I'm in the market for a new car to replace my oooold CRC Gen-X pre-lipo car. I'm hoping to have the new car running for the Penticton WCICS race on Oct 16-18, running 13.5 blinky on spec lilac wgt stripe tires.
Short list are:
Roche Rapide P12
TOP Rebel 12
VBC Lightning 12 V2
I like how the rebel and rapide use shim washers to adjust rear ride height, as well as the low cog pod design. The vbc has beautifully machined parts, and my tc is also a vbc.
Anyways, any input on these cars to help me with my decision much appreciated!
Roche & VBC are both Xenon cars. The Xenon front end is an evolution of the Associated front end. It is probably the most common front end used.
Roche and Top have similar rear pods. I like the shim adjustment mechanism on my Roche but I have also found that a good hard side hit can cause the blocks to tweak slightly generating odd loads on the bearings and potentially killing them prematurely.
The Roche is also stupid light. I had to add about an ounce of ballast to mine to make the minimum 730g weight. This means you get to put weight wherever you want/need it.
I will echo what Racermac73 said about support. Mike Hanulec, the U.S. importer for the car posted in this thread and he is very active on here in general. You won't find a more responsive direct line to the company for support than Mike. Only Christian from RSD rivals Mike for that direct line IMO.