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58693 Tamiya TA08 PRO Build Review and set-up

As soon as the Tamiya TA08 PRO was announced it caused a stir amongst those of us who like to race Tamiya's on the track. Its predecessor the TA07PRO had been a welcome return to form as Tamiya addressed issues with the over complex TA06. Now five years after the launch of the TA07 we have the latest successor in the TA series. let's take a closer look.
The TA08 PRO is not a small update, just about every single part of this car is new. The small amount of DNA it does inherit is from the top of the line TRF420 series. It's a dual belt 4WD touring car with low profile shocks, new pivot ball suspension arms, a forward pulley layout and and adjustable toe control rear suspension.  

For this build I will be using a selection of hop-ups and calling them out when used, there are a few more things I intend to do to this chassis (Especially after testing), and you will find quite a few articles following up from this initial review.

The TA08PRO comes with hex head screws. Its great to see Tamiya supplying these for their competition kits. As this is a race kit, I will be swapping out the steel screws with Moodyfools Titanium screws. I always like to run a kit as light as possible so I more options where to add weight when I balance the car. These titanium screws save 21.4g of weight over the kit steel screws.

Before starting the build, I tap all of the necessary plastic parts. This is a laborious job, but it is worth it as this kit features both carbon and glass reinforced plastics. Once you have tapped these holes the screws will be easy to fit and remove and it will drastically reduce any chance of stripping the plastics. I use the Tamiya 54232 Thread forming Tap for this task with a small pin vice drill. 

The plastic tub is the heart of the new TA08 PRO. Tamiya has flexed their mastery of plastics and created a very impressive result. 

The chassis is carbon reinforced, this is usually a hop-up option for the TA chassis cars, yet it comes as standard her. The carbon plastics are their to help make this chassis as stiff as possible as there is no top deck. 

The chassis has a distinctive V shape. Tamiya says that this is to reduce chassis rub on the corners, however I think this is to mainly stiffen the deck as much as possible whilst reducing the width. The chassis is indeed narrow, 87mm wide is only 2mm wider than the TRF420 carbon chassis. 

The TA08 chassis checks in at 94.5g. This is 21.5g heavier than the carbon deck on the TRF420, and 10.5g heavier than the TRF420 aluminium deck. 

This is good when you consider that the TA08 chassis also has the lower bulkheads and the RF suspension mount moulded into it. The combined weight for the TRF420 bulkheads is 22g, and the spit XB mounts are 2.5g  So when you combine the figures you get the following weight comparisons. 
  • TA08Pro Lower deck (Inc lower bulkhead) = 94.5g
  • TRF420 Lower Carbon Deck + Lower bulkheads + XB mounts = 94.5 g
  • TRF420 Lower Aluminium Deck + Lower bulkheads + XB mounts  = 108.5 g
Impressive numbers for a plastic tub! The flex test is next. There is no science here other than I twisted the TA08 deck and the TRF420 carbon deck and found them very similar. This is fine on paper but there is no top-deck for this chassis so it will be interesting to see how the fully assembled chassis will feel. 

The RF suspension mount is moulded into the TA08 chassis. This allows you to use the included bushings to easily change your rear toe-in and even the roll centre. Tamiya provides std non adjustable plastic for the other suspension blocks. 

The default kit settings are A, A at the front. This is standard on a lot of Tamiya kits, and is very narrow and really set for scale shells and slower motors. The kit setting is XA, D at the rear, this is a common setting and gives you 2.5 degrees of rear toe-in. I wanted to ensure I had a wider range of set-up so I replaced the kit parts with the following option parts. 

Front blocks: 
  • Tamiya 54882 Aluminium adjustable mount (E)
  • Tamiya 54885 Aluminium adjustable split mount (E)

Rear Blocks:
  • Tamiya 54883 Aluminium adjustable mounts (XB)
The eagle-eyed amongst you will realise that normally you would fit an E block as the rear mount. Well the TA08 is unique here, as the rear suspension mount is inverted as it is attached on the underside of the chassis. This equates to the more narrow the block, the wider the rear can go. Hence why I had to fit the 54883 XB adjustable mount. 


As you can see in the chart above this will give you a rear toe-in range of 1-5 degrees and you can change the width of the rear easily in the 2-3 degree range. 

