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T.O.P. Racing is proud to introduce a new touring car, the Photon. Designed by the T.O.P. Racing engineering team led by master car designer Josh Cyrul, the Photon is the culmination of many years of world caliber racing and car design experience. A pure racing design, the Photon incorporates light weight, low center of gravity and ease of maintenance to make it the absolute state of the art in touring car race technology.
Structural components lay mostly on the main chassis. This minimizes material and mass above the main chassis while enhancing overall rigidity without relying on the upper chassis plate to create strength. The result is a strong, low center of gravity, lightweight chassis.
The shock towers are mounted directly to the bulkheads, not to a bulkhead cover. This reduces the number of parts, lowers the center of gravity, and minimizes chassis tweak.
Common practice has been to use the same material for all chassis and simply increasing the thickness for high bite applications. The Photon utilizes anisotropic material for its rubber tire chassis and isotropic material for the foam tire chassis. The characteristics of the two different materials target the desired flex required for the different types of racing.
The Photon is designed for 5 or 6 cell NiMH and any ROAR legal Li-Poly battery. Its unique mounting system allows adjustment of the Li-Poly battery position on the car, without the use of an aftermarket Li-Poly tray. The Li-Poly mounting system incorporates a weight tray which makes it possible to balance the car with the minimum amount of weight added, which in turn allows the racer to place any additional weight required to be placed on the center line of the car to make the center of gravity as narrow as possible.
The light weight diff pulley utilizes a 3 point triangular design for the diff ball slots which minimizes weight and friction while creating a reservoir for the diff lube. The diff pulley has snap on dust covers that incorporate air vents which allow air to exhaust when the belt presses onto the pulley. This reduces friction during high speed operation. The light weight composite front spool is designed for strength in the drive direction. It has vents similar to the differential to minimize air friction.
Front or rear pulleys can be taken out by removing just 4 screws, the center pulley by removing 2 screws. Suspension and steering turnbuckles are all the same length, so fewer spares are required. Designed with brushless motors in mind, specifically smaller diameter spur gears, the motor mount allows for a wide range of gear sizes to be installed.
Suspension arms and hubs are designed for high resistance to impacts, especially in foam tire racing. Both front and rear arms are reversible to provide different mounting positions for the shocks. The three suspension mounts with inserts provide for six different arm mounting heights at .5 mm increments.
Linear and radial Ackerman are adjustable, giving the car 12 possible steering geometries. Open balls cups are utilized which allow easier removal of the large diameter suspension, shock and steering balls and easier adjustments without having to remove ball cups from the balls. A wide range of shock springs are available to target all rubber and foam tire applications.
Testing and early race results have shown the Photon to be a durable, highly competitive and easy to maintain race car. The 2009 Reedy Race of Champions was the first race for the team with the final production version of the Photon. The 13.5 and RCGT classes were dominated by team driver E.J. Evans who TQ’d and won both classes, while team drivers Josh Cyrul, Kevin Jelich and Scott Kimbrough placed 7th, 9th and 11th respectively in the very competitive Invitational class. These are the latest updated versions of the kits with the following changes:
- Material of the main plastic spool has been altered. The spool is now harder and more resistant to damage during crashing.
- Main plastic spool now comes with steel out drives. Steel out drives are made of a hardened material and does not require the use of plastic C blades.
- Dog bones have been shortened to 44.5mm. This is done to further increase tune ability by allowing racers narrow the wheelbase for certain conditions. Shorter dog bones also help prevent plastic C blades from breaking.
- Hardware of the car has been changed to a different material. Material is stronger and higher in quality.
Note: Wheels and tires not included. |
