I've had the D413 for two months now and here's a little summary of my experience with it so far.
Building
Building this car was a very pleasant experience. Very nicely organized bags with parts, minimizing the risk of mixing things up. No parts come on trees, which is always a plus. The fit and finish was very good and gave a over all feeling of high quality. The manual is ok, but I've seen better. It's mostly pictures and not so much text to guide and give tips. I was a surprised that it didn't mention anything about using grease in some critical places (like the outdrive shafts, diff/input gear joint, etc). It also didn't mention anything amount sealing the edges on the exposed carbon fiber parts. People with some building experience will know when and where things like these are needed, but I definitely think the manual should mention it. The only real modification I needed to do during the build was to dremel the motor mount to be able to access the set screw on the pinion.
EDIT: I forgot to mention another minor modification I had to do. On one of the machined diff gears, the hole for the outdrive was super tight and I was barely able to get the outdrive in. It just didn't feel right. I noticed a burr on the inside edge of the hole, which I gently removed with a drill. After doing that the outdrive went in easily and had the expected play.
Driving
I've got about 50 packs of track time with it so far. I've run it mostly on high to medium grip astroturf tracks, with everything form small to large jumps. I'm very happy with how the car handles. It feels easy to drive and responds well to setup adjustments. The car has very responsive steering, without feeling twitchy. I generally dislike understeered cars, so this fits my driving style nicely.
I've done two races with this car so far. In both races I've felt very confident with the car and how it handles, and I've been able to just drive it like I want to and get into a rhythm. First race: TQ + Win. Second race: Qualified second + Win.
Setup
The setup I've used most of the time is basically the stock/manual setup, with the following adjustments:
- Shocks front: 4x1.3, Kyosho 600 oil, Kyosho Orange spings, 3mm limiter inside shock
- Shocks rear: 4x1.3, Kyosho 400 oil, HB Yellow spirings, 1mm limiter inside shock
- Diffs: 15k-100k-5k (Kyosho oils)
- Sway bars: None or coppar (1.2mm) in front, black (1.4mm) in rear
- Orion 6.5T, Orion R10 ESC
- Kyosho 21 steel pinion
Durability
What have I broken so far? Nothing! Well, I have broken the wing, but that doesn't count
I've had a few really nasty crashes, like running hard into the wall after the straight, but it has held up very well. I actually bought two kits right away, just to have spare parts for every possible scenario, but haven't actually needed anything from the second kit yet
Haven't had any problems with stripping the spur gear, but I did notice some dents in it from dirt finding it's way in under the body. I made a little lexan cover (see pictures) to keep dirt away from the spur/pinion area, and it seems to be working as the amount of dents have not increased much since then.
Also haven't had any heat issues. Both ESC and motor is well below any problematic temperatures and I use a fair a mount of boost and turbo. I use a fan on the ESC, but no fan on the motor.
I like the shape of the 4-piece body, but it feels a little weak, especially the joints where you bolt it together. The first time I drove the car one of the screws was ripped out from one of the side pods. After that I added 3 extra screws on each side (see pictures) and it's been holding up after that.
Never had a shock pop off, but I will probably get the aluminium shock caps when they are available. Just to be safe, and because they look better
Tips
- The shock travel is enormous, especially in the front, use limiters inside the shocks.
- The SWORKz S104 wing fits perfectly on the D413 and lasts forever compared to lexan wings. Highly recommended.
- Cover the spur/pinion area with a piece of lexan.