There is a lot more info on suspension blocks and how to tune your car with them in the ultimate guide in this link (CLICK HERE). 

The motor mount is a nice chunk of 3mm thick blue Aluminium and is only 16.5g in weight. The main thing you will notice is that the layout has the motor behind the centre pulley as opposed to the more traditional position 

The centre shaft mounts into the recessed area on the motor mount.

The 20t centre pulleys spin on the two 950 flanged bearings. The TA08 comes with a plastic version of the Aluminium pulleys that feature on the TRF420. The quality of this plastic part is actually very good and the fit and finish is excellent. I however had a spare set of the Tamiya 42321 Centre Pulleys for my TRF420 so I thought I would add those as they look good for the photos. These pulleys add a bit of extra weight on the drive train (4.2g), and for stock racing I honestly think I may go back to the plastic parts as they seemed just as free, whilst saving a good amount of weight. 

I used some of the included shims to ensure that there was no movement on the centre shaft, whilst ensuring the pulley would spin freely.  

The final part to add is the rear belt tensioner, it is not adjustable. The final motor mount assembly with spur is only 32.1g

The kit comes with two spur gears. A 71t O.6 mod spur gear and a 110t 0.4 mod alternative. The kit only provides a 20t 0.6 Mod pinion, so if you want to run with the kit contents you only have one real option. I will be running this car in stock 17.5 blinky, so I mounted an Axon 102t spur gear to ensure I had a suitable gearing range. 

The TA08 centre pulley position is mounted roughly 57/43 so you still have a longer front belt (132t), and a shorter rear belt (101t). 

The motor mount is attached with just two 8mm screws and spring washers. I did have a few misgivings about this. Once attached it all feels very sturdy and secure, it also adds some extra stiffness to the centre of the chassis. 

The front and rear of the TA08 drivetrain consists of two 37teeth oil filled gear differentials. These are the latest design from the TRF420, but are equipped with new larger shims and the excellent blue Tamiya VG gear differential o-rings. These are new and available as a separate part (Tamiya 42374). These provide such a excellent protection from oil leaking from the outdrives and I use them for all my TRF differentials.

The TA08 comes with steel differential outdrives. I swapped those out for Tamiya 51565 TRF419/TRF420 Aluminium diff joints. These save 7.4g of weight per differential. (Note if running these you will need a set of Tamiya 54921 swing shaft caps per differential)

When filling the differential one of the most common issues is that they are overfilled. This will lead to them leaking as the oil has to go somewhere. When you fill these differentials you want to place them on a weight scale and add 1.4 - 1.5g of oil. If you exceed this amount you will experience seepage from the diff.

Once filled, wait for the oil to rest and move around before screwing on the top half of the differential in a continual cross pattern, moving the screws until they only just bite and then taking single turns, again in a cross pattern until the differential halves are very firmly connected. 

The differential are mounted in the chassis via the adjustable bearing holders. These allow you to change the height of the differential, along with the tension of the belt. I mark them with a paint pen so I can easily see the adjustments I make. As a basic rule you want the front belt a little tighter than the rear belt, and let the belts move at least 2mm when you press down on them before feeling any tension. 

The drivetrain is from the TRF420 and is very precise and smooth

The TA08Pro comes with 3k oil for the rear differential, and 100k for the front differential. This is a decent starting set-up for asphalt tracks, although I would run thicker oil (5k Rear, 1Million front), on higher grip asphalt. 

One of the dramatic things you will notice about the TA08 PRO is the pivot ball suspension. This type of suspension has been around for some time, and anyone who has used a TT01/02 would have seen it on the front suspension of their cars. Recently though in the world of touring this style of suspension has started to become more popular, and it can be seen on several top level chassis including the Mugen MTC2 touring car. 

The plastic used in these arms has a distinctive matt finish. I can only assume that this is part of a process that stiffens the plastic, as they are very stiff indeed, despite not being as thick as the TRF420 lower arms. The front arms weighs 7.04g each, 0.6g lighter than the TRF420 style arm

The first thing I did was to use the Tamiya 42303 High precision 3mm reamer on the inner shaft holes to ensure that the suspension arms would move as freely as possible. 

