sorry to hear your regulations are stricter than TGP. Does that mean you can't even take off the rear braces which is the first thing many racers do? It doesn't do much and the chassis is still rigid without it.

Well, we don't have much rules where we race. Anything goes as long as the power source (HW13) is the same. The cool thing with mini is that lots of original ideas start popping up. The way the car handles about the same with different mods also create many unique cars which I think is cool. There is not one definite answer to make the magic mini.
We need everything we can since we race against 4wd minis in the open class. We get beat out of turns, but we can attain higher top speeds on the straight which balances things out.

[QUOTE=DRAG_ON;6070096]Drag_On - they are all M03's on the track - the 05 is not legal in Australia yet. There were a few traction roll issues early in the weekend, but most people had them under control with tire and spring changes very quickly. The cars you see in the A Finals were VERY well sorted for a surface none of us had raced on before. We had a BLAST!

I got to drive the M-05 for the first time tonight. (grippy carpet, smooth as glass) I'm quite impressed with the balance it has. It didn't matter if I was running hard springs or soft, or whether I was using really sticky tires or crappy kit tires. The car just worked.

It can handle more in the corners before traction roll becomes an issue, and if it gets loose in a corner it almost seems as if it self corrects. I tried throwing it out of balance in hard cornering, but it was unfazed.

I did manage to get it to traction roll a few times by using very soft springs, sticky tires, loads of traction compound and too much speed. Other than that, it was stable.

Very impressive!

Jim

For those of you who missed out on the M05 Pro (and that's most people because it was only a short production run) - fear not, because the standard M05 kit hit the streets today.

http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/p...i/Image018.jpg

Price ex-japan (rc-champ) comes in at around $82 USD, plus freight.

Great price ... pity that the freight charges from Champ always manage to be 30% of the item cost no matter what you order when shipped to Australia

Haha M05 might work on high tractions tracks. However, during our last race outing at a very loose surface, many who tried M05 gave up on it. On a very loose surface, the M05 was a much tougher vehicle to drive fast.

I didnt have much luck with m05 last night either. no matter what i did i just could not get the car to handle properly. it was very hard to drive through high speed corners. low speed corners were ok, could control the slide.

Someone suggested to me to try the 2.0 degree toe blocks on the rear instead of the standard 1.5 deg. I will have to try that next time.

What kind of setup were you guys running? Tires?

I find it kind of funny guys talking about giving up on there 05 pros after such a short time! Ill GRADLY purchase it off you, and I guarantee itll handle on carpet and dusty surfaces. its going to time, suspension adjustments, different tires and different inserts to find the sweet spot, but i guarantee its there! Get back to testing!

At a complete guess (havent even seen one in the flesh yet) sounds like the added weight of the servo and elecs to the back has given it a bad slide characteristic. Personally, id add more lead to the battery area, and a little forward of that, to get back to the original balance. Go to super grippy tires on the back and hard kit tires on front, and work your way forward. Follow the rule, get it to understeer, get rid of the tail sliding, and slowly creep up on front grip. If your fighting slides all day long, you will be there a long long time :D

Haha, your 1st para sounds a bit rude.We have been racing for a while and know what we are doing. We were racing on strict tamiya rules, hence only tamiya tires. Of course we all tried various tire combis to make the situation better.

During that race, our surface was very dusty on an unprepared temporary surface. I did not have bad slide problems. However, I was having problems getting off power steering. I had to compromise on the car's stability to get it to have that little bit more steering. Well, I carried on with the 05 and won but I still think M03 handles better on loose dusty surface. The other guys who gave up on the 05(only for that race due to time constraints) had really good setups on their M03 for that surface.

Guys, remember M03 is still a very capable car and it is really hard to beat it when it does not traction roll. Hence, we shall not discount the M03.

If you are limited to running tamiya tires, then maybe the Mgrips radial work the best on dusty surfaces? The M03 is car that has been around for about 10 years. It's been tested, beaten, thrashed, and optimized to perfection. Still too early to give the verdict yet. When the M03 first came out, it could not beat the M01/02 until people started to figure it out. The fact that the M05's resistance to traction rolling will aid you in an event of rubbage as well(you win). :lol:

One interesting fact I found out is the front suspension geometry, thanks to Grahoo's tests. The M03's suspension travel's leverage increases as the car rolls. This means the front has a tendency to roll more. But the M05 is the exact opposite and the leverage decreases as the arm moves up. This is one of the factors why the car feels different. If you are thinking about optimizing the front suspension, keep this fact in mind.

The chart shows the amount of shock compression change as the suspension compresses. Note the M05's change increases versus the M03's decrease

source: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/taromaru32/e/5...6f2f7aa4d9692a

I didn't realize the M05 Pro was a limited production kit??? Interesting since the MO5 Kit (in any form) doesn't seem to be available in any shop in the US yet. I wonder what's the hold up?

Any word on release dates for the US?

I think I saw it at www.towerhobbies.com

Tower is saying late July.