For my M-05 v1 & v2 chassis, I hold the battery pack in place with one of the 'L' shaped plastic holders from the 50793 M-03 C-parts, and an end brace from the 53346 quick release battery holder. Unconventional, but the battery stays in place well, with no tape needed!

Interesting, I may just look into that.

The Yeah Racing steering set arrived today, install time I guess! Though once more I wonder if I should try painting it black first....... eh. Should probably have "etching" paint for that. My car has this nice black & red theme going inside and out, with almost everything else black but body, parts of electronics (including the entire motor) and of course transponder are red, and adding blue parts... gah

The front uprights arrived today as well, so now both those and the steering are in place. There's some slop with the steering assembly, but then again there was with plastic too. The combination did throw off front toe by quite a bit, though. Lengthened the rods by a good 2mm and it's still maybe a touch too much. But this bring to mind another thing I though of while building - the stock ball studs really should have hex heads. Having to pop a stud out if you need to readjust a link is a real pain in the butt and causes unnecessary wear.

So, ready for the race now with this car. Hopefully I can at least avoid a DNF

Finally got to drive my M07 this evening. It’s completely awesome. Solid, consistent and still makes mini noises.

I need to get my M07 setup... I might actually use it in a race this weekend.

Back from the first race with my M-05 V2 R. Unsurprisingly I was last by a good margin, not having driven the car before or any other onroad car for that matter.

Overall fun to drive, but maaaan these things are ADHD, cue in Benny Hill music and all. Often read fast servos being a "must" for these... mine is specced to be 0.08s, though it's probably a bit slower. Way too fast anyway, I had to use -25% expo for steering, something I haven't done for any other car (using MX-V, so no linear speed adjustment unfortunately).

Was plagued by some bad luck though:
- Practise 1: battery displacement, detached screw in steering
- Practise 2: battery displacement (after which some heavy taping indeed)
- Qualification 1: Finished 10 laps, but a front shock came loose on the bottom
- Qualification 2: DNF after 8 laps (was on time to go 11 laps I think) because a ballstud broke with the threaded part inside the front upright...... during regular cornering too, hadn't even bumped into anything in the past couple of laps. Had to move ballstuds to the front hole on the upright, and make the linkages longer to make up for otherwise excessive toe out.
- Qualification 3: DNF after 2 laps. The lenghtened link came loose at one end. Installed RPM ballcups another racer lent me. They were too tight, basically causing the screw to turn in the threading rather than the ballstud turning inside the ballcup...
- Final: 10 minutes, and made through it despite the above! Also managed my goal of having a lap under 25 seconds (24.928!), previously my fastest was in Q1, 25.174 I think. By comparison the fastest lap I recall anyone doing in the same class was ~18.5 seconds. Damn I'm fast!

Now I need to sort the upright ballcup situation as well as as try to remove the broken ballstud part from the upright. Apparently I should've been running reinforced slicks or the radials as compared to the normal slicks, something I asked about in a club discussion but wasn't answered at the time Also seems I need to stiffen the diff considerably.

If you're using dual rate on mx-v, you might want to recheck the steering throw. Sub trim on this radio does not work as it's supposed to. Sub trim is not linked to epa, so when you turn down dual rate, steering throw will become uneven left to right.

Try this. Set epa to 100 on both sides. Now install your servo horn offset on purpose, so you can use subtrim to re-center it. Keep turning down dual rate, and you will notice the steering throw progressively become uneven. Properly functioning sub trim should not do this.

Not really having any radio-related issues - unless you want to count not having the setting for adjusting servo speed linearly like you can with more expensive radios, I guess. I've adjusted steering throw to be equal, the thing really turns on a dime in both directions. I haven't actually been using sub-trim at all, just regular trim. Only really started using EPA etc just in the last couple of months, though strangely enough I made do ok without, but certainly easier to get the steering right by using it after doing physical changes to a car or getting a new car! I only really got deeper into the settings once I got these four new cars (2x offroad SCT, this Mini and a touring car) and started using the same radio for all of them as well as on the older cars as compared to using a dedicated radio per car previously.

I suppose an even more advanced radio would have its benefits, but for as little as those would be for the most part, it's a bit hard to justify. I already can't even seem to justify buying more Sanwa receivers when I have two and can move them around, given they're a bit pricey. Better transmitters... even more pricey (even if you only need the one)

As for the speed issue... I guess I could try the HPI SF-2 servo I removed from my HPI Savage, it's likely to be slower. As would the servo I put in the Savage instead (seeing as I won't be driving it in winter in any case), but it's a bit annoying to remove. The Reedy 1903MG I have would also probably do the job but it'd need a replacement gear set and the local store selling those just went under.

I just bought m03 project... it is going to be interesting to drive FF rc-car for first time

Hah, yes, it was quite a jump going from RWD/4WD offroad to FWD mini in one fell swoop... didn't help that the first time driving was in that race

I did a whole lot of laps with my M05 this weekend. I'm still running kit tires. When I first got it out on the track, the thing just spun out. I swapped the front and rear tires, which helped, then sauced the rear tires. .. Viola, a car that pushed lightly.

Since I installed the 3 racing gear diff, the car wanders a bit on the straight. I wonder why that is. I can sorta control it... But it requires some real attention.

I really need to figure out how to do sidewall gluing properly.

Wandering on the straight is a potential side effect of having a tighter diff. It can usually be countered by using a bit more toe out.

makes sense. I'll dial in a little more. :-) Now... how does one get those crystal clean and regular glued sidewalls?

I had some wandering happening on straights too, and my diff's stock, so veeeeeery loose. Good amount of toe-out, too. I don't know if it was maybe uneven grip for some reason or something. Not sure if I'm gonna try shimming the diff to be tighter or just get a 3racing diff or such.

Something to always check too is that the shock bottoms are "loose" on the bottom ball stud—able to freely roll on the ball. When running a shorter length shock, with the bottoms screwed in a lot, the shock shaft can actually deform the plastic in some cases, causing binding. This can make the car inconsistent. Something I had to figure out the hard way years ago...