The 7mm suspension balls are inserted into the arms. I use my faithful Tamiya Non-scratch pliers for this purpose. If you do not have these, just wrap some sellotape around both sides of a std set of pliers. Now you will be able to do this without scratching your balls...

NOTE! When squeezing the balls into the arms. You need to insert the balls into the side that is less shiny. Look a the photo above, the arm with the ball in does not have the larger shiny ring, insert the balls on that side of the arms. When the ball eventually clips in, the movement is really smooth with no perceivable slop. 

The front arms are interesting as they have a distinctive curve. I am interested to know what that is achieving if anyone can tell me, although it does look smart :) The length of the front arms are the same as the latest TRF420 style arms at 44.5mm between the shaft and the kingpin.  

The 43mm suspension pins are put in place and the lower front arms are mounted onto the chassis. This is the kit setting. You can change the spacers to adjust the front caster. I was amazed that there were no extra shims required to take out any slop, the fit here is really good.  

The rear arms are not curved like the front, and are much sleeker although still very stiff. They are a two part design as you need to add the suspension mount to the upper section of the arm with two 3x10mmm screws. They weigh in at 7.89g (With titanium screws). This 1.68g lighter than the TRF420 arms.

The lower rear arms are attached to the chassis and swinging on 43mm suspension pins. 

The front and rear upper arms are a three part design. Consisting of the outer ball connector, an 18mm turnbuckle shaft and the inner arms. 

The only difference between the front and rear upper arms is the outer ball connector. The D4 part us used on the front and the D5 part is used at the rear. 

When  building the arms I found it best to thread the inner arms with the turnbuckle shaft. 

Once you have done this, remove the shaft and add a small drop of grease onto it and attach the turnbuckle shaft into the outer ball connectors until there is around 10mm left remaining. 

Add a drop of grease to the shaft and then simply rotate the outer parts into the inner arm. Use the markings to ensure that the arm is aligned.  

The upper arms connect to the bulkhead. These are the same front and rear and are made from the same stiff plastic as the arms. The bulkhead is a three piece design with the outer sections held on with two 5mm screws. They hold the two 5mm ball connectors that you use to attach the upper arms. You can add or remove the shims here to change the roll-centre. 

With the upper arms attached, again you can instantly see the smooth free movement of the precision plastics.

Starting to take shape
The TA08 font and rear uprights are those found on the TRF420. Again this part is made from top of the range carbon plastic. I have found these very hard wearing on my TRF, and they are a great addition to this kit. 

I assembled them along with the included 44mm universal drive shafts. These are a well proven design and the most reliable driveshafts out there in my opinion. I used a little AW grease on the cross joint and the pin when building these to ensure that they suffer very little wear. 

The uprights are attached to the front and rear arms with 14mm screws that rest on a plastic washer (Check the direction of the plastic washer). The screws thread through the flange style kingpins with a roll centre shim (2mm), between the upper kingpin and the upright. 

The result is a very smooth, slop free range of movement. I was really surprised on the result, although I am a little concerned about losing one of the plastic washers in an accident. (The kit includes two spares).  

The uprights at the rear are attached to turnbuckles that are mounted to the chassis. This provides the chassis with the potential to have Active Rear Toe (Or ARS), with the addition of just swapping the kit included 5mm ball nut with a Tamiya hex ball connector (Tamiya part 53968). This connector is 1mm shorter, so when the suspension is compressed the rear toe-in will increase slightly to provide more rear toe in, making the rear of the car more stable in the corner.  

I used the hex connectors to have more flexibility

The kit only comes with the ball nut, I swapped mine out with the ball connector so I could run the additive rear toe in. It would have been nice if Tamiya included two of these connectors and two 1mm spacers in the kit so you can play with this setting at some point. Although a packet of 53968 ball connectors are cheap. 

The steering assembly is the same as the TRF420 / TA07MSX. Only this time the parts are made in plastic.  The arms sit on the latest TRF style steering posts, not a lot to rave about here other than they have a hex fitting so they are easy to fit and remove unlike the earlier posts. 

