Hi all. New to the site.
I've been running Spec-R S1 cars for almost a year now. I really like them. They work well and the low cost is too much to pass up.
I run one car in Canadian Vintage Trans Am, mostly stock. It only has the aluminum steering, the floating servo mount, and R1 shocks. It works very well. It seems a little slow though. I have yet to figure out why though.
The other car I run in Stock Touring Car, 17.5 blinky. It has the option narrow 2.25mm lower chassis plate and the standard R1 top deck. I'm also using the R1 shock towers, floating servo mount, and TOP Photon shocks. This car is awesome!! The option chassis really woke this car up on the high traction carpet at my local track. Even with the plastic bulkheads and suspension mounts, this car is just as capable as some of the high end cars at my track. It competes against xray t4s, schumacher Mi5s, yokomo bd7s, Hobao h4s, and Associated 6.1 worlds cars and it can hang with all of them. That is as long as I'm not at the radio LOL!!
I recently pruchased an R1 and built it. It has the floating mount as well. Its set up to run USGT. I'm hoping it's going to be competitive. It's maiden run will be tomorrow. I'm super excited to see how it performs in comparison to the VTA car. Since I'm using the entire electronic setup from the VTA car in this new chassis, I should really be able to see the difference between the two kits. The VTA car is going to get my back up electronics put into it as I'm sort of putting that class on the back burner for now. I just want it functioning so I can let new people run it or just to have it around when I want to run an extra class.
The durability of these cars seem middle of the road to me. Not terrible, but I sure manage to break parts often enough. C hubs, steering knuckles and outer hinge pins are really the only things I break with any regularity. I have broken an S1 shock tower and top deck before though. The crashes that caused these parts to fail were pretty insane and I believe any car of any make would have suffered the same fate.
Anyway, long story short, Spec-R is incredible performance for the value. But you guys already know that!