As regular readers will know, I’m always keen to give almost any Tamiya a run on the race track. While most manufacturers tend to stay firmly in their lane, Tamiya constantly releases interesting and unusual RC kits. And every time they do, I find myself asking the same question… Can I race it?
Strangely, I rarely stop to consider whether I should race it—but then again, where’s the fun in that?
I already owned a TA05 VDF. I bought one when it was first released and had great fun drifting it at a couple of local clubs. More recently though, I was gifted a well used TA05 VDF by a long-time reader of the site, along with a simple challenge:
Has anyone raced one of these? and are you up for giving it a go?
The likelihood of that seems pretty slim, and after a bit of digging I couldn’t find much evidence of anyone really putting one through its paces on a race track.
So naturally, that’s where TheRcRacer comes in :)
Let’s take this Tamiya oddity and see what happens when it hits the track.
First up, let's have a bit of info about the Tamiya TA05 VDF.
The Tamiya TA05 VDF was released in 2010.. It inherited many components of the excellent TA05 belt drive system, but composited them into a purpose build drift chassis, as the drifting craze was starting to break out in Japan.
It had a 2mm carbon lower deck, but it was the 2mm Vertical Dual Frames that are it's signature design element, and provide the VDF in it's name.
The TA05 VDF uses parallel steering geometry, which was designed to support the slower-speed counter-steer behaviour that was central to RC drifting at the time. (It’s worth noting that modern RC drifting has moved on considerably, with most competitive cars now being 2WD and running gyros.)
You can clearly see this design in the steering knuckles, which feature distinctive blue aluminium extensions to create the required geometry.
The drivetrain is also fairly straightforward, consisting of a 36-tooth front ball differential, 18-tooth centre pulleys, and a 36-tooth rear spool.
One particularly interesting aspect of the chassis is the motor position. It’s mounted towards the front and centre of the car, which is almost the reverse of the classic TRF414-style layout, where the motor sat centrally but further towards the rear of the chassis. That unusual weight distribution could make things interesting on track.
it was time to begin converting this drift chassis into something more suited to club racing. I stripped the car down completely, as there were going to be quite a few changes needed before the TA05 VDF would be ready to take to the grid.
In kit form the spool is at the rear and the differential is at the front. The opposite of what we need for a race car, so I just swapped them over. I also gave the ball diff a quick service and added some new ball diff grease, and tightend it quite a bit.
Tamiya made an Ackerman steering set for the TA05 VDF (Part no 84150). Ackerman is essential for a car to handle well in the corners. This is when the inner wheel turns more than the outer wheel, providing a more precise and predictable corner experience. This was going to be essential to get the car around the track. This part is still common and easy to acquire.
To even be able to remove the steering arms you need to take the entire centre section off the chassis to be able to get to these nuts. I can tell you at this stage that hte
It's a shame to remove all of these blue parts.
Here you can see the Ackerman steering attached to the chassis. I also needed to add 42mm turnbuckles as the pivot points for this steering assembly are much closer in.
Here you can see the chassis now has the inner wheel turning more than the outer wheel, a proper Ackerman steering set-up. As a side note the kit comes with 46mm universal drive shafts, fine for drifting but I am going to see how they cope when running 17.5 blinky with a spool.
There was s a TA05 stabiliser kit available, however I couldn't find any in stock, so I decided to make my own roll bar set-up.
Front and rear roll bars were assembled and they worked perfectly. The rear ball diff was quite notchy, but it would be smooth enough for a few runs :)
In one of my many bags of parts I discovered some used carbon front and rear shock towers. They just provide a few more upper damper mount options.. And obviously they look pretty good :)
With all of these parts in place I attached the centre frame. This really strengthens the chassis, it is very stiff, much stiffer than the TA07 MS style dual frame.
With that all done it was time to try to fit the electrics in the car. It was a tight fit. However with all the electrics, Micc tyres and a lightweight race shell, the car weighed in at 1324g. This surprised me as I thought it would be heavier.
I was looking forward to giving the car a run at my local club. I’d given the chassis a fairly safe baseline set-up, as the main goal was simply to see how it would perform against the front-running touring cars in our Blinky class.
On the first run I was actually surprised at how easy the car was to drive. Unfortunately that early optimism didn’t last long, as only a few laps into the qualifying heat I ran into a problem. The steering rack had started to work loose and one of the screws dropped down and became trapped in the chassis, locking the steering so the car could no longer turn left.
Once that was fixed it was finally time to start putting some proper laps in.
One thing that became very obvious was how much the car pitched under acceleration. This is likely due to the motor being mounted towards the front of the chassis, which causes quite a noticeable weight transfer when getting on the throttle, alongside the short front belt tightening up quicker under throttle.
Despite that, the TA05 VDF was incredibly easy to drive. I was able to stay reasonably close to the pace of the quicker drivers—usually only a tenth or two off the fastest laps. The car was so consistent and forgiving that I was able to string together a solid average run.
Slow and steady paid off, and it was enough to secure a place in the A Final.
Mission achieved.