The steering rack comes together really easily, and it has very little slop and moves freely. The steering bridge has the steering arm ball connectors set at 8.5mm apart. This gives you slightly shorter arms which makes the steering slightly more aggressive. You can swap this part out with the Tamiya 54549 Aluminium Adjustable Ackermann steering bridge. This will give you the option to swap out to 8mm to make the steering feel a little softer.

I had a selection of spares around so I decided to build the steering up with the hop up 54704 Aluminium steering arm set, and the 54705 TA07 steering Bridge. This steering bridge doesn't have the adjustable Ackermann, but the setting is 8mm so slightly less pointy than the kit 8.5mm bridge. ***Note if I was going to buy a steering bridge I would purchase the Tamiya 54549 Aluminium Adjustable Ackermann steering bridge. 

The feel of both racks is silky smooth, and I feel the hard plastic will be fine for racing, many top end touring cars still only come with plastic steering parts. The aluminium parts will just offer a little more stiffness and strength... and blue shiny goodness :)

The difference is weight is:
  • Kit steering bridge = 1.9g
  • Kit steering arms = 3.3g
  • 54705 steering bridge and the 54549 version = 2.7g
  • 54704 steering arms = 5.0g
So you add 2.5g of weight with the aluminium parts. 

The TA08 features the low profile SSBB dampers. These are 6.5m shorter than the usual TRF style shocks that would feature on the earlier Tamiya 'Pro' spec chassis. These are the new revised design that uses 5.8mm suspension balls and importantly has blue shock caps :).

The TRF aluminium shocks included are superb. For the purpose of detail I cover the few subtle (And not problematic) differences between the parts included in the TA08 box, compared to those in the TRF420 / Tamiya 42353 TRF SSBB Super short damper plus set. The suspension shaft is 1mm shorter than the usual kit part. Along with the shock body it is not fluorine coated, just steel and hardened aluminium. The spring adjuster is black plastic, not blue alloy and it only comes with the plastic lower spring retainers. (Although I prefer these on my TRF over the alloy ones anyway).

One thing that is an important, and welcome upgrade is inclusion of the 42359 VG 0-Rings for Oil dampers. These replace the old o-rings and offer great protection from leaks, whilst providing very little friction. 

When building the shocks, I place a 0.1mm shim in the cylinder before inserting the o-ring, this just adds a small extra amount of compression to the o-ring. 

The pistons included have 4 holes and they fit perfectly,  a small dab of oil on the damper rods and they are slid into the damper cylinder. At this stage I check the length of the Damper rod and ensure that it is 9mm. 

The obligatory shocks with oil photo.. The kit comes with #400 Tamiya shock oil. 

I drill a 1mm hole in the shock cap, this is especially helpful when building a shock with zero rebound.

Here are the assembled shocks. The Tamiya Green springs are included for all four shocks. Tamiya does not provide any ratings for these springs, so a lot of racers swap them out for other springs that have the rating on. I will do an article soon looking at these. If you want to keep running Tamiya springs, then I suggest purchasing 42306. This comes with three pairs of springs. Green (Softest), Red (Medium) and Black (Hard). 

The kit shock towers are quite stiff and made from the same new plastic. The front damper stay offers two mount positions, the rear has three.

The Carbon front damper stay offers 4 upper shock postitions
I swapped them out for the 22005 TA08 Carbon Damper stays. They made from 3mm carbon fibre and weigh 1g less than the plastic versions.

The Rear carbon stay offers 5 upper shock postitions
These carbon towers are stiffer, and this is something that will make a difference with consistency and steering response with faster motors.  

The TA08 features a floating servo mount. The kit plastic part is strong and will be fine for some of the lower stock classes. I will be running the TA08 initially with a 13.5 or 17.5 so I swapped it out with the 22004 Tamiya TA08 Aluminium servo mount. 

At 9.36g it weighs 3.58g more than the kit plastic part. As you can see they both look very unique with the twist on the inner section that ensures the servo follows the V-Shaped profile of the chassis. 

It is securely attached from the underside with three 6mm screws, and it looks pretty good once attached :) 

The battery holders are another nice touch. They provide you with the option to not use tape, although you can take off the posts and use tape if you desire. 

They are also reversible to ensure that you fit a wide range of batteries. The 2S hard case lipos I run all fit the chassis perfectly. You can add a small amount of foam if needed to stop the battery having any excessive movement. 

