Tamiya 42390 Aluminum Lower Deck Closer look

After what seems like a very long time, Tamiya has released the aluminum lower deck for the TRF421. So let's take a good look at this new tuning part for Tamiya's flagship race car.  ☆★

The first thing that is noticeable is that the quality of the part seems to be even better than the previous chassis. The black anodizing is more matte than before, and the lower edges of the chassis are beautifully chamfered and smooth, essential to stop any snagging on the rug.

The chassis is 2mm thick, and when you try to twist it, you can feel that it is a lot stiffer than the carbon one included in the kit.

It is quite easy to see why; the cut-outs are not as large as before, and the centre spine of the chassis is wide, ensuring that the chassis is fairly rigid.

On closer look, the shape is different in its silhouette compared to the carbon chassis. The front and rear differential cutouts are larger, and the front and rear sections past the droop points are slightly narrower. This leads to a more interesting change: the center section of the deck is not flat but slightly curved. It's not in any way like the Awesomatix A800R's boat shape, but it is curved. It is still the same width as the carbon chassis (84mm), but this is only at its widest point. The main deck itself is 81mm when it starts to flatten out. The carbon chassis has this slight curve, but it seems a little more pronounced on the aluminum one.

As you would expect the chassis weighs more than the carbon chassis. At 91.7g it is 23.7 heavier than the carbon deck. As mentioned before, this is because of the very thick centre section. The TRF420X aluminium chassis was much more flexible, and weighed in at around 80g.. so this is quite a bit heavier. Personally I think this is fine, I add quite a bit of weight to my TRF421 already, so having it much lower down will only help on the performance of the car on high grip corners. 

Next up time for a track test.. Hopefully I will report back soon..