I built mine tonight. Lets.. talk...
- Comes with tools! And Grease
- The allen keys are soft... don't use them.
- Comes with nice wheels.
- Comes with fittings for wider track.
- Comes with a 380 size motor adapter.
- Comes with pinion.
- Comes with bearings.
- Extra fasteners, and bearings. Things you might lose.. you get spares of.
- All the parts to setup as FWD, RWD.
- Comes with Setup Sheet
- Manual shows how to adjust camber, ride height, and roll center.
- Includes a really nice Civic body, with all sorts of body accessories, and a wonderful sticker package. It's Tamiya grade.
- Can be setup for active rear toe.
- Has universal joints.
- Full size connecting rod diagrams.
- Centered servo position.
- Comes with a good servo saver.
So it's not all sunshine and gumdrops in this world.
- Switching configuration is nearly a complete rebuild.
- The chassis is quite floppy.
- Plastic motor mount.
- Hubs are over-sized to accommodate brake calipers.
- The servo needs it's ears clipped, and to be taped in.
- Wheel hexes are also brake disks.
- No damping.
- Cheap bearings.
- Cheap universals.
- No turnbuckles.
So... I'm pretty happy with this. I think I paid $143 shipped.
It's 11pm now. I started building it around 8. I probably built it in two hours, including having my daughter "help" me. My usual speach of buying a M3 thread forming tap, stands. Buy one, it helps. This model uses a lot of m2.5... which is something I can't find a thread forming tap for.
Reading the manual made me quite confident in the build. The only "tricky" bit, is how they did the exploded drawing of the diff wasn't clear where the spring, and thrust bearing pack. Those go inside the axle, instead of in the drive cup.. just so you know. It's got color, and it was easy to follow. I was very impressed with the manual. It doesn't though, show how to do the other configurations, like a tamiya manual typically does.
While assembling a car, the screws matter. And the fasteners are of middling quality. The bearings are "so-so" They're shielded but not sealed. And quite narrow. I have questions about their reliability.
The suspension is interesting. It's got kingpins on both ends. The bottoms are well designed, and have a spherical bushing that the kingpin then slides in. The control arms, up top, all are almost slop free. The knuckles drop freely, which is a really good sign. Most of the suspension is symmetrical, so to have a complete set of suspension parts, you need two knuckles, one upper control arm, and one lower arm. To change the springs, is fairly easy, one screw per corner. But it's a 12mm screw... That screw also reinforces the sliding part of the kingpin.
So, lets talk about tuning. To adjust ride height, they say you should put shims under the bulkheads. That's a common thing, hopefully the screw spacing is "normal" and we can raid 1/12 scale supplies for fine adjustment. Roll center is adjustable by putting shims under the upper ball joint. You can also tweak active caster by putting different spacers under the front and rear of the upper arm. Camber is adjustable by putting shims between the lower arm and the bulkhead.
MST has a full spring set, with.. six weight of spring. (One came with my car..) They also have a metal motor mount. And a metal diff set.
The car seems setup, to allow for some cross chassis supports, to account for how floppy the fiberglass deck is. There are holes on the front and rear support cages that could have bridges bolted in place, and some holes on top of the cages for a bar go run the length of the car. Now.... how do we address damping
So... we'll need to see how the car works. And do some research on working gear combinations. It's got two motor positions... but between swapping spurs and pinions that does give us a lot of range to work with.