The TA08 has the same bodypost system as the TRF420 / TA07MSX. This provides you with the ability to move the body posts 2mm forward or backwards to change the handling characteristics. 

Whilst the TRF420 parts are included in the kit. Tamiya has also provided another lower bumper plate. This one is much more sculpted and looks a bit like a front wing. I decided to fit this part, even though it weighs 7g more than the TRF420 part.

The bumper foam is also different to the TRF420 version. It features cut-outs so you can remove sections to make it softer, or more accommodating to fit some of the scale shells necessary for the Tamiya Stock racing series. 

The rear body posts are also unique to the TA08. They are very long and are mounted on the chassis, not the shock tower. The posts can still move 2mm forward/backwards as required. The position of these posts is to accommodate Tamiya's bodyshells, so you can just use the markings on the bodyshells to ensure they fit perfectly.  This is one of my minor gripes, as I would have preferred the TRF mounting position at the rear (Holes 100mm apart, and further back). It is not a killer and I just made a couple of extra holes in my Race shell. However I have a plan on how to fix this in the future so I can swap bodies between my TRF's and TA08 without any modifications. 

Finally its time to install 22003 TA08 Stabilizer Set (Front and rear). Out of all of the parts available for the TA08, these are the most important from my perspective. Sway bars will allow you to get that extra bit of corner speed, every track car is quicker with these equipped.

The Tamiya set comes with a pair of both front and read sway bars and all of the mounting hardware. You can choose two thicknesses,  red (1.1mm) and Green (1.0mm).  

They are ballraced, so super smooth. They fit neatly under the upper bulkhead. One thing that I was really happy with is that the lower ball connectors moulded on the TA08 suspension arms are a perfect fit for the connectors. Not sanding is needed, unlike the TRF420 arms.

They add an additional 7.5g of weight to the chassis. 

With the chassis finished there are some parts that I did not install. The spur cover, motor protector and the cable tidy box. All of these are not needed and you save 12.5g of weight without installing these on the chassis.

The final result just looks fantastic. It looks like Tamiya has really put a lot of effort into this new chassis. It shares next to nothing with the TA07, and the only parts that do carry across is from the latest TRF car. 

Holding the chassis in my hands I gave it a twist and as I suspected there is a lot of flex. Whilst many top end touring cars are very flexy nowadays, the TA08 PRO takes it to another level. Is this a bold move from Tamiya to really explore the limits of flex in a stock class tourer? I look forward to finding out at the track. 

With my build finished I could tell that this chassis was much lighter than the TA07.  
I was amazed when the scales told be that it was only 482.4g in weight. That's great for a tub chassis car. Its not only over 200g lighter than the TA07Pro, it is around 10g lighter than a stock TRF420, and only 15g heavier than one with titanium and alloy screws.


Yeah but you added loads of hop-ups? Indeed I did add a lot of hop-ups so let's calculate how much the car would weigh if I tallied up the impact of the hop-ups.

Yes, geeky I know but as you can see even with the parts I have mounted on the car it would only be 13g heavier.. This is a skinny chassis. 

With race ready electrics (lipo is 290g). You can see that there is still a lot of extra weight needed to be added, even when you add a body and tyres (Approx 205g).

The final chassis looks great. When you look at it, it just doesn't match your expectations on what a plastic tub race car should look like. 

Even from the underside you can see the thought and design that has gone into this chassis. It even looks quick like this.


Everything on this chassis fits with precision

From above you can see how narrow this chassis is.

The car is exceptionally low, look at the angle of those shocks


The front / rear weight balance is 49/51

A great build, and the final result is very striking. So now let's see how this chassis actually drives.

TRACK TEST

A few friends managed to hire the excellent Force Raceway for a practice day. For me it was only my second day racing on carpet for well over a year. I was keen to see what the TA08PRO could achieve against the top level cars at the track and my own TRF420.

Force Raceway is a permanent indoor carpet track. The layout is technical, and the carpet is very high grip. 

The first thing that I really noticed was that the feel of the TA08 when attacking the corner towards the apex was quite different. The front end of the car was really aggressive, now matter how fast I would attack the sticks I would find that the TA08 would instantly respond. I couldn't lose any grip at the front of the car. 

