Dang, monkeyracing!! :D

Kind of forgot about some of the weird details on those cars - like front shocks built to about 55mm, rears full length, or possibly a few mm extra.

Looking at those MF01 pics again, spotted a weird detail. Slotted motor mounts. Bit weird for this style of car.

Hey Jim,

Next race night - Xevo battle! We'll keep it "secret" between you and me :sneaky:

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...pslpchjahl.jpg

Okay stupid question
How does the XEVO handle vs say a 03 or an 05???
Im guessing that the speed characteristics are basically the same?

Not even close. The Xevo performance wise is the superior vehicle. The big deal is that you can adjust the gearing. Not as crashworthy but it does go. Using the 21.5 makes the performance gap close somewhat tho. All that weight up front makes it turn better and launch out of the corners really well. It doesn't show in that picture Jim posted, but the motor is in front of the wheels.

Made it out to the track today for the first time in about a year and ran a couple of batteries. It was great to visit with my old friends, swap stories and gossip, and just hang out. I really missed them and just didn't realize how much.

Driving the car was a struggle tho, cause the track had changed and I just took a car and a few batteries---no tools. Today was just to hang out at the track for awhile, not to waste today working on cars.

Does the layed down front dampers offer any advantage in handling or weight transfer like shifting the weight load even more to the front dampers (shocks)? or just to be able to use with bodies w/low slung front hood?

You're on!

KA2EV, the Xevo can be geared way up from an M03 and weighs less. The laid down shocks are good for...being laid down shocks. There's a lot going on around the front axle. Probably best to get them up and out of the way.

Dang I might need to get me a Xevo! Sorry for the silly question, but is that conversion kit just for the chassis? Provide your own gears, shocks, tires, etc? :confused:

Okay so this is actually a photo of the front of the car???

Yeah, it's a front engine/fwd conversion. It uses Tamiya lower arms, dampers and drivetrain. Heres a link to the rc-mini review on the rcmart site.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...psdobdibrk.jpg

Actually, with the laydown shocks, as the ball ends and suspension pieces wear the slop you get turns into several mm of vertical movement before the suspension reacts. Not the best design - there was at least one revision to the shock layout and mounting locations to try to improve things, . For a while, they were dominating in Asia, but whether it was regulation or the fragile nature, the population lost interest and now they are pieces of history on the shelf.

With the overhung motor, they certainly do a good job of putting down the power without requiring a locked-down diff. As a result, this is the only chassis in my mini fleet that still has a working M05 ball diff. I built the car from scratch with it and it was a solid performer with no maintenance - even considering the exposed gearing.

Also there was a resurgence of interest in the 4wd chassis in the 210 to 239mm wheelbases about that time. There was one conversion kit that used the Tamiya Mini suspension pieces. Tamiya may have been the manufacturer, but I don't recall. The Atomic looked like a miniature X-ray and a couple of other firms brought out there versions. These were good examples of miniaturized TC cars.

By comparison, the Xevo was pretty crude and primitive, plus it was fragile. The upgraded version with the lay down shocks never worked as well as the original. In either case, the enthusiast that would be interested in an Xevo was pretty much the same population that would be drawn to the new 4wd kits. In fact the guys that I knew who had Xevos, all built a 4wd Mini sized TC. One built a Tamiya 4wd car with the 380 sized motor. Another went to the Atomic and raced that very successfully. I raced an ABC for awhile and was going to race an Atomic till common sense took over. One said you guys are crazy and I'm not going to spend that kind of money on a baby TC. Still, having owned 3 or 4 Xevos, it was a fun piece of equipment and for a certain type of Mini devotee, would hold a fascination.

If that type of devotee was a fan of blunt objects, as opposed to scalpels, I proudly stand guilty!

I've owned a few mini TCs. They were amazing. The thing that drives me back to stuff like this (real mini) is simplicity. No shims under bulkheads, or anti-squat, or infinitely variable gear ratios. The challenge with M chassis is finding the perfect setup within limited set of parameters and then not screwing with it. It's like finding a gold nugget in a very full litter box.

That may be my best analogy ever.

The Xevo was so good, it was banned from mini racing at TITC in Thailand. The car was streets ahead of the MO3 and MO5. Not in the same ball park.
I am somewhat regretting selling both of mine. One was a built kit and the other bnip. Plus I also had two complete cf chassis and parts for the car. Long gone now.
As Granpa says car was very good out of the package, with a little bit of tuning was an awesome car. Just no where to run it here in Australia, except mini nats, once a year.

Thanks! I'm going to check this out. I don't race so these open class cars interest me. :D. Plus, my M05 was not nice and crashed last night taking my MonteCarlo body with it. :cry::lol: Oh well, atleast I have a new kit coming to me soon to replace.