Seems like someone needs to develop a ready made spacer kit for different trackwidths. This way, dealers can sell it with the kit and people won't get all pissed off about losing dog bones out at the track. Sure, people can make their own spacer, but with a ready made part, material, suspension travel, side play and other issues can be addressed so that "new guy" just has to use the spacer kit without having to think about it.

Thoughts?

I can't seem to post links of the pictures from that Xray race coverage link above but Ben Cosgrove's XRAY NT1 is clearly using front CVD's.

I also talked to one of my friends that travels to all of the races and he assures me that every Xray team members car that he has looked at is running CVD's.

I'm not going to bother with trying to space the axles and just wait to see if I'm right and then worry every time I change track width, I'm just going to choke down the 70 bucks and buy the front cvd's to keep hudy in business by buying bling-bling products but it bothers me that they keep defending the dogbones as the right choice when their drivers clearly do not use them.

I don't think Xray was specifically trying to stay under the $400 range, their cars have never been inexpensive and they pride themselves as a luxury brand. Look at the XB8EC, there isn't a single option needed to complete a race with that car.

Yes, most if not all RCA drivers I've seen at GLC and other races use front CVD's. They don't try to hide it from you either, read this post...

Perfect, that is what I needed to know. Just admit the problem and tell people to deal with it instead of how much testing has gone into something and that you must be using it wrong.

One thing that I really like this car is how smooth the drivetrain is...... it's really smooth :smile::smile:

Yo brian hates nitro ...... is there any better nickname for you ? why you hates nitro ? ....... nitro is good you know :sneaky:

The name is left over from when I switched from electric back in 2002 or 2003, I still hate nitro racing but it's the only thing going so I learned to be decent at it. It took me probably 3 engines to learn how to tune properly, but it makes all the difference in the world now and the longer mains are fun.

You really can't beat this drivetrain, that is the primary reason I switched from Kyosho.. well that and the fact that Xray's geometry is almost identical with a few advantages here and there.

:sweat: I have also seen some factory guys using light weight clutch bell and few other options, so by your rational there must be something wrong with stock parts?? :weird:
I give up. Good luck with your car.

there is nothing wrong with running the stock dog bones in the NT1 i have been running them for a while and just recently put the cvd's in. to be honest i didnt feel any diffenernce in the way the car drove. the only reason i put the cvd's in the front was for a piece of mind that they wont come out in a hard hit.

Since this topic has been dragged out so long it seems like you are both a bit off track so I'll post one last item about it.

GK, the dogbones pop out with stock setup under normal driving conditions without even touching a barrier and Xray didn't address the problem with instructions or inserts but they made CVD's and then claimed they were only bling factor when I asked for help.

Goop, that peace of mind is why the team drivers use the CVD's and is the same reason I purchased them earlier today.

For those that are balancing their cars, what type of ballast are you using, how are you attaching it and how much weight are you adding to the car?

Has anybody tried those XRAY Precision Balancing Weights? How do those work out in terms of placement?

Thanks for the info! :)

i just use fuel tubing cut into my desired thickness... it seems to hold-up on me...

It seems like my heavy KO 2367 servos really put some weight on the right side of the car, it would take about 50 grams of weights according to the Xray balancing tools. I tried to drive the car at first like this, but noticed it felt tweaked and did not steer as well to the left. I put two of the 10 gram Xray weights on the chassis next to the battery and it feels better, but my car is 1822 grams now. The odd thing about this spot is that there are 3 + 1 holes, and only two of them are usable but you could stack 40 grams here easily, the middle hole is too close to the others to have a 3rd weight and then the rear one toward the outer most area on the chassis by the battery mount doesn't have enough clearance for a weight at all.

While I love the receiver box, I thought about trying the graphite mount to see if it saves much weight on the right side but I think at best it might be 10 grams or less so the low profile ko servos seem to be the way to go. One of the EC cars was using them in that xray article. The pair saves you 20 grams total over the 2367 which would balance my car with just 10 grams of weight and possibly lowering my entire weight down to 1792.

That's right.

I keep using stock dogbones and haven't lost a thing because I use +.75mm wheel hex with 198mm front track width.

My friend was using 0mm wheel hex with 198mm track width. He missed his heat #1. I believe he switched to CVD before heat #2. Ditto story with my another friend with NT1, .... he lost his front dogbones in practice day.

I believe nitroorgasm had economical idea to use Mugen Seiki parts : front CVD ( must check which cvd has the same length like original nt1 cvd ), front uprights, front bearings and pivot balls.

With the std receiver pack I had to add 25-30g depending on the pipe set, but with the AAA setup the 2 cells across the chassis have replaced 25g of ballast. I used the screw in weights I had from left over from my old t1 and they worked great.

For comparison I am using a a KO 2143 steering servo, futaba 3305 throttle servo, PT, futaba fasst, and 6in servo extension. Motor is a mega MF MasMo. and I usually use a skyline pipe

Mark

Brian/Mark - Thanks! Very helpful. :nod: