Will we ever see another Aluminum bodied RC10?

[RC104ever]

I was poking around looking at some competitors cars and saw the new Losi 22 and Team Durango DEX410. Both use aluminum chassis plates and have some interesting and unique engineering.

Its this kind of thing that made the RC10 so good back in the day and its also what set Team Associated apart from everyone else I think.

I read the Losi 22 thread here but that DEX410 really has me thinking. Originally, I had really decided that my next new car would have to be all wheel drive and the B44 had my full attention. But now, I'm not so sure - the DEX410 is a really compelling package, even more so that it has an aluminum body.

What do you guys think? Could the Losi 22 or DEX410 one day be as collectible as the RC10? Which would you buy? Both are interesting to me.

[oldmanian]

What do you guys think? Could the Losi 22 or DEX410 one day be as collectible as the RC10? Which would you buy? Both are interesting to me.

My first thought is no.
RC10's used compatible parts for so long that it bread s wealth of aftermarket parts opportunities and there are so many around now as donor cars that it makes refurbn projects less daunitng.

Having said that, anything is possible and if the two that you mentioned have enought longevity, then they could be a nice little retro in 15 or 20 years.....

[RC104ever]

Here's another thought - would either of these cars force AE to produce a newer more competitive product? In the Losi 22 thread there was speculation that it might cause a B5 to be produced.

[fredswain]

I absolutely expect AE to follow suit by producing a car that will be both mid and rear engine compatible. They need to.

In terms of going back to the aluminum chassis, the original RC10 chassis may be able to take a beating but it really isn't all that stiff. The composites are far stiffer. Now saying that the 22 has an aluminum chassis for 2 reasons. One is that it can take abuse and not snap in half. They wanted a tougher car. Another reason is contrary to car design before lipos and brushless technology became common place and that is they wanted to add some weight. If you are going to add weight, add it as low as possible.

Lighter is faster but at some point you can actually get too light. If you have no weight at all, it is hard to get traction through your tires and hard to get a suspension to work well. At the same time too heavy is definitely a bad thing as well. Lighter is better...to a point. In the old days we needed to get the car as light as possible so we could get our cars as fast as possible and also ensure that we could get our measely nicad batteries to last the entire duration of the race. Today power and run time are no longer an issue. We've got far more power than we know what to do with so we can afford to add some weight back in.

Added weight however means everything needs to be stronger since wrecks on heavier vehicles will be harder on everything and indeed Losi has addressed this by making the components on the 22 around 15% stronger than previous components on their other cars. The added weight also needs tougher shocks and the 22 has big bore shocks on it. They are quite smooth!

We might see an aluminum chassis again but don't think it's because it is inherently superior. The aluminum chassis in the RC10 was cheap and easy to produce and could take a beating but it wasn't a superior design to chassis made of other materials. Not because of the material but rather the actual design.

[RC10resto]

The aluminum chassis in the RC10 was cheap and easy to produce and could take a beating but it wasn't a superior design to chassis made of other materials. Not because of the material but rather the actual design.

All I can say is really..............................????? I think a few people may beg to differ.

[Charlie don't surf]

I recall Curtis describing the production process of the tubs, and if was very intensive and time consuming. I would like to see more actual carbon fiber and aluminum in production race level RC cars, but I am a huge fan of the " works " cars of the late 80's and mid 90's

[fredswain]

In the early 80's before molded composites became common place and carbon fiber became a household word, a stamped aluminum chassis made lots of sense. The first ones being handmade would have been quite labor intensive but r&d isn't usually quick or easy. This was also a time before modern 3D CAD modeling and easy stress analysis. Once you get a design figured out, get the stamp made and send it to the presses. It was a common well known method and it worked. When the option was either a flexy little flat fiberglass chassis or a fragile plastic one, stamped aluminum was a fantastic idea. Fast forward to the present and the original stamped tub isn't as good as many other options. Everything has it's advantages and disadvantages and design plays just as large a role as material.

If you have a technically inferior car with a good setup vs a technically superior car that has a poor setup, the good setup will win even though on paper many things weren't as good as the other vehicle. RC10's were typically setup very well and AE did a good job at finding the best driver's. If the aluminum tub were so good in design, AE would have kept it with the B2 and later cars. They didn't. If they go back, it will be for the same reason that Losi went to it.

I still run a tub chassis. It's tough pure and simple. The RC10 is now a classic and an aluminum tub chassis just screams vintage RC10!

Along the same lines there are actually lots of people in the world who argue that an independent suspension on a car has no advantage to a solid rear axle. Many of these same people point out that a solid rear axle Ford Mustang can out perform the independent suspension Camaro on a skidpad. In their eyes it must be because of the lack of superiority of the independent suspension design to the solid rear axle rather than other things that apparently contribute nothing such as the spring rate, dampening rate, chassis roll, weight distribution, or tires used! The Ford Mustang is also the only car (excluding pickup trucks) that still runs a solid rear axle. Some people never learn!

So in answer to your question, yes, seriously!

[RC104ever]

Ahh...see now you are talking my language! One of the main reasons the Mustang uses a solid rear axle is because of cost, plain and simple. The independent rear setup is superior in every way EXCEPT cost.

With the aluminum vs. composite debate, I would imagine there must be some kind of a cost factor as well.

[delsami]

a solid rear end has to be stronger too

[Jay Dub]

Mass production in 90's -00's led manufacturers to using injection molding technologies (previously unobtainable) to produce parts because they would give them a larger proffit margin in the end. Plain and simple. The only catch is that you need to be able to sell enough units to offset the tooling costs. When the first RC10's were built there was no previous market to rely upon for sales data. So investing in high end tooling for mass prodution would have been foolish to start with. Once the offroad boom hit other technologies were tried (CF chassis plates for e.g.) but were found to be inferior to the already well groomed tub chassis platform. Only when the necessity to produce a newer more competative platform arrose did they use previous sales and maket data in able to make the LOGICAL jump into the molded chassis arena. I am sure they had a very good idea that they would be able to sell enough units to offset the costs at that juncture. In later years there were other manufactureres (Schumacher for example) that used double deck chassis almost exclusively because (primarily) they are inexpensive to make at first (no real tooling investments). They also knew they were not going to sell as many units as AE or Losi, so they knew they would never recoupe expensive tooling costs (e.g. an injection molded chassis). This is why Schuie stuff is generally more expensive as well (smaller sales + higher per piece costs). So for the most part, the materials and configuration of the chassis' design is driven by profit and the # of units expected to sell. Of course this doesn't sound so good in the advertisements for a new car, so marketing steps up th the plate . That being said, I do believe that aluminum is a superior material from a performance standoint, regardless of cost. It has very good energy absorption caracteristics compared to CF and most plastics. This I believe, allows a wider margin of error for suspension adjustments, and leads to a inharently smoother car (all other things being equal). -Jeff

[RC104ever]

Wow, very nicely said Jeff! I don't think anyone else is going to be able to add much to that comment.

Glad that someone else is thinking along the same lines though - I always thought that aluminum would be better than a composite - no matter what the company says. Obviously composites have their place as to other things like carbon fibre and fibreglass but aluminum as a tub chassis always made sense to me. It's still very lightweight but has a high strength as well (take a look at Audi space frame technology as an example).