TRF421 Details from Tamiya Live

Today Tamiya used their Tamiya Live broadcast to introduce the brand new TRF421 Chassis Kit, and while these broadcasts are intended for the Japanese market, I could of course not resist watching it, and try to gather what new info I could from it.

So when you read this, please understand that I do not speak or understand Japanese, but gathered the info through translations. So excuse me if I have made some mistakes.

It was explained that the overriding thought or main idea behind the car was to make it easier to drive, this because of the higher grip and much faster speeds we now see in TC racing. The car is designed to be easy and take advantage of high cornering speeds.

The debut race will be the TITC at the end of the month, and testing is under way.

The car displayed on Tamiya live have a few small differences compared to the ones featured in Nuremberg.

– there is no flex-plate mounted
– it has normal Tamiya steel screws everywhere, also the three motor mount screws
– larger inner plastic battery stoppers to prevent battery from touching belt and spur

The car on display has the single-piece upper deck, but it was confirmed again that the kit will come with both options – one-piece and two-piece.

Here you see the new inner battery stoppers clearly.

The rear end of the TRF421 with the “twin” style body posts.

Roll bars are the same front and rear, and as I understood it 4 bars will be supplied with the kit – one 1.0mm, two 1.1mm bars and one 1.2mm bar.

Here you see the steel screws used for all motor mount screws, and not steel/titanium/aluminium like on the Nuremberg display model.

You also see the that flex plate is not mounted towards the rear.

The motor mound and spur assembly is very narrow on the 421.

You can also see the single-piece upper deck and how it has a bearing slot mount.

It was confirmed that the new dampers will be called USBB – Ultra Short Big Bore (previous version was SSBB – Super Short Big Bore).

An overall damper length of 41.2mm was mentioned (this would be the centre/centre measurment), anyway 5.5mm shorter than the SSBB.

Normal 20mm springs can be used.

The lower damper end is different front and rear to ensure that the piston position inside the cylinder is the same front and rear when mounted to the car.

Inserts for lower damper mount, with three positions available.

Here you alos see the roll bar link mount,

A good view of the aluminium damper towers.

It was explained that there are three caster settings available by moving the upper arm mount, which will give you either 3, 4 or 5 degrees of caster.

At the rear you can also choose between three settings, but these are -0.5, -1.5 and -2.5 degrees.

It was also confirmed that the newly released alu bearing holders come with the kit, as does the excellent blue seal TRF bearings already used on the TRF420X.

The steering bridge again has exchangeable inserts, which you can see if you look closely at the image above.

Front end overview.

It was explained that the upright bearings are closer together, hence the new wheel axles. I did not catch any info on bearing size.

Nice Tamiya logo on the weights between the front arms.

Rear body mount and overall view of rear end of the TRF421.

New plastic battery holders which are adjustable in many ways.

Center-lock spur gear holder, which will mean super easy spur gear changes. Quite a funny anecdote was mentioned on why this feature was added (due to an incident at a race).

And that’s it for now, this was the main new or confirmed info I got from the Tamiya Live broadcast.