Custom M05ra "droop" towers!

Long story short... I bought a set of "M03/4/5 shocks" from TOPCAD racing and after installing them on the M05ra I realized the front end of the car didn't have enough up travel. After some investigation, it seems these TOPCAD shocks are really touring shocks in disguise and at about 61mm long (total length) are slightly longer than Tamiya's mini-specific shocks which are about 56mm long.

5mm is a world of difference in this scale and on a mini...

When I swapped to a set of mini-specific shocks the up travel was improved, but due to the shorter shocks I lost ground clearance and droop.

I thought droop would be very useful on a rally car especially on bumpy conditions so I worked out a solution to get the best of both worlds - revised shock towers to utilize touring-car length shocks. These towers move the upper mount higher up to accomodate the longer shocks. I then can set ride height to be normal (similar to when I use the mini-specific shocks) but still get more droop!

Here's the result!

Car with towers installed.




Front towers - the towers feature 3 pairs of mounting holes at the point where they mount to the car so with 2 screws I can adjust 3 different ride heights.




Rear towers - each tower also gives me more mounting points for the upper shock location so I can adjust damping rates.




Now if the weather would only clear up so I can test these towers!