Type-1 Chassis
The Type-1 Chassis (タイプ１シャーシ) is the first Mini 4WD chassis to be released by Tamiya, with the release of Hotshot Jr..
General info
The chassis's overall design is based on the Hotshot R/C buggy's, except it has no wires or steering system, only the driveshafts, a propeller shaft, two grounds gears, one spur gear, one counter gear, one pinion gear, one motor and the copper-based terminals are presented, which all are the basic for the shaft-driven Mini 4WD chassis for the years to come.
Since Type-1 was designed with off-road racing in mind, it has high ground-clearance which is suitable for off-road tracks. However, such high ground-clearance made the Type-1 doing the wheelie and having the risk of being flip over on the track while using the high-torque gears setup and/or the high-power motors. Notable to this chassis is that there's no holes for roller attachment at all, making it unsuitable for on-road track racing.
The chassis doesn't allow to install 620 bearings for the driveshafts, meaning the ball bearings cannot be installed on this chassis.
Depends on the gear setup, the change of pinion from 8T to 12T and vice-versa is necessary.
As Type-1 is the very first chassis in the Mini 4WD series, it has many problems on its own; propeller shaft cannot be held properly and brass tubes are constantly touching the ground gears and spur gear, which are results in power losses. There's no holes around the motor and battery area to dissipates heats, as well as it doesn't have the battery clip. Those problems become more apparent after the newer chassis are available.
The Type-1 was later re-designed into the Type-3 Chassis.
Technical info
Length/Width/Wheelbase: 127 mm/81 mm/82 mm
Ground clearance: Unknown
Driveshaft's length: 60 mm
Compatible gear set(s): 5:1, 6.4:1, 8.75:1, 11.2:1
Terminal type: A-type terminal
Weight (Chassis frame only): Unknown
Trivia
- Along with the Type-3 Chassis, the Type-1 Chassis is one of the only chassis to have two pinion gear sets.