약 1년동안 제가 사용하던 엔진이 저번 RC프로시리즈에서 흙을 잡수신뒤 잠수타셔서 예전부터 그 성능이 궁금했던 GO엔진의 10만원대 스포츠형 .21급 엔진도 테스트 해볼겸 앞으로의 대회에서 사용해 볼 겸 겸사겸사 GO엔진 스포츠형 진을 금일 길들이기하면서 비록 길들이기 주행이지만 약간의 거친 주행도 해보았습니다.
이 엔진은 저에게 있어서 첫 최저가 10만원대 엔진(권장소비자가격: 147,000원)임과 동시에 요즘 많은 분들이 사용하는 GO엔진 프로급 엔진은 비록 아니지만 그래도 첫 GO엔진 사용 이였습니다. 언젠가는 프로급 엔진도 써볼날이 있겠지요.
성능은 정말 대 만족이였습니다. 제가 여태까지 사용해왔던 5개 회사들 고가의 프로급 엔진들과 비교해도 크게 성능이 뒤지는 느낌은 없었습니다. 단 고가의 프로급 엔진들에 비하여 아주 미묘하게 하이가 좀 높지는 않는 느낌은 있기는 했지만 그 차이가 아주 미묘해 대회주행에서도 아무 문제가 없을 것 같습니다.
위의 엔진이 GO엔진의 10만원대 엔진입니다. 스팩은 3포트로 넌터보 이며 자세한 사항은 아래와 같습니다.
Contents 3.45cc Maximum Power 2.6hp R.P.M 31.000rpm Practical Range 6.000/37.000rpm Bore/Stroke 16.26mm/16.80mm Ports 3 Crankshaft 14mm SG Carburetor 8mm Glow Plug Type Standard Exhaust Type Rear
엔진의 스팩에서 보시다시피 이 엔진은 다른 프로급 엔진들의 스팩과 동급의 스팩입니다. 마력은 2.6 HP 이고, RPM은 31,000 로써 높은 파워를 느낄 수 있었습니다.
백문이불여일견 역시 사용을 해봐야 그 성능을 알 수 있겠죠...
GO엔진 프로급 엔진 박스와는 좀 틀리죠? 저는 이번 엔진 테스트에서 제 XRAY XB8EC에 이 엔진을 장착해 보았습니다..
엔진 장착도 끝났으니 이제 길들이기를 시작해 봐야죠.. GO엔진 프로급 엔진은 엔진 압이 너무 쌔다고는 하지만 이 스포츠형 엔진은 엔진 압이 길들이기를 쉽게 할 수 있을정도로 쌔지는 않았습니다.
아무래도 많은 분들에게 길들이기 및 주행을 보다 신속하고 쉽게 할 수 있는 GO엔진의 배려라고 할까요? ^^;
저는 이번에 엔진 길들이기를 하면서 엔진이 끼는 현상을 한번 겪었고 나머지는 쉽게 아무 문제없이 하였습니다.
위의 동영상은 엔진 길들이기 중의 동영상이며, 연로 1통을 다 때우고 곧바로 찍은 동영상 입니다.
위 동영상은 아이들 2통째 막바지에 찍은 동영상 입니다. 아이들 2통 쯤 때우니 엔진의 길이 대충 들은 상태로 주행 길들이기가 가능한 상태가 되었습니다.
이때 엔진온도가 약 40~45도 정도 되었었습니다.
GO엔진 스포츠형 엔진 메뉴얼을 보면 아이들을 2통 때우라고 하더군요. 그래서 저도 연료 두통을 때웠습니다. 너무 엔진길들이기가 신속해서 좋았습니다. 엔진을 처음 시작하시는 분에게는 최적이라는 생각이 들었습니다.
아이들도 무척 안정적으로 나왔고요.. 이제 그 주행 성능이 너무 궁금했습니다.
이제 주행 길들이기를 해야 할 차례인가요.... 너무 기다려 졌습니다.