The rear end however was not as dialled as the front, initially it was looser than a wizards sleeve but after a quick tweak to the rear camber it was much better behaved. The interesting thing was that even with the more planted rear the TA08 still had a huge amount of steering.

At this point I swapped the motor to a 17.5. I feel that the stock chassis just has too much flex on high grip to handle motors with the amount of power that that a 13.5 delivers. The main issue is not the left and right flex, but the longitudinal flex. You can actually see the front  and rear of the chassis rise a little if you push hard down on the belts. What happens on the bench, doesn't always happen on the track and the amount of force a motor would need to have to perform this is probably way more than a 13.5 but I was keen to try the car with my preferred 17.5 power. 

The swap to the 17.5 motor made a huge impact. The rear of the car was instantly much better and this improved the lap consistency notably, thanks to the smoother feel of the motor and the familiarity of racing 17.5 

The car still had a lot of bite and I was aware that the grip here was much higher than most tracks, so I took a break from the TA08 to test the TRF420. (I also had some things to test for the TRF420 for review soon anyway).

Using the TRF420 paid dividends as I could then easily interpret the amount of extra grip this surface was providing as I could easily see the effect it had on my usual ride.  

With what I had learned I started to play around with the roll centres on the TA08 making both the front and rear higher than the kit settings. 

This helped calm the chassis down a lot. It was much more driveable around the track and I could really get more of a feel for how the car was handling. 

 Also I found that running a harder spring was much better. The kit comes with the super soft Green springs (Roughly 1.9). I swapped to the Tamiya Red (Approx. 2.2) springs and the car became even more consistent.  I also tried Tamiya Black (2.6 approx) at the rear and it actually felt ok, but the lap times were not really any better than with the reds.

I will try my SMJ springs next time.. I forgot to bring them (eek!).

I was really enjoying driving the TA08PRO now. The refined lightweight TRF drivetrain is very responsive and you can really exploit this level of throttle control as you accelerate around the track. Any change of input on the stick (Trigger), feels instant and you can make the TA08 dance around the apex with minute corrections. 

The steering felt very direct, the front of the car just feels more 'locked in 'as it goes into the corner than my TRF420. Once I became familiar with this trait, I started to change the way I would approach the corner and I was braking later as the car could enter the corner more sharply whilst still holding onto a fair amount of speed.  

You change the camber with the included Allen key. Its a nice touch.

I'm interested to know if this change is down to the motor placement, or the suspension arms. I suspect it might be a combination of both. 

As you would expect through the day I had more than my fair share of collisions with the barriers. I can happily report that there were zero breakages all day. Some of the hits were very substantial. 

At the end of the practice session I was really starting to get up to speed with the Tamiya TA08PRO. 

The chassis just feels so much more nimble than it's predecessor. The TA07Pro was a great chassis, but this new car feels much more alive and racy. Once you pop the shell on top, you really wouldn't think that you were running a plastic tub car.  It was fun to see how surprised the other drivers were to see that the car racing around with them was a plastic car.  

As I packed up I was feeling very positive about this chassis. Here was the current set-up

High Grip Carpet Set-up


The weather here has been terrible, so I have not been able to race the TA08Pro on asphalt, however fellow Tamiya racer Chris Van Der Hagen was able to Take his TA08Pro for a track test. 

Chris ran the same basic chassis as myself, again with the Hyper bodyshell. With only a few hours testing, he beat his own personal best time set by his TRF by over 0.1sec. The times set were ahead of the other pro-level chassis testing at the track.  With many being very surprised to see a plastic tub car on his pit table after seeing the times he has posted.

Medium grip Tarmac set-up

Chris feels that there is a lot more to uncover with this chassis, exploring both spring rates, rear camber and droop to ensure that the car feels even more consistent and easier to drive. 
 

Summary

Tamiya kickstarted the popular 1/10 electric onroad scene (And my own fascination with the class), with the TA01. So it is only natural for me to be excited when they announce a new chassis in this classic line up. 

I'm glad to say that they have really delivered with this latest version. The TA08 PRO oozes the feel of a stock class race car in every component that is used in this kit. 

