Originally Posted by
grippgoat
After driving Mi4's for 3.5 years, I went to Xray instead of getting an Mi5, and have been completely happy with that decision for the last 9 months or so.
Things I could tell as soon as pictures were released:
- Camber link plates: They're expensive for camber link length tuning, they're a pain to wrench on, they're ugly, and they raise the CG.
But, they do allow for much more of a fine tune on link location. The only other car out there with such a fine adjustment is the Sakura Xi, and that's only on the inner link, and not the outer as well.
- Hanging the swaybars off the camber link plates adds even more weight up high and clutters up any wrenching relating to the camber link plates.
The mounting could be tidied up for sure, maybe off the bulkheads would be neater, but looking at the car it's bloody hard to see how/where.
- That top deck mounting can't possibly be good for CG height or polar MoI, with all those screws up high on the shock towers.
To be quite frank, that's a bloody hard call to make. I'm not going to say it's lower, but you also have to bare in mind there is only one screw on the tower mounting vs the two of most other cars, and the towers are also lower than most other long shock cars anyway, due to the shocks mounting under the arms. And I'm going to state this now, I'm not sold AT ALL on short shocks. Nothing I have seen of them so far has convince me that they are any better than conventional shocks, especially on bumpy outdoor tracks. The slight CoG gains are outweighed, IMO, by the compromise in damping ability vs conventional shocks.
- I could also tell from pictures it was going to be another heavy car.
it's a Schuey, what do you expect
although it's not as far off as some others, and still easily possible to get it well below race weight for balancing.
- As soon as I saw the video explaining the goals of the top deck, I knew it'd be far, far too flexy for carpet.
Honestly, whilst won't disagree in kit form the kit is probably too flexy, there are options out there to help rectify that. The 2mm stiff chassis is both considerably less flexible than kit AND lowers the whole car 0.5mm, as a big benefit for CoG. Then there are also the chassis braces, and the uncut arms.
- Flexy + High CG = Carpet fail, which has been proven to be true. In the pacific northwest, our carpet season is much longer with many more races than our asphalt season.
see above. I won't doubt that a stiffer still chassis plate wouldn't be a benefit for super traction, but then plenty of other chassis out there also use different plates for different track conditions. So that isn't a Schuey exclusive problem.
- Diff / Spool outdrive slider inserts were an interesting idea, but they're a pain. Go back to blades or steel on steel.
sorry, but that's a pile of tosh. Blades are the worst thing to use. With the sliders, the whole plastic surface is supported by the out drive, and that helps massively to lengthen the life span of the sliders. I know for a fact I would have gone though A LOT more blades (and probably outdrives as the blades failed!) given I run mod only. The sliders are fine thanks!
- Even though I almost always run 3* rear toe, I didn't want to have to buy extra arms to try other settings.
How do you suggest this is done? Changing toe on the hub has a different effect to changing on the arm/pin, so simply switching to hub toe is not, IMO, a better solution. So the other option is to alter it on the chassis plate... Yeah, ok..?!
- The diffs may be easy to pop out (although I'd be surprised if it's easier than on the Tamiya/Yokomo/Xray/just about everyone else design), but going that route puts a lot of heavy, thick bulkhead material above the diff, which is bad for CG and overall weight, and pushes the shock tower mounting upwards, which combined with the lower shock towers in my opinion makes the car kinda ugly.
see my previous answer about the shock mounting.
- O-ring retained wheel hexes are not as good as clamp-on hexes. They get sloppy over time and allow excessive wheel wobble.
Do agree on this one.. Screw clamp hexes would be a big bonus!
Things I didn't predict, but would keep me away from the car now:
- I thought the C-Hub-less front suspension was a cool idea, but it doesn't seem to have worked out terribly well. Maybe they'll find a way to make it work.
Sorry, it does work. Yes, there can be a little slop (but hell, Tamiyas didnt do so bad with it built in!), but in almost 5months of running the car, I've broken one flanged bearing... And that was from me cocking up reinstalling it into the car. Personally feel with the bearings it gives THE free-est steering available.
- Slop in the arm mounting
yes, this is an issue. The plastic cups need a bit of a step up in quality.
- Seems like they might have missed the mark a bit with steering system geometry and lack of tune-ability.
-Mike
yes and no. Again, the steering plates are a bonus, and allow for much better fine tune on the outer position... But I will agree the lack of adjustment on the rack itself (and the standard kit positions and plates are twitchy) is not great. Having said that, with the modded parts on my cars, I haven't had any need to adjust the Ackerman, and usually play more with bump steer than anything else.
To personally add some thing I would like to see.
- more wheelbase adjustment, specifically on the front. Having it only on the rear doesn't help if you want to keep the length the same, and only move the static weight fore/aft
- Aforementioned steering rack adjustments
- the option to use thicker top decks, without having to mod the motor mount. Having said that, it looks like this is a possibility based on the motor mount that Martin's car that was photographed at the first ETS.
- I would also personally like the motor mounts front top deck mount to be centralised... Having it connecting to the top deck on one side is a real annoyance for me. Shouldn't be too hard to make it a T piece, or even up for the centre of the mount.
- rear arm plastics. PLEASE make them so the two mounting holes are different, for different tuning options of the shock positions. Always thought it weird that that they made the two holes in the same place, and didn't utilise the fact the plastics could be run on left or right side to add that extra tuning option..
- and as more of a quality/ease of use/looks thing.. I'm a BIG fan of press fit nut inserts in carbon parts. No need for extra nuts, and make screwing and unscrewing balls just as easy as alloy. Yes the part would be more expensive, but worth it IMO for the step up in quality (and I have already modded my cars to use them!
)
Ed