Hey guys,

Sorry have been extremely busy at work this week. Have finally had some time to get on here and give some feedback on the debut of the R4 at the 2011 Serpent Australia Tour held at MoorebankRaceway in Sydney Australia.

Well the car hit the track for the first time on the Friday afternoon. Had a lot of trouble getting the gearbox to change. I tried lots of things and in the end I had to back it off from the factory settings by over a turn. The other issue was the one way grease kept leaking onto the gearbox while it was still new and I had to keep cleaning it out. Once I had this sorted the gearbox was fine for the rest of the weekend and the change was really smooth and consistent. I tried tightening it back up to get closer to the factory settings but it did not like it. I will check my exact setting soon and post it.

The other issue I had was with the brakes sticking. This was caused by the cam that pushes the pads not being free in the bulkhead. I had to clean the bulkhead out with a hobby knife and I also added a set of springs in between the pads to help. This fixed the dragging brake issue though I was still having some brake fade even though I was using the APP pads.

Ok they were the only issues experienced with the car. Now for the good bits.

Car was right on the weight limit with a li-fe battery pack and mini servo`s. I have titanium screws to add to the car but wanted to run it stock first.

The car handled awesome all weekend. I managed to TQ the first round with stiff competition and ended up qualifying 3rd overall for the A final with a 16 laps in 5:04. I managed to match this time in 3 or 4 of the 6 heats.

I ran in 2nd place in the final behind worlds finalist Peter Javanovic before a blown plug at around 20 mins put me out. Car was awesome and I put in my fastest laps of the weekend in the 30 min final even though I had next to no brakes after the first 5 mins.

My findings on the car. Well the lightweight drive train really feels like it spools up faster and gives the car more top end. Clutch was really good and I only added .2 more gap for some extra punch out of the corner. I didnt get a chance to play with gearing and ran the kit gearing. I will try a 16 tooth first gear the next time I run it to see if that improves the accelaration.

Diffs were awesome. So lightweight. First time I have ever run a front diff in a kyosho. I was really worried about not having a spool but the car handled good with the 300K in the front. The 50K rear diff felt a bit light as the traction came up and I will try a thicker rear diff at the upcoming championships in a few weeks.

Didnt really change much on the car setup other than playing with the front and rear sway bars. Will be trying a few setup changes the next time I run it.

If anyone has any questions just let me know and I will be happy to answer them.

Andrew