Tamiya DT02 Sand Viper
This is my DT02 Sand Viper which was built to race at the DT Challenge where we all ran pretty much the same cars with the same specifications. Feel free to use this as a guide for mods and tuning tips for your DT02 for any racing you may envisage on embarking. I will add more to this write up as I go along.
Wheels
Being specc’ed up for the DT Challenge, the car was setup to race at Surrey and Hants Radio Controlled Car Club aka SHRCCC which is a nice small track with astro turf sitting on a concrete base. The wheels I have here are the Kyosho Turbo Scorpion rims wrapped with Schumacher mini spikes tires on the rear and Schumacher cut stagger tyres on the front. This was pretty much the goto setup in terms of tyres back in the day although it has been superseded by more modern tyres such as Proline Pyramids and Schumacher Mini Darts. For me though, as I’m only a part time racer and I have quite a few mini spike tyres left, I’m quite happy to continue using these.
Shocks
You can go full hilt and get the Tamiya TRF shocks which are very nice but also cost big bucks. For me, I’ve gone for the trusty 3Racing shocks which dampen quite well when setup correctly and are also a lot cheaper too. Being of a similar colour to the Tamiya shocks, they give it some added bling factor. These oil shocks make a massive improvement over the stock friction shocks that come with some of the DT02 cars.
Carbon Mods
Being a car for the DT Challenge, we are limited to what we can do with the car so that all the racers can run the same spec. There aren’t many carbon fibre hop ups that we can use for the car but the front shock tower brace is a welcome addition. The carbon fibre strut between the two uprights of the front shock tower provides additional strength to the towers and helps prevent them from snapping in the event of a roll or collision.
YouTube Videos
( Link takes you to YouTube to view the video outside of this site )