Hi folks,

I started working on a little driftracer and would like to share it to you to get your thoughts.

Primary intention for building was putting "doubledosed power" (2x buggymotors, 2x Buwizz) in a configuration which is compact, has the weight positioned as low as possible & also being balanced for having a symetrical design.

It's my 1st 4WD MOC to take shape ever - so be easy with me.. 

Background

Some days ago @FriedlS posted a thread with another of his great drift chassis designs (Another 4WD Drift Chassis Project) and it got me very curious about the steering-arm approach he implemented in his chassis (with 87408 as the arms) as it allows with little change to create an arm capable of holding the old u joints (62520c01) OR their metal 3rd party replacements - as this was the missing piece in my head to start a RC MOC projecton on 4 wheels enforced with ballbeared 3rd party liftarms and also using carbon axles for the drivetrain.

Features

• 4WD
• 2x Buwizz3 mountable (or other 3rd party 8x4 battery boxes)
• 2x Buggy Motor
• Enforced drivetrain
  • Ballbeared special parts
    • TF Engineerings "Flange Bearings" (Linkie) by @Bensch55
    • Metal Technic Parts' "Aluminium Metal Beam Bearing Block liftarm" (Linkie)
  • Carbon Axles

Pro

• Very compact and powerful design
• Balanced and optimized for low position of weight

Contra

• No suspension
• No caster angle
• Nearly no ground clearance & high risk of damaging the Buwizz bottoms easily (if Zero reads: Is Fortronik selling bottom housings for BW3 separately in batches of >4?! )
• Rear buggy motor may just allow hatchback types or oder body types which would compensate it

Drivetrain

The drivetrain is pretty simple and my hopes are it can withstand plenty of forces to be applied to it.

Drivetrain + Motors + Servo alignment:

Removed easy-access bottom panel

(color-coding: blue 5l liftarms = MTP ballbeared; red 3l liftarm = TF ballbeared; lime u joints = metal replacements)

Current Status

• Studio .io file created
• Protorype built
• 3rd party Servo was faulty and killed itself (yeah yeah, I know I know - you get what you pay for ) and needs to be replaced + weather conditions need to get better (currently raining on a daily basis..) or me having enough energy to use some local parking deck at night to have dry conditions..

Renders

All renders can be found here in higher quality: https://bricksafe.com/pages/aFrInaTi0n/enforced-4wd-driftchassis

 

Plain finished bottom for maximum downforce (just kidding, won't really be a thing at that scale / low speed) & to safe the drivetrain from dust or stones to get into the way

All the ground clearance which can be expected from this with regular 44309 Wheels.. (1-2mm maximum)

 

As I was already working in Studio I was checking some body options - so here is what I came up with after little rough hammering for some front of some little hatchback racing beast:

 

Real Pictures

• to be added

Videos

In the last days I haven't had any possibility to get to a place with good clean and dry conditions - so for now just a little dryrun burst test for showing of the theoretical capabilities (broken servo still in, so couldn't show the steering):

 

So I am happy to get feedback and opinions. I will update the thread with more testing results & hopefully some good footage of it too!

Edited January 28, 20241 yr by aFrInaTi0n

Why is that middle U-joint needed? What I'm missing.

Looks very great! I can’t wait for the testdrive 😊

Very good looking design! Youtube is merciful to you. Your MOC was front paged to me.

7 hours ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

So I am happy to get feedback and opinions.

When you mount the buwizz motors one stud behind would it be possible to rotate the lower one of the two motors down? ...to get a lower center of gravity? Same for the stepped servo? You also could build a steering without gears. The current configuration never will drive straight on, i guess? ?_?

 

2 hours ago, Jurss said:

Why is that middle U-joint needed? What I'm missing.

Limited by the length of the carbion axles - as having a set of 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12 and 16 axles as possible ones to use Could also be replaced with regular 3. plastic piece to hold them together.. but metal > plastic :)

 

 

9 minutes ago, pow said:

Very good looking design! Youtube is merciful to you. Your MOC was front paged to me.

When you mount the buwizz motors one stud behind would it be possible to rotate the lower one of the two motors down? ...to get a lower center of gravity? Same for the stepped servo? You also could build a steering without gears. The current configuration never will drive straight on, i guess? ?_?