드디어 중속 주행 길들이기에 들어갔습니다.
저는 이번 엔진 주행 길들이기를 연료 5통만에 후딱 끝냈습니다. 엔진온도 매우 낮았고, 더 오래 주행 길들이기를 하고는 싶었으나 너무 길이 빨리나는게 성격급한 저에게 있어서 좋은 점 이였다고 할까요? ㅎㅎ
위 동영상은 주행 길들이기를 6통 정도 때운 뒤의 동영상 입니다. 아직 엔진 길이 완전히 났다고 할 수는 없었지만 그래도 엔진의 퍼포먼스를 믿으면서 엔진 성능도 테스트할겸 최대한 터프하게 몰아봤습니다.. 그덕에 주행 실수가 참 많았던 하루 같습니다.
위 동영상 후 연료를 약 4통정도 더 때우니까 엔진의 길이 거의 다 난것 같이 나갔었고, 더욱 파워풀하고 좋은 주행을 하였지만..
해가 떨어지는 바람에.. 동영상은 어쩔 수 없이 생략할 수 밖에 없었습니다..^^;
저의 첫 GO엔진 스포츠형 엔진을 사용하면서 느낌점은 저렴한 스포츠형 엔진도 프로금 엔진과 동급으로 잘 나간다는 것 이였습니다. 사실 매우 놀라웠고, 모든 저가형 엔진이 이렇게 잘 나가는지는 잘 모르겠습니다.
아이들도 잘 나오고 파워도 토크도 있는..... 앞으로 이 엔진으로 몇차례 대회도 참가해보면서 계속 테스트를 해봐야 겠습니다.
처음으로 엔진에 입문하시는 분 혹은 엔진셋팅 공부를 시작해 보시려고 하시는 분들에게 매우 좋을 것 샅습니다.
The 808 is Xrays latest 8th scale buggy - an all-new design which focuses on lower weight and a narrow chassis layout for better handling. The list of new and improved parts is a chore to read, so I won't bore you with that - suffice to say the 808 looks to be at the cutting edge of 8th buggy design.
For the review I enlisted the help of regular 8th buggy racer Dave Grunill - who happens to live 5 minutes from where I work, making it a little easier to talk 8th with him. Being a bit of an 8th newbie and with a fairly busy 10th season already upon us - Dave was to be the one racing the buggy for the review. Other than the slightly scary things I'd never really touched before, like an engine! - the 808 is pretty much a scaled up 10th scale buggy - so naturally I'd be the one doing the build. On with the show...
Kit contents
The main manual is a glossy covered marvel - a supplemental sheet is included with the latest tips and manual ammendments.
The 808 is seperated into individually bagged stages - I'd only built one Xray before, the M18T Pro - but this just looked like a scaled up version! The first stage in the build is the front and rear differential.
There's no real surprises here, just really high quality construction. Even the moulded diff case feels really tough - and with what looks like a moulded-in steel bearing support on the back it should hold up well.
The out drives are machined from Hudy spring steel and have a small channel which acts as a grease reservoir - this needs filling with the supplied (smelly) graphite grease, lubing the outdrives as they exit the diffs.
The out drives are pinned in place - which requires either a pair of tweezers or unfeasably small fingers, and the bevel gears installed - followed by four spider gears. Xray kindly supply oils for the front (5000cst), rear (2000cst) and centre (7000cst) diffs - with enough for maybe 2 or 3 fills each.
The nozzles are quite small - I waited to fill the front diff but cut the nozzle down for the rear. I had no idea about a setup for the car so I built the diffs with the recommended oils - it can always be tuned later.
With both front and rear diffs completed it's time to assemble the gearboxes casings around them. Front and rear gearboxes are, just like the differentials themselves, identical.
The pinion gear is actually one half of the CVD coupling - a really simplified approach which should mean there's less to go wrong here. The grub screw that holds the CVD is mischeviously already hidden inside the part it's destined for - and so it caused some moments of panic when it wasn't in this stage's screw bag. The pinion rides on two large ball races which side over from either end - the rear one effectively captures the CVD pin ensuring reliability - it simply can't fall apart! A nice touch as I've had problems in this area before on an 8th buggy. The whole assembly threads through the gearbox and is secured in place by three screws which just overlap the bearing.
And whilst were on the subject - although it isn't mentioned in the manual, a quick check of the official Xray forum shows a 'tip' suggesting the removal of the rubber seal on the bearing facing into the gearbox - since in some extreme cases this seal has dislodged and caused problems. I'm told this was only a problem on early cars but I wasn't sure which catagory my car was in so I removed the seal anyway.
The centre shafts push through from the inside of the gearboxes and secure with three short screws
Removing the inner dust shield is a tip from the Xray website.
The gearbox is exposed from below - allowing the differential itself to sit as low as possible - it actually sits down into a recess in the chassis and once screwed down should be properly sealed from the elements.
The diffs drop in without any problems - resting on the moulded bearing sleeves. The two halves of the gearboxes have a tongue and groove that interlocks and effectively stops dust working its way into the gearboxes.
A couple of screws lock the gearbox together, followed by additional screws in the shock towers.
The shock towers on the 808 follow a recent trend toward carbon fibre in this area - a vast weight saving from the ultra thick alloy items usually seen on 8th scale buggies. Strong enough? well the carbon used is 3.5mm thick on the rear and a massive 4mm up front - and looks very high quality to boot. If you break one of these then you probably deserved it.
Xray recommend you prepare the edges of the carbon shock towers - it's a time consuming task but it makes handling the towers a lot nicer when the sharp edges are removed.
The beefy plastic moulded suspension mounts attach to the front and rear of the gearbox casings. Here you can see the front
The rear suspension is next, and is assembled onto the gearbox to form a single unit - which will be added to the chassis when fully assembled, and should make maintenance & cleaning easier. With the front gearbox put to one side, it's time to assemble the rear suspension first.
This is all added to the gearbox with chunky plastic pivot blocks screwing onto the gearbox with some self tapping phillips screws - I'm not sure why these aren't hex-head machine screws to be honest as screwing phillips head screws into hard plastic isn't so much fun, plus it means you need more tools cluttering your pit table.
With both pivot blocks attached, the huge rear suspension arms attach and pivot on some incredibly beefy 4mm steel bolts. Steel nyloc nuts cap the end of the hingepins and when properly adjusted actually bend the rear pivot block around a little, but apparently this is normal.
Photo on the right: Rear suspension - The left side is attached but not tightened fully. The right hand side on this photo is properly adjusted, slop-free and without binding - but you can see how the rear (top) suspension block is curved forward.
A plastic washer fits either side of the suspension arm to adjust the wheelbase a little later on if desired - but it will require partial disassembly of the suspension - the plastic 'c' shaped clips seen on some cars that can be removed by simply pulling off the pin would be a nicer option, but maybe that's me being lazy.
The CVD drive shafts are again made from hudy spring steel and go together nicely - in fact, these don't even use a grub screw since it's all held in place by the large diameter inner bearing covering the CVD pin. The axle is hollow so should save a little unsprung weight.
A smaller diameter bearing pushes into the outside of the hub carrier followed by the alloy hex wheel adaptor, which is pinned in place and a grubscrew threads through the hollow axle to keep the pin secure. More shims are added on the outer hinge pins either side of the assembled hub carriers for more wheelbase adjustment.
The large inner bearing captures the CVD pins
Hub components
The wheel hex is secured with a pin - which is held in place by a grub screw through the hollow axle.
To complete the rear suspension the top camber links need assembling. These are relatively small diameter Hudy spring steel items - but should take all the abuse you can throw at them. The adjustment area is off-set to one side and this is supposed to be put to the outside of the car in every instance to allow easier adjustment. This does mean one side of the car will need adjusting in a different direction to the other - no big deal though.
The manual suggest creating the rear links with a gap of 46mm between the rod ends - but I found it to be closer to 36mm. It turned out to be a misprint in the manual that is rectified on the supplimental instruction sheet - as with any kit, it's always wise to check all the paperwork first - even the mighty Xray aren't perfect!
To finish the rear end off for now, a chunky wing mount needs assembling. This comes in 6 parts and is made from a tough plastic.
The bracing 'tubes' between the two main halves aren't keyed so need holding with the supplied spanner whist tightening which is just a little fiddly. The tops of the wing mount are adjustable, with various holes to move the wing up or down, fore or aft.
The wing mount comes in six main parts - Assembly isn't as straight forward as it looks - the bridging posts between the two halves aren't keyed so need holding with the supplied spanner.
Steel nyloc nuts are inserted to give the wing a secure mounting.
The front suspension assembles in a similar way to that on the rear. The front most hinge pin block gains a thin steel brace which is pressed into the plastic pivot-block before assembling onto the gearbox - this should help deal with any heavy frontal impacts.
A thin steel support plate is used in the front hinge pin block.
Hudy spring steel bushings push into the castor block
The steering blocks have moulded-in metal inserts to ensure a strong long-lasting build
The front steering blocks on the 808 are huge and the spring steel CVD's assemble into these just as they did on the rear. The steering block pivots inside the 10degree castor block on some spring steel inserts which make things very free but very sturdy. These castor blocks themselves also pivot on the suspension arms using similar steel inserts that push into the ends of the front suspension arms to allow the chunky M4 screws to secure the block in place and pivot freely.
With the front suspension in a similar state to the rear, it's time to add the two assembled ends of the car onto the main chassis. The chassis is 3mm hard coated 7075 T6 alloy and features many recessed areas to both lower the centre of gravity and save weight. The front and rear differentials which protrude slightly from the gear casings actually side down into corresponding recesses at either end of the car. The front and rear gearboxes both secure with four counter sunk M4 screws and a chunky moulded chassis brace attaches to the rear shock tower and main chassis. whilst the front bumper attaches at the same time as the gearbox.
no, the chassis isn't a vivid gold - I'm just a bad photographer that turns things to gold by accident! Actually - it's a good job it looks gold here, since the actual colour is similar to the review page background, and then you'd not see it! - a bit like this text huh!
The steering assembly on the 808 is fairly simple dual bell crank type, with a built-in servo saver. The steering assembles and spins on two alloy posts which are sandwiched between the chassis and a stiff plastic steering plate. A carbon fibre steering link joins the two cranks and supports the inside steering link balls - there are two holes to adjust ackerman and a front moulded chassis brace finishes things off.
Two alloy posts attach to the chassis and the assembled steering slides over.
A plastic front chassis brace attaches to the main chassis with two screws & nuts. A plastic top plate then sits over the gearbox, steering and chassis brace - tying it all together.
The centre differential housing is a multi-part plastic affair which needs assembling around the diff before it can be installed. The 808 uses single vented steel brake rotor either side of the centre diff - with steel plates supporting some Ferodo fibre pads, which themselves need gluing to the steel plates.
Following the instructions carefully so you get the pads on the correct side of the plates, it's just a case of using some CA glue and centreing the pads correctly. I did an OK job of this - but still the screws wouldn't easily / smoothly move through the plate & pad, so I used a body reamer to gently ream out any excess pad that slightly covered the hole in the steel backing plate. With this done, a pair of pads is screwed to the two top halves of the centre gearbox. A plastic top plate secures the front and rear tops of the centre gearbox, along with the brake cams that push the pads onto the rotating disks.
Lining up the pads 100% perfectly when gluing is hard, but even when it looked perfect the screw wouldn't slide through easily so I reamed the hole very slightly for smooth braking action.
The pads mount onto two plastic top halves to the centre mount. Setting the pad spacing by using one of the disks.
With the steel brake discs pushed over either end of the centre differential, the whole lot gets sandwiched between the previously assembled top and bottom parts with four long screw, before being secured to the main chassis with four chunky M4 counter sunk screws.
