Custom steering for the Tamiya Hot Shot / Super Shot

If you don't know what Bump Steer is - or that the Shot series have a serious amount of it - check out this video!

Two clever guys from Australia have made these nice home made modifications to their Super Shot runners:

Mad Racer's modification:
The steering cranks are from a Top Force J parts tree, alloy stand offs are Top Force too. All in all just been shortend to fit into the Super Shot radio box. The drag link is riding along the bottom of the chassis and I had to dremel the sides out for the cranks to achieve max throw.

The steering servo sits where the MSC servo sat. RX on top and a LRP Quantum speedie in the corner. The main bell crank that attaches to the servo link has been bent down to clear the front gear box. The bumper undertray was spaced out by one shock piston and you can't even notice it. In fact no one believes me when Itell them it's got Top Force steering cranks till I show them through the inspection hatch.

It could be done a little better but it is my first go at it. I bought the RC Channel steering kit but didn't like the looks of it so I decided to try it myself. Oh it's all ball raced too.

Standard servo is as quick as my RC 10 steering. More lock, no bump steer. Has so much better steering and handles the rough a lot better due to no bump steer.

This is Bormac's solution:

He used the Avante rack which Ithink is better as it's really low profile.

He has dremeled away more on the sides, in order to place the rack further back and clear the front gearbox.

The fiberglass bottom plate just adds more strength back as you do cut a lot out of the chassis.



Nice job guys!!!

Tread on Tamiya Club for this modification

OK, now to my own mod! I opted for the wider mod (like Bormac), as I thought that would be most effective for curing bump-steer. Also that's more like all current cars' constructions.

The parts that Mad Racer and Bormac have used are hard to find these days, but there are other options. For instance alloy steering kits out on ebay to fit the TA01/02, which should fit. For instance this one:



Myself I wanted to mount a quite large ESC and receiver, so I had to mount the steering servo further back (like Bormac), so I went for a combination of these two products:


You could use only the OP-1235, but you then have to cut away very much from the radio box in order to get enough steering throw. At least if you mount them far out to the sides like I did. I therefore used the OP-1191, which are curved, so you actually don't have to cut anything at all from the sides of the radio box. I used the mounts from the OP-1235, which had to be cut down flush.


I used a piece of carbon for the "drag link" plate. I'll use hollow threaded ball links later, and use countersunk screws for them as well. But this also works for now.


I've dremeled away the front lip, the middle section, and the ears on the servo.

Here you can see that with the curved arms you don't really need to do those cuts in the sides.


I had to drop the receiver case, and shrink wrap it on order for the steering link to clear it! :-)

Tight fit! Reminds me of a Gary Larson comic drawing: A guy is at the dentist, which is saying to him as he's lying there with his mouth full of suction, cotton balls etc... "We're going to try and cram in this tennis ball as well, just out of curiosity" :-)

Here are the measurements in case you'd like to to something similar. Make sure you have at least 8,2mm between the screw and ball link, it may very well be a little bit more.

Good luck!

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Last updated 2. february 2011