 

Haha, doing all things right in term of the yt algorithm I would say :D

Not sure if that would would out for the motors -> the (knob) gears are creating the huge need for an additional stud to be placed under - trying to put the drivetrain between two buggy motors wouldn't work in that arrangement..  Steeper servro would then be also on ground level with its casing,but worth a check - I had a similar issue with another MOC of mine, where the servo was technically blocking a panel, I think this could also be the case here.

 

1 hour ago, FriedlS said:

Looks very great! I can’t wait for the testdrive 😊

Same here, after I have seen your post I am still curius :D

39 minutes ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

but metal > plastic

So, in real model You are using metal U-joint?

Yepp

Looks fun! I'm curious about how well the knob wheels will hold up at high rpms. Usually I imagine them being rough-running parts reserved for slow, heavy-duty MOCs, so I'm curious to know how well it works.
Also, did that red servo have proportional control, or no?

Nope, just like other cheap china 3rd party ones full 90° turn possible with them.

 

And I am also curious if those knob gears will easily be shattered or if they withstand the high rpm scenario... At least they should not skip - until they maybe break... 🙄

Edited January 3, 20241 yr by aFrInaTi0n

As the weather conditions (and my schedule) didn't really allow to do some chassis testing, I had time to work on some WRC-ish body with no real brand / model in mind... some little gaps at the hood and front side need to be done to close some still existing "too huge" gaps - but with that arrangement the front wheels have enough space for turning without hitting the body + kind of looking ok-ish to my (forgiving) eyes..

What are your thoughts?

I moved the Buwizz 1 hole up, as it was a little too risky to have them uncovered..

Edit: in the last picture there can be seen a little gap showing one red 2L axle... due to angles and having a 2-stud wide construction, using the same angles, this can't really be fixed, but fine for me..

Edited January 28, 20241 yr by aFrInaTi0n

You could probably use buwizz 2.0 instead since its lighter, if you have it. Each one of those is capable of powering a buggy motor. Though if you only have buwizz 3, thats a good solution. I like it a lot :)

Did you do any top speed tests?

I like it very much, also the wheels look really cool on this one. I am also working slowly on a drift car, but I moved to smaller scale for now. My previous WIP model is put on hold and may be abandon, because I couldn't drift using regaulr 56mm Lego tires, but this could be due to high floor tracking and on upper floor I have better floor, so maybe I will get back to it. I am waiting for a video on this one, because I am curious how it performs, great job regarding look of the car once again and fitting all the elements inside. :)

Looks really good! And i am looking forward to your test ride video 😊😊

That thing screams for drifting in a parking lot :D love it

Thanks both... I am also curious about its performnance irl.

That's really a french/hot hatchback ...with all the body work and spoilers.

The bonnet needs some curvature (in my humble opinion). Do you have some 18944 panels laying around? They are also lighter than the many liftarms. Or if you want to keep the weight at the front wheels you could try to go for liftarms 32348?

Can't wait to see a video, too.

Something I just noticed, the buwizz units may come loose as you drive, since nothing is stopping them moving.

Looking forward to seeing it in action!

14 hours ago, pow said:

That's really a french/hot hatchback ...with all the body work and spoilers.

The bonnet needs some curvature (in my humble opinion). Do you have some 18944 panels laying around? They are also lighter than the many liftarms. Or if you want to keep the weight at the front wheels you could try to go for liftarms 32348?

Can't wait to see a video, too.

The chassis beneath with the steering rack is the limiting factor (but also benefits from some pressure of not easily being pushed upwards, as I removed 1 technic liftarm above to get more space to lower the hood).

I tried different hood designs,a lso with the long panels - but those are 1-2 studs too long to allow good mountings..

The body is more or less just a quick&dirty work of hammering s.th. together as I was curios about the dimensions of the wheelbase in difference to the shaped body..

 

So after some days for my eyes its more looking like an Audi R3ish body from its length than some short WRC design.. :D

7 hours ago, Aurorasaurus said:

Something I just noticed, the buwizz units may come loose as you drive, since nothing is stopping them moving.

Looking forward to seeing it in action!

Yepp, thats currently a risk as they are just held by the two inwards pointing pinholes - can possibly changed when the chassis would be widened by 1 stud width to each side (would transform the body to get from the Audi R3 optics to a shorter one which then could fit into WRC category again).

And yes, I really need to get some motivation to visit my parking deck of choice for testing.. 😪