Taking the centre diff out later is a simple case of unscrewing the four long screws and lifting the top off - leaving the lower half attached to the chassis.
Above: large plastic dirt shields attach to either side of the main chassis
I didn't have the engine that was going to be used in the 808 - in fact, it hadn't even been ordered by the time I'd got to this point so I went and borrowed a stand-in engine and pipe for this part of the build until the 'proper' items could be acquired.
The 808 comes with its own flywheel and clutch - and these need putting on the engine first which was a little daunting for me since I've never done it before, but take your time and it's easy. The clutch is a three shoe type and the shoes themselves are aluminium, labled '1.71' - whilst the springs are described as 'hard' which should give a fairly aggressive take off. The 16T clutch bell uses 5x12x4mm 'oversized' bearings for long life. Some simple polished alloy engine mounts are attached to the engine before the latter can be mounted into the car.
The exhaust outlet needs to be measured against the plastic side guards, and an 'indent' making.
Installing the electrics in the 808 is fairly straight forward. Both servos attach to a neat carbon fibre plate which can be removed at will later on to make cleaning the chassis easier.
The receiver and battery pack are both protected inside a well proportioned radio box - this comes in 5 parts and requires assembly. Two seperate covers allow entry to the receiver and the receiver battery - with little 'lips' around the edge which should help keep water and debris out.
The 808 requires an elongated side-by-side receiver battery. I didn't have one of these, only the 'hump' style packs - which I assumed was the most common style.
Just 6 screws secure the radio plate to the main chassis, making removal relatively quick and easy. The receiver box comes out with three further screws.
The 808 features all-new 'big bore' alloy shock absorbers, and they're huge! The large size is designed to acheive better and more consistent damping performance, especially over the longer finals - due to the larger volume of oil.
The 808 comes supplied with three different pistons for the dampers. The 6-hole pistons come in 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5mm flavours.
With the seals in place - a plastic rod guide inserts into the shock body - followed by the felt shim and bottom cap.
A diaphram helps with volume compensation and seals the top cap. The top cap itself has a hole to help bleed excess air & oil - finally being sealed when tightened fully.
The manual provides tips on bleeding the shocks for different rebound rates - a really useful set of tips.
The bodyshell included with the 808 is arguably one of the nicest looking 8th buggy shells around - the sweeping lines extend from the front wings right the way back to the rear of the shell, where a little 'kick' gives some minute aerodynamic effect no doubt. I'm no fan of regular run-of-the-mill 8th body shells - I'd even go as far as to say most are fat and as ugly as sin - but this is much better than that, dare I say it's almost 'sexy'
The 808 comes with a fairly stylish 8th buggy wing - lets face it, they don't vary much. Thankfully after experiencing the joys of measuring (badly) and having to drill wings supplied with 8th buggies, Xray have done the decent thing here and pre-drilled the holes for mounting.
I'm not used to butchering a newly painted shell - but sadly it has to happen :( - I used a reamer to create some 'give' in the lexan, and followed this up with a scalpel to cut the holes.
Xray supply window masks and a full sticker set of the shell. I'd not normally use the window masks and try to create something a little unique - but I'd also spend 2-3 evenings painting a body for a review, and in this case I did it in an evening.
The main colours are all Faskolor - the ever-so-small chrome lines are spazstix paint. The final body was 'backed up' with faskoat to protect it - brushed on.
The 808 has to be one of, if not THE best kit I've ever built. In terms of quality and ease of build the 808 is a testament to the obsession with quality Xray have shown since bursting onto the scene. You'll be hard pressed to find fault with the build or quality of components - the manual is first class and the supplied 'Hudy off road set-up book' is a nice little inclusion, useful to all levels of racer. There's not too much left to say about the build - it almost falls together!
There's no wheels or tyres included in the kit - pretty much expected for a racer like this of course, but it's worth nothing for those who want a buggy like this to start out.
