Decided to try something different this coming indoor carpet season. I wanted to see if it is it possible to have a competitive mini with the least amount of upgrades / hop-ups possible.

So I rebuilt my first mini: M03M. There's no aluminum hopups, no CVDs, no TRF shocks, stock gear diff, friction dampers and swift body.

https://www.tamiyausa.com/product/it...oduct-id=58368

http://www.tamiya.com/english/rc/rcm...8swift1600.pdf

So everything is rebuilt according to the manual except the following. Only new part is the 2 chassis halves. Everything else is original. Race ready at 1240 grams.

1. Extra washer on both sides in the stock gear diff and the 3 screws tighten as much and as evenly as possible. Added a hole in the chassis (thanks Monkeyracing) for future tightening.

2. Removed the rubber tubings inside the friction dampers. Yes, there is no dampening. Because the stock silver springs are so long (I can't get ride height low) and I didn't have the tools to cut them down, I ended up using short blue (hard) springs in the rear and short red (soft) springs in the front. I used those little horseshoe spacers to get the ride height around 5mm but a little lower in the front.

3. S Grip tires with the hard inserts front and rear with a bead of CA only in the outer front corner of the front tires. Didn't glue the sidewalls.

I ran the car twice at 2 different local clubs recently and also got to run it against 2 very good drivers at both clubs too. Unfortunately they both used their "B" cars. One a M03 and the other M05v1. Both race days my car were on par with both of them and in fact I think it looked amazing. Even the gear diff held up fine and stayed somewhat tight.

Compared to the M03 I've raced regularly for the last 5 years, the only weaknesses on this M03M I would say are:

- does not track exactly straight on the straightway.
- lack of high speed steering but really good in the slower technical parts of the track
- hard braking the rear slides to the right
- apparently lots of body roll reported by many at trackside which I can't see on the drivers stand.

I have 1 more club race before a big series race the weekend after to see how it really works. Based on the last 2 club races, I would say it's a top 10 car even if I used this car the last few years. I just need to solve a few little problems to make if a top 3 car.

I'm planning to try a few different things for the next club race:

- reinstall the shorten stock silver springs on all 4 corners
- take away the rear damper spacer inside both rear dampers which I think increases rear droop so more weight transfer forward off power and more grip to turn in the high speed corners
- maybe more toe out (originally eyeballed I'm guessing 1 degree out)
- maybe test the kit tires (tires are harder) in the rear so the car rotates better into the corner.

Wish I knew this 6-7 years ago that you actually don't need to spend much to make a mini "competitive".

Ivan