most RC Drift cars, but when you get really close that’s when they really just look a bit lame, as older cars didn’t have full on Zenon projector headlights – so here’s how to create some old school looking headlights.

First, buy a set of decals that match your car body, or just use the one’s that come with a new bodyshell.

By the way – it’s worth noting if you’ve already painted over your headlights this method wont work – so you’ll have to start with a new body shell.

By using some of the left over trimming from the Polycarbonate bodyshell, place a piece firmly over the sticker of the headlight.  Mark around the headlight, so that if it does shift slightly you can get it re-aligned quickly.

Then, taking time, carve into the plastic with medium pressure (do you don’t go all the way through) and following the markings of the sticker.

Once completed, cut out the headlight leaving two ‘tabs’ either end, you’ll need to do this to stick the headlight lense to the body of the car on the INSIDE……

Your results should look something like the example I did below. I have yet to get the light buckets for this body – which is having it’s build photographed on this part of the website here

If you have a try at this, let me know and send you pics to be posted in The Gallery!

Best priced I’ve seen for a new HPI AE86 is from here

So when it arrives, what I have planned after it’s bath is similar to the Project D RX7,  but with the following;

Full LED system with indicator turning signal, brake lights and high beam for full speed
I will also attempt some orange lights as indicators along the side if I can pull it off!
Roll cage
Recaro Seats
Full intercooler and mock oil cooler
Mesh grills and inserts
Smoked lights all around
Wing mirrors
Filled arches with offset & cambered wheels

Paint job;

I was thinking of doing this a very dark metallic red, with a black bottom half of the sheel from the bumbers down……that’s alll changed as you’ll see below.

I’ll set it off with some white additions, I’ll try white mesh, and other white highlights to make it really stand out.

Here’s a pic of the standard shell

Here’s what’s arrived so far, still waiting on the Yokomo Light Buckets – fingers crossed they’ll fit!

Part 2

Masking and Painting – I also decided to add a little realism with headlight lenses, the link to that section will be post on here shortly.

Part 3

Decals

Part 4

Headlights – see here for details

Part 5

95% Finished

This has been ordered from eBay shop hosted by Dinball , and this Tamiya RX7 wasn’t the only cheap bodyshell – there are loads!

Get looking now!

Back to topic – I have ordered this Tamiya (#51270) Body Set Mazda RX7 to come up with some new designs, with the idea to get it looking close to reality as possible so it will feature the following;

Full LED system with indicator turning signal, brake lights and high beam for full speed
Roll cage
Full intercooler and mock oil cooler
Mesh grills and inserts
Smoked rear lights
Wing mirrors etc. that come with the body – not sure if I’m going to add spoiler yet
Filled arches with offset & cambered wheels

Paint job……..something like this, but more of a street version;

Here’s what you get once it arrives

The idea is to create a bodyshell that looks like a Street Drifter has taken his car to a track, where you usually see some taped up headlights and different wheels that they use just for drifting.  At some organised events numbers are applied if they enter an amateur event.

After applying a complete real metal mesh grill to the front, I bought a set of Speedway Slidemaster wheels to get the look I wanted, which now on the car look great.  I then applied some BBS stickers from a set that was lying around (I know they are Volk design but hey……they were the only ones I had!)

Here’s the results……..hope you like it!

However, the purpose of getting this chassis is to make an almost direct comparison with Belt Drive and Shaft Driven – what are the advantages and disadvantages of each and how much do they cost to run are some questions you’ll find answered.

In order to do this, both cars will be set up with exactly the same component and final gearing (time for a calculator….) and then tested side by side whilst being filmed – in true battle drift style! I’ll then post the results up with pics and videos

Just as a side note, the Yokomo MR4 was bought for £35 ( $65) off eBay and comes with a new RX7 body shell, motor and servo – that’s a cheap entry point to drifting!

Here’s some pics of what’s on it’s way;

I’ll also post some pics experimenting with 190mm and 200mm bodies to see just how far you can push the rims out with these swing shafts.

In theory, up to 15mm is possible with these and +10mm offset wheels!!  maybe a little much……….

I’ve ordered them from eBay seller ToyEast whose shop is here

The 3Racing Swing Shaft with +5mm Offset are here

Pictures below show the shaft, and also a metal collar that will no doubt go between the wheel and suspension arm.

3Racing’s website is here and the +5mm off set swing shafts on their website are here

UPDATE: Ensure you have the TT-01D chassis for the parts described below.  I have a few TT-01 and TT-01E chassis but the LOWER ARMS WILL NOT FIT! They are a different design, look really closely at the pics for the LOWER arms on the eBay links below.

However, the UPPER ARMS DO fit the TT-01 and TT-01E chassis.  So far I haven’t found they offer much in the way of camber, possibly about -2 degrees, which is good for racing…..if you just want to show of with -10 degree of camber these aren’t the parts for you!

Now for the even worse news.  I order two sets of the Upper Rear Adjustable Arms as I have two TT-01s I wanted to fit them to both.  The front adjustables work fine as above, but really don’t offer much in the way of being ‘adjustable’ as above.

The problem with the rears is that as standard, they offer no more camber than the standard GPM Upper Rears Alloy parts, and when you try and adjust them you will find you can’t.  Due to the way they are made, similar to the plastic version, there is a centre screw holding the two main pieces together and you are supposed to just tighten it all up – and this is where it goes all wrong…..

The problem is the alloy is weak by it’s nature, and the screw is of poor quality, so once you start to tighten to get the camber you want, they break with little force.  I then tried to saw the ends of the screws so they’d end up shorter and therefore offer more camber, I filed the ends to make sure they would go smoothly in.  Started off with no problems and then the main piece just threaded…….first piece of junk created.

I then tried tightening the screw, which itself is an issue since it’s only 3mm, and there aren’t many 3mm spanners around my house at the moment and again, things just went wrong with threading issue.

After that it was just frustrating, you can’t screw these far enough as standard, if you try and modify the parts are too weak to cope with it, and when you modify the results are awful.  I tried 4 different rear upper arms and only one work to a degree, but even that’s threaded inside because the arms are at an angle.

Once I fitted the one that worked, the driveshafts then became a problem because once you push the camber in, they are too long.

Basically, this grade of allow can’t cope with 2mm screws, it’s just not strong enough, and the middle screw isn’t one of high quality.  Even GPM’s pic below shows the Uppper Arm on the right is bent!  This is a disappointment from GPM as everything else I’ve had from them has been perfect……

My plan is to now get a TT-01D and test the parts on that……..

Damage parts are below so you can see what happened, with the one successful one I made.

eBay seller UKRC has the cheapest parts and delivery, I’ve used them in the past and the delivery is fairly quick too.

Click here for UK RC’s shop

The Upper Rear Adjustable Arms are here, part code from GPM is TT057D

and the Upper Front Adjustable Arms are here, part code from GPM is TT054D

I have seen a set of lower adjustable arms for front and rear, but I will trial these first and see if they’re actually required……