Late last fall, Tamiya announced yet another version of their popular high end touring car would be released. The latest and greatest is the TRF416 World Champion Edition. If you’re like me, you probably asked yourself…whats different about this edition? Compared to the previous TRF416, there are some small refinements. These refinements add up to performance and better value. Being the Tamiya mark I am, I decided to purchase my annual Tamiya car renewal for the 2009 asphalt season. Here are some of my impressions of the built and performance.
Whats new? Well first of all these serrated lock-nuts. Instead of the usual nylon inside of the nut you have a edge. This clamps into the wheel. I have found that this is good, but do wear down on your wheels. Also, there tends to be nylon wheel shavings when you loosen your wheels. This comes from the clamping effect. Then again, how long can you really run tires on asphalt? Probably the tires will be done before you would wear out the wheels. After many times of loosening and tightening these they are still thumbs up. A small improvement on this front.
The 416WCE comes with a 1 piece upper deck as pictured below. The previous 416 had a 2 piece upper carbon deck. The 2 decks were not connect. This resulted in a more rear flex. Also, some racers blamed the duel upper deck for chassis tweak. This is up for debate. Some racers around the world have changed between this one piece and the two piece for different effects.
The 416WCE comes with a 2.25mm chassis that features a new battery position. The batteries have been shifted forward for better balance. Also, the chassis is equipped for lipo, 5 cell and 6 cell battery orientations.
New motor mount is included. This appears to have a slightly different shape to it. Tamiya claims that this provides better support for higher performance motors. I never noticed any difference between this and the older 416 motor mount
The 416WCE comes with new high lubrication dampers. Its really difficult to see in these photos. The insides of these new shocks are smoother….yes even smoother than the previous 416 damper units. That was really hard for me to believe until I built it. Also the 416WCE comes with the lightweight short reversible suspension. This is the same arms that were originally debuted on the Evolution V. The current team setup works very well with this. It seems that the shorter arms produce better grip characteristics. This especially helps corner speed in the middle of a turn. Also, the 416 comes standard with a front locking spool. A locked front end is alot easier to drive that a one way. This is great for asphalt racing.
New redesigned belts come with the 416WCE. After some wear and tear I didn’t really notice too much difference in these.
In building my 416WCE I decided to replace the stock aluminum turnbuckles with these new blue titanium turnbuckles. The aluminum ones tend to bend….especially the longer steering turnbuckles. These are a new hop hop from Tamiya. They are made for Tamiya by Lunsford. If you know anything about Lunsford titanium turnbuckles, they are some of the strongest in the r/c industry.
One of the coolest things about the 416WCE are the new teflon bearings. These are super free. When you assemble your car and put the wheels on, you will be able to spin the transmission very free. There is no need to spray the lube out of these for stock racing. They are the best bearing to ever come in a Tamiya kit.
I equipped by 416WCE with a Speedworld premount Sprex 36 tires, 5 cell Promatch 4600 batteries, 3.5 Turn Orion motor, LRP Sphere TC Spec Speed Control, Sanwa receiver, and Futaba low profie servo. You might be asking, why 5 cells or 6 cells or lipo? It seems that the extra voltage you get from 7.2 volts effects the bottom end of the power band. It tends to make your car have too much punch. You can try turning down the punch, but it doesn’t seem to be the same. 6 volts is more forgiving to drive on the low end of the power band. More wheel spin make a faster car more difficult to control. The power band of a faster motor and 5 cells seems to be a good combination. Also, 5-6 cell orientations don’t require the extra led you must add to the right side of a car when using a lipo pack. The weight of normal ni-mh cells spreads more evenly throughout the battery. This provides better balance in my opinion.
The car was equipped with my Lord Darth Vader red camo trademark paint job. I tried both a Protoform Mazda 6 and LTC bodies. The Mazda 6 was easier to drive.
For my track test, I ran the car at Nor Cal Hobbies in Union City, California and Speedworld in Roseville, California. The kit standard setup comes with 3.5 degrees of toe in and 400 weight Tamiya oil. From past experience, 400 weight was too light and led to too much chasiss roll. I started with my droop settings at 25.5mm in the front and rear. Oil was set at 500 weight. See my previous feature on “how to set your droop” to see what I am talking about.
My first impressions of the car were good. The cars handling feels super neutral in balance from corner to corner. However, it was still rolling too much in the turns and had a slight push. After a couple of runs I went to 2.5 degrees of toe in and 26mm of droop in the front and rear. This lessening of arm hang led to a flatter car in the corners. This resulted in better stability. It has always been my belief of mine that a more stable car leads to easier driving. In turn, easier driving leads to less breakage when pushing a car to its limits. The flatter car definitely accomplished this.I also raised the rear inner camber link up to 2.5mm and removed the front center upper deck screw (steering rack). The raising of the rear camber link helped the rear end camber links remain flatter in the turns. This helped the mid corner grip. The removing of the front center steering post upper deck screw makes the front on the chassis flex more. This isn’t a huge difference, but a good tuning point. The extra front chassis flex seems to help the front end dig harder on initial turn in….or at least that was the driving impression I got.
Weak points I found with the 416WCE are mainly associated with the front end. The front aluminum dogbones are great….until you hit something. The lighter dogbones help the front spool chatter less. This has been a problem in the past with heavier spools and steel dogbones. The lighter the rotating mass, the less chatter in the turns. This leads to smoother performance and better laptimes. The trade-off is durability. I recommend purchasing the optional steel bones for club racing. Save the aluminium for important events,etc.
The 416 and 416WCE spool is a problem as well. The plastic spool cups tend to heat up under heavy use. When they heat up they are susceptible to damage when you tap a board…even slightly. When damaged, the cups bind movement of the dogbone ends. This causes the suspension to act “bound up”The suspension tends to act inconsistent under this added stress.
The 416 and 416WCE front carbon plastic C hubs are another weak point. They don’t take a crash very well. They seems to have a weak point. If you try running the stronger aluminum aftermarket by square or Tamiya TA05IFS plastic C hubs you get other problems. The aluminum square C hubs take a crash well, but bend badly…thus leading to different caster. The TA05IFS plastic hubs flex too much. You can actually notice a difference. It seems that the standard carbon plastic C hubs flex just enough to give proper traction.
The weak point are a minor issue. If your track has bender board, road rails, or curbed you will not notice this too much. The car is the best Tamiya touring car ever produced. The 416WCE its a excellent high level touring car. Perhaps the best…..or at least thats what its awards say. At last years IFMAR World Championships, the TRF416WCE was piloted by Marc Reinhart to the World Championship.It was his 2nd championship with a Tamiya car. I highly recommend this car to intermediate and expert level racers.