XRAY 808 summary - oOple racer Dave Grunill
after having raced both the xray xb8 and xb8tq models for a long time i was intrigued to see how much better could the new xray 808 be. The previous xb8 models were renowned for their durability and build quality, but what could the new 808 bring to the table? ......Read on. First thing you notice [with this kit] is how light it is.. Much lighter than the older x8b and xb8-ec models, yet [the 808] still feels like its built like a tank, solid, no slop and very sexy ,the carbon shock towers would be nothing new to 10th scale racers but could they really work in 1/8th offroad wihout breaking... We [8th scale racers] have some incredible jumps (and crashes!) in 1/8th and alloy has always been THE choice when it comes to racing, surely the carbon would break wouldnt it? (Jimmy: If anyone will test that - Dave is the one!)
The electrics were a trouble free install, the large radio box has lots of room for the 5cell reciever pack - which retains its positioning from the xb8 models, right next to engine to keep the weight central. The little spektrum reciever I used looks almost lost in there and to fill the space I made a small foam block with a cutout in it to hold the reciever snug.. You could quite easily fit the largest of recievers in there,and if you should choose to, a lipo will also fit with a regulator in there.
Any previous Xray owners may notice the center driveshafts now run at an angle (compared to the xb8 models) because the engine has been moved to a more central chassis position, again keeping the heavy weight down the middle of the chassis, this wont cause any problems and the drivetrain is super free-running.
The new design xray clutchbell now uses larger rear bearings for prolonged bearing life in this high-stress area. The supplied clutchshoes are the xray aluminium 0.71 shoes which give a good bite on the clutch with no slippage, ideal on high grip tracks where low down punch is preffered,the clutchbell is a 16 tooth one, normally you'd use a 13-14t one but the internal ratio of the 808 allows this and the final ratio is similair to what you would expect from the old xb8.
The front end of the 808 has changed quite dramatically compared to the xb8 models, the front knuckles and castor blocks take on a different shape and are much lighter as are the bearings which utilize smaller balls for less unsprung weight and greater accelleration. Both the front and rear driveshafts now use captive pins which are held in by the bearing so no pesky grubscrews to strip should you need to clean them making maintenance much easier.
The rear of the 808 is pretty traditional, again using smaller bearings and a carbon shocktower - apart from that its pretty straightforward with no surprises. The differentials however stray from the norm a little, they use a small plastic bushing that goes around the smaller diff bearings, this allows xray to use smaller & lighter bearings - These can however be replaced with 'normal style' larger bearings by leaving the plastic bushing off, this will give slightly longer life at the expense of performance, for the average club driver this might be a good idea.
Xray has always been renowned for having one of the most adjustable cars available..Sometimes a lttle too adjustable and it was sometimes far too easy for the average racer to get lost in all this. Xray have chosen to narrow down some of the options to make this more user friendly. This does not mean that the car is 'dumbed' down though, Xray have worked hard on the settings and found a good setting on the options that you may normally get lost on (lower front kickup,antisquat and toe in) and have them now set as standard taking the hard work out of getting a good setup. Naturally however option parts are being released for those that like to tinker with these settings.
The hingepin holders are now made from a tough composite material (as opposed to the xb8 aluminium ones) which again saves weight and have already proven to be very durable, again xray aluminium option parts are being released for those that like their 'bling bling'
Ok, so how does it perform? To answer that we decided to make the 808's first race meeting a tough one.. So we went to Dave Cromptons track at pendle, North West England. This has dirt, tarmac and some decent jumps - and usually water and mud when it rains, which it did later in the day!
The engine fitted was my trusty ops speedster which i knew ran well, so i could concentrate more on the car and give it 100% commitment.
The first practice I was a little nervous as we had no spares, and with a track with jumps this is always a concern so I drove quite slowly to get a feel for the car. everything went smoothly, the car felt good and I soon settled into a consistent rythym. 9 minutes later just as the tank was getting low I had no steering to the right so we stopped the engine and went back to the pitting area. It turned out a rather large stone had jammed in the steering link and stopped the servo moving... phew, I thought I'd broken a servo but the practice was good because the tank was empty and no crashes..I had a big smile on my face haha.