One thing that quickly became apparent was how hot the motor was getting. The issue with the TA05 VDF is that mounting a cooling fan is far from straightforward due to the chassis layout. I managed to position a 30mm fan at the end of the motor, which helped a little with temperatures, but it was still running far warmer than I would have liked. Eventually I was able to squeeze a 25mm fan into the centre frame, which at least provided a bit more airflow.
The night went really well, and by the final qualifying round the top four drivers were separated by just four seconds.
I was suitably impressed with how the car performed, and so were a few of my fellow racers.
The final started well. A couple of drivers ahead made early mistakes, which allowed me to pick up a few positions and move further up the order. Unfortunately, I then started pushing a little too hard. I clipped the boards and a suspension pin popped out, bringing my race to an early end.
Not quite the finish I was hoping for.
I decided the car needed another outing. I had really enjoyed taking the fight to the more conventional touring cars, and the TA05 VDF was proving to be great fun to race.
Before the next run I made a few changes. The rear suspension blocks were swapped out for aluminium versions, and I spent a little more time refining the roll centres. I also widened the front of the car slightly to help stability.
While checking everything over I spotted another issue with the centre pulley, it didn’t have a grub screw fitted, which meant it was able to move on the shaft. That certainly wouldn’t have been helping consistency.
The suspension blocks were now set to 1D / 1D at the front and 1X / 1D at the rear.
Another tweak was tightening the belts. Under hard acceleration I could actually hear them flapping around inside the chassis, so bringing them up to proper tension should help the drivetrain feel a little more precise.
I was really looking forward to another outing. I was starting to feel more confident that the TA05 VDF might actually be capable of posting a genuinely competitive time.
The handling tweaks had clearly paid off. The car felt great through the corners, although the rear end was still a little loose in the tighter sections. Thankfully it was very easy to catch, and the car would charge nicely out of the corners once it was pointed in the right direction.
Unfortunately, my preparation wasn’t quite as good as the car. I’d forgotten to bring my new race tyres, so I was running on a set that were well past their best. You can clearly see the “ring of death” in the photos, and they had even started to split in places. Not exactly ideal preparation… but that’s club racing for you.
The worn tyres were making the TA05 VDF feel inconsistent at times. I had been seeded into the top qualifying heat, so I was also conscious of staying out of the way of the faster cars when needed. On a small and tight track that inevitably costs a bit of lap time, but despite that I was still looking reasonably comfortable for an A Final position.
Then things started to unravel.
In the third qualifying round the front universal driveshaft gave up. I had been slightly worried about them from the start—partly due to their age (around 15 years old), and also because they were taking quite a lot of load when the car was at full steering lock in the corners.
After a quick scramble through my spares I managed to find enough parts to rebuild them. By that point though I had dropped out of the A Final positions, so the last round of qualifying had to count.
Thankfully the car itself was fine. The tyres were now the biggest issue, and it was becoming hard work to keep the car consistent, but I kept my head down, pumped in the laps, and just managed to scrape back into the A Final.
The final started well once again. I gained a couple of places early on, but by this stage the tyres were making the car extremely difficult to drive. I had the track position, but I simply couldn’t rely on the car holding the lines I needed to keep the others behind me.
In the end, I didn’t have to worry about that for long. The car dug in through the fast sweeper and grip rolled straight off the track. The battery came loose in the impact, which was pretty much the end of my race.
After being marshalled I carried on and finished the race, but I was already a couple of laps down.
The tyres went straight into the bin afterwards… and I was left wondering what might have been.
An underdog podium had definitely been within reach.
I’ve been genuinely surprised by the Tamiya TA05 VDF as a track car. It’s not as quick as the latest competition touring car chassis—although to be fair, it was never designed to be one. What it does do, however, is handle far better than you might expect.
The layout is certainly unconventional. At first glance the high layshaft position raises a few eyebrows, but the chassis balances this somewhat by not having the heavy motor hanging out over the side of the car. After spending some time studying the design, it’s clear there are also a few tweaks that could potentially unlock even more performance.
One change that would likely make a big difference is fitting a TA05 rear gear differential. I actually have one in my old TA05 race car, so that may well find its way into this chassis at some point.
Another upgrade would be double cardan driveshafts at the front. At full steering lock you can feel the car hopping slightly through the corners, and double cardans would help eliminate this while also improving the smoothness of the steering under load.
Lower shock towers would also be a useful modification. With the current towers, most modern touring car shells—such as the Wolverine Max—touch the front towers, making them difficult to mount properly. The only shell I could run comfortably was the Twister, and even that was very close. Lower towers would also help reduce some of the chassis roll.
Finally, there’s likely more potential in refining the weight balance. I haven’t put the chassis on the scales yet, but there is clearly scope to adjust the bias slightly. This could help reduce the pitching effect under acceleration, which currently contributes to a small amount of understeer on corner exit.
Overall though, I can honestly say that yes—you absolutely can race a Tamiya TA05 VDF. I’ve really enjoyed running it.
With a few more tweaks to the set-up, I’m curious to see just how far it can be pushed. Winning might be a tall order…
…but I’ll certainly have a great time trying.