Unlike the TA07 it does not try to be a jack of all trades and provide you with a myriad of options. This time Tamiya has basically just given you a honed race chassis that you can take to your local track. 

This focus has created a lightweight competitive looking chassis that still features many unique Tamiya traits and also exploits their strengths in plastics and engineering resource. 

The fit and feel of this kit is really good. The whole car is very slop free and even after several hours of track time the car is exceptionally taut and everything moves smoothly. The durability of the components is also very good with no breakages despite some large(ish) collisions. 

Its not perfect though. There is a lot of flex in the final chassis, and this does mean that this car may not be suitable for high power motor classes in stock form. (Although that's what a TRF is for). I would say at the moment 13.5 / 17.5 blinky is probably the fastest class that would be suitable for it. Although I can see a couple of quite simple solutions to fix this issue. 


The good thing is that this car, when running in the right class, with the right set-up looks like it will be able to compete with anything else out there. Here the flex really does help the car come into it's own with the huge amount of grip it can generate, and I am excited to see how it copes when raced outdoors.  I intend to follow on with more reports on how this chassis performs as I continue to drive it over the summer. 

So in summary, I feel Tamiya's TA08Pro is an exciting new chassis that has a lot of potential in stock classes. It has impressed me so much that I will be running this as my 17.5 blinky runner for the immediate future, and look forward to unlocking the speed and potential that I feel that this chassis holds. 

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Additional Resources



The list of hop-ups used. 

Recommended to cheaply get more tuning options
  • Tamiya 53539 5.5mm Aluminium spacer set
  • Tamiya 53968 Hard Hex ball connectors 

Good to progress
  • Moodyfools TA08 Pro Titanium Screw set
  • 22003 TA08 Stabilizer Set (Front and rear)
  • Tamiya 22005 TA08 Carbon Damper stays
  • Tamiya 54882 Aluminium adjustable mount (E)
  • Tamiya 54885 Aluminium adjustable split mount (E)
  • Tamiya 54883 Aluminium adjustable mounts (XB)
  • Tamiya 53570 Clamp Type Aluminium Wheel Hub (5mm)

Next step
  • Tamiya 42321 Centre Pulleys
  • Tamiya 51565 TRF419/TRF420 Aluminium diff joints
  • Tamiya 54949 Aluminium Adjustable Ackermann steering bridge. 
  • Tamiya 54704 Aluminium steering arm set, 
  • 22004 Tamiya TA08 Aluminium servo mount

Drive Train options
  • Tamiya 51642 Front Direct Pulley
  • Tamiya 51647 TRF420 Front Direct cups.
  • 42216 Double cardan Joint shaft 44mm (For smoother cornering with the spool)
  • 42362 44mm drive shafts for LF Double cardan joints (These are an option for the cardan shafts, they have longer pins so protect the swing shaft caps from breaking as much)

tamiya 3611345912702455231

Post a Comment

  1. Thanks a lot for this great build review & track test! I have really been waiting for and looking forward to this.

    I already had the TA08 in my shopping cart, when I realized the price of the track-ready version almost equals this of a TRF 420. And this is where I see the biggest, but very critical issue: The TA08 is clearly very close to a pro race car and thus naturally competes with those. Now when I add the hop-ups I absolutely want (alu steering, carbon shock posts, alu servo holder) I am so close to the TRF 420 street price (500€ in Germany) that I see no reason whatsoever to opt for the TA08. So I see the future use of this primarily for the Tamiya Euro cup (just like the TA07)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much for your wonderful writeups. I'm always excited by new TA releases - it seems this may be suitable for some of the low profile bodies that required laydown shocks in the previous generations. I wish they had stuck with the single belt but it does help with the lower profile I bet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do you know what spring Mfg was used on the asphalt set up ?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Recently just built one of these and it’s pretty loud when giving it a push, is yours the same?

    ReplyDelete
  5. If you use the E suspension mounts and the wider track width in the front like described here and in the setup sheet, you may want to consider a longer driveshaft. The 44mm driveshaft pins will be close to coming out of the cup when the suspension is fully compressed. If you are a bit of a sketchy driver still (like myself) hitting a curb or button can pop the drive shafts out or break a axle cap.

    ReplyDelete

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