42383 Tamiya TB Evo 8 Track test and Review
I still haven't finished the Tamiya TRF 421 review, I've been a bit distracted as my son wanted to get back into the hobby. so my priorities have focused around that.
My son has always dabbled with RC cars but as much as I tried to get him to run a touring car, he would always just run his old TT01. So it was music to my ears when he returned from Uni and mentioned that he wanted to try TC racing.. although he fancied running something a bit different.
Luckily for him (But not my bank balance), I have a range of Tamiya's that he could take to the track, and after a little deliberation he opted to go for the Tamiya TB Evo 8.
Released at the end of 2022 the TB Evo 8 was the latest version of the high end chassis series that hit the tracks in the dawn of the new millennium. Twenty two years have passed and this latest iteration is probably Tamiya's boldest version yet.
When you look at the chassis you can see that it doesn't quite resemble any other touring car in the market. Being a shaft drive is something you do not see often, although the recent Xpress AT1S also came out around the same time, albeit with a conventional rear motor layout.
The kit features split vertical top decks. You have two sets for the front and rear motor configurations. These decks are mounted into some beautiful (albeit a bit dirty on the photos) blue one piece bulkheads. They really are a sight to behold.
As you can also notice, the damper stays are also built into the upper bulkheads. Any doubts about those being prone to bend in a collision are extinguished once you notice the thickness of the parts. There are four settings for the SSBB dampers to attach to. Tamiya has evolved this concept to a more superior concept with the TRF 421 and its 'Horns', although you can see how they got there from this design.
The suspension arms are inherited from the Tamiya TA08. They have proved to be very sturdy on the TA08 and provide a decent amount of adjustability.
There is a floating RC electrics deck that is linked to the centre stiffener post. The stiffener post gives a lot of different screw settings, for carpet I find that it's best to mount screws in all of the holes.
A novel feature is the steering linkage that is attached to the front bulkhead... this is something quite different, the theory behind this design is that the flex in that part of the chassis is not affected.
The other key feature is the ability to mount the motor in two different positions. There is the classic rear position, and the less conventional front motor position. After my limited experience with the TB Evo 7 I decided to set-up the chassis in the more high grip orientated front motor layout.
The track that it will be racing on is a small technical track with mid / High grip carpet. Whilst convention has recently been about running an aluminium chassis, many of us racers have been moving back to carbon chassis and finding it faster. Especially on non permanent club carpet tracks.
With this in mind I wasn't overly concerned with the carbon chassis that you get in the kit, although I was intrigued about the amount of flex around the motor mount.
As you can see there is no bridge that combines the front and rear deck and this does provide the TB Evo 8 with a large amount of flex around the front of the chassis. Whilst I know that front flex is good from a handling point of view, I was a little concerned that the motor mount and spur gear were also experiencing some slight movement. The kit does come with Tamiya 0.6 mod gears, close to 48dp in size, so I toyed with installing those, however I just couldn't come to terms with running such chunky gears in a race car, so I installed an Axon 84t 64dp spur gear.. and hoped that would hold up.
At the Track
The first week was very much a shakedown. My son hadn't raced for a few years and we just wanted to ensure that everything was working and things were holding up. The thing that was very clear is that this chassis has a lot of steering.. LOADS! I would say too much at full throw, even for a small technical track. Looking at the steering, there is a lot of Ackermann at full lock, it is quite drastic and maybe in part to the steering linkage position. Reducing the steering throw calmed down the intensity of how it attacked the corner, whilst still providing bags of steering. Importantly this calmer corner approach really locked in the rear end. The car was very stable and very flat.. Impressive :)The other thing I changed was to reduce the chassis rake to only a 0.2mm difference front to rear as opposed to the 0.4mm that I would normally run at this track. It just softened it out a little more and made the car very consistent to drive for my son as he got back to grips with RC racing.
In preparation for the second weeks racing, I didn't really need change too much on the TB-Evo Chassis other than move the rear dampers out one hole to increase the steering when coming out of a corner.
One significant change was the bodyshell. My son wanted to run something different to the usual TC shell so he opted for the ZooRacing Bwoah. I was concerned that it would mess with the balance of the car, although I had heard good things about it being a very stable handling shell.
For the first qualifier the TB Evo was flat and planted from the get go. Onlookers were remarking on how stable and quick the car looked. Indeed it looked so planted I was concerned that it was going too slow. Although once the session was over I was impressed to see the time that my lad had posted and decided to just brush it down and prep the tyres and let him go again.
Round 2 is when things get more interesting, the grip starts to come up on the carpet and now you can really get a gauge on how the car is running. The throttle response was evident, with the start - stop nature of the tighter infield sections and the thrust that the shaft drive gave out of them. The TB Evo 8 made a distinctive whistle as it raced around. With my son getting more comfortable with the car he smashed his previous time by over 12 seconds and was sitting third overall after round 2.
In the third round the car was getting quicker and quicker. My sons best and average 10 lap times had improved, although a few collisions with the track markers meant he didn't beat his previous times. The great thing was that despite the collisions, one quite large, the drivetrain was perfectly fine. No gears had stripped and I quickly checked the tweak and the chassis was also perfectly straight.
The final round of qualifying saw the only significant change of the night. After some people were remarking that the Bwoah was not technically a TC shell, it might and it might be giving him an advantage. With that in mind my son wanted to run a std TC shell to compare (Note at our club the TC class is open bodyshells so it's not technically a problem). So we swapped out to a Bittydesign Eptron to see what impact that would have... The result.. well he shaved off another 9 seconds, improved on his best lap and 10 lap average. I wouldn't say this was all down to the bodyshell. It was a combination of better grip, more thumb training and possibly the shell, although it was not a proper back to back test.
By the end of the night, he qualified P2 in the A-Final.. a fantastic result and basically it felt like a win :) For the final we made no changes.
On the sound of tone the cars all launched off, but the pole sitter was quite slow of the line.. people tried to not hit the leader in the first corner, and whilst they were successful in not hitting them, the other cars all got involved in a mild scuffle as they bunched up. This gave the lead driver a good gap, the TB Evo was back in second place and started to pursue the no1 car over the remaining few minutes.
It was great to watch both the drivers, I could see my son slowly ebbing away at his lead but we are talking tenths. Both drivers were consistent so he was unable to mount a serious challenge, but crossed the line only 4 seconds behind in second place. It was a proud dad moment, and I could see by the expression on his face that my boy was buzzing after that race. Looking at the time sheet afterwards I could see that the pace was fantastic, with both his best lap and average 10 laps being a tenth faster than the winner.
Overall.
The TB Evo8 has really surprised me. I have had good experiences with earlier versions of this chassis myself but let's be truthful, they are seen much more as a curio for many nowadays, despite their history of pioneering many elements or concepts that emerge into the TRF line of cars.The car was incredibly responsive on the throttle, every little movement on the stick is instantly translated on the track. This is coupled with the steering that is direct, but linked to a rear end that is very stable, even on the more twisty parts of the circuit.
Even after some collisions with immovable track markers the drive train is looking healthy and spinning freely. The Flex around the motor mount has not given any issues, even with the fine 64dp gearing.
Importantly, it can compete with the other cars at the track, and I am encouraged to see how it fairs over the rest of this racing season.
What a great story! My condolences to your bank account...
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