Tamiya Ferrari 288 GTO Project

Page 1: Assembly

The GTO comes in a fairly unassuming little box that is not much different in size than a 1/10 chassis kit. But inside, I was surprised to find the tremendous number of parts. Look at all those plastic parts trees! I'm not sure I have ever seen so many in another model. Part of this is because there are many unused parts which are only needed for other TamTech models. If you were thinking that a 1/12 build might be proportionally simpler than a 1/10, it appears the opposite is true.

The main chassis tub is a single part, but the wings on the side are screwed on. The ball studs you see on top will be used to support the longitudinal front dampers. This kit comes with a pre-assembled ball diff. It feels very odd to me not to build the ball diff myself and I'm not sure why they did it this way. My only thought is that the parts are so small that they were worried people would have trouble or lose parts. I did not open up the diff.

The gearbox is built next. The ball diff sits in the lowest position with an idler gear and a metal drive gear above. The other end of the drive gear attaches to the spur which includes a slipper clutch. The ball bearings you see are included with the kit. Ball diff, slipper, full bearings, you might be starting to get the idea that this is a pretty deluxe kit.

Now the gearbox is closed up and the 370 sized motor is installed. Then the whole assembly is connected to the rear of the chassis along with the rear shock tower.

The drive shafts are very unusual. One end is dogbone style and metal while the interim shaft is plastic. The u-joint is built into the assembly. The right hand image shows the completed rear suspension. The lower arms are solid and the upper links are adjustable.

The front suspension in unlike anything else I've built. It is like a little clockwork mechanism with all those brass ball joints. You need a very particular sized servo for this model. Tamiya no longer takes the TRU-02, so I managed to get a Futaba of similar size. The servo just attaches with servo tape but must be very carefully positioned. It is under the plate in the left hand image. The dual bellcranks are vertical. In the right hand image this assembly has been attached to the chassis tub. You can also see the cranks for the shock pushrods on the side of the chassis.

Time to get the front suspension and steering sorted out. Look at all those links. We have upper suspension links, steering links, and suspension push rods all packed into a tiny space. I really enjoyed building this part. The shocks are the first disappointment in this model since they are undamped. They are well built and sturdy though.

Now the shocks have been installed. You can see the unusual orientation of the front shocks which lie down along the body to keep the front end low. The rear shocks are mounted traditionally. Finally the wheels and tires are installed. This is a rear wheel drive car so there is no prop shaft. The long black line you see in the right hand image is part of a stiffening cage. You need to use fairly small electronics to stash under the driver mount. I used a Hobbywing 1625 ESC, the same that I use in my Dancing Rider. In my opinion, this is just a beautiful, intricate little chassis. I wish I had known about it sooner.

With the rolling chassis done (in the background) it is time to prepare the body. This body comes precut and predrilled so you can start painting right after applying the window masks. The left hand image shows the body after I applied the Mica Red paint. Note that the overspray film is still attached. The right hand image shows what a huge difference decals can make. The decals were actually all die cut which made the application much faster.

This is a beautiful body with great looking wheels and tires. One of my favorite things is the body mounting style. There are no visible mounting posts because they point downward and the body pins go in from beneath. This leaves a very smooth and realistic outer contour.

Lastly I prepared the tiny driver figure. I was quite pleased to see that they included this detail as it adds tremendously to the realism of the model.

There are a huge number of unused parts, more than I've seen in any other model. My suspicion is that all the TamTech GT-01 kits use the same parts trees but different models make use of different bits.

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