So now the fun begins - time to race and I'm nervous.. What if i break it, what if it falls apart (legitimate concern - I built it! - jimmy),what if its slow around the track compared to the other buggies. Now is the time to find out just how good/ordinary the buggy is - or how slow I am!
Xray provide a neat little Hudy Off-Road set-up guide with the 808 - handy!
I left the kit setup on for the first run and drove quite steadily, trying not to crash for fear of breaking something and having to go home early. The car went well and was very easy to drive, very neutral in handling with a nice chassis balance although it felt a little bit 'springy'. Straight away I felt at home with the 808 and was soon forgetting I had no spares and started to drive the car a little harder. I crashed over the triple jump (which is very tricky to get right in 1 jump) - the car rolled end over end for what seemed like an eternity, landed back on its wheels and i carried on... But there was something not right with the front end, it looked very low but i carried on and finished the race winning my heat.
Upon inspection after marshalling I saw that the plastic balljoint on the bottom of the shock rod had broken and this let the car ride very low at the front. Admittedly it was my silly crash that did it, it could have broken on any car I suppose, so onto race 2.
The Start of round two and down comes the rain - and when it rains at Pendle the track gets very muddy, with standing water so I was reluctant to go out with a brand new car but thats what it's made for - so on we go!
We changed the shock setup on the back to 1.4 pistons to help with the landing from the jumps and fitted grey springs all round which are a little softer than the kit silver ones and decided to push a little harder this time. The car was much better this time, the grey springs suited the car better for me and this was also confirmed by another xray 808 driver on the day, the car was even more easy to drive now and I could push the car harder even in the muddy conditions,the car ran faultless even tho it was getting lower and lower to the ground as the race went on as more mud made it heavier and heavier. This didnt stop me taking the win though and after 2 rounds of qualifying I was in 2nd place overall. I was shocked as this was higher than I had ever finished before with the older xb8. A lot of people agreed how good the car looked on the track.
The 3rd and final round of qualifying I decided not to go out and race as there was now standing water and big pudles on the track and I didnt want to ruin a new car and risking the engine and all my electrics so I cleaned the car instead. I found another broken plastic balljoint under all the mud - this time on the front camber link and it must have broke at the same time as the front shock one, but because it only had a hairline split in it you didnt see it under the mud.
After speaking to some of the team drivers later on the xray forums, it seems that the front droop screws were not in far enough and on the crash the shock took the force of the crash and thats what broke the part.. Touch wood in even more testing and some very fast heavy crashes no more have broke.
So after 3 rounds of qualifying I ended up 4th in the A final which I was very pleased with to say that the car had not been driven until we got there that morning!
Setup wise the car doesnt need to be 100% to work ok.. Even if your off a little on the setup it still drives ok and lets you get away with a little more, its safer to drive and that means more consistency for the driver, this leads to more speed and the confidence soon builds up,even after only 2 races it felt like I had been driving the car a lot longer as it did exactly what i asked it do very easily..its almost like cheating!
Is it a good club car as well as a racer? compared to the old xb8 the 808 is more nimble, it accelerates faster, turns faster and corners like its on rails, the back end does not break loose like on the xb8 which means you can drive it harder and be more in control..Ah and did I mention it jumps like a kangaroo!!
The car is tough as old boots is all I can say,we have done some extensive 'crash testing' trying to break something, I gave up first! We had some initial doubts about the front carbon shock tower but it hasnt broke, we have landed upside down on astroturf many times and bounced across the ground and still no breakages or anything came undone, its easily as strong as anything out there with build quality second to none.
For the club racer the car should enable them to drive more consistently as the car is hugely forgiving, with consistency comes speed, this can only help the average racer.. I keep getting asked if I've bought some new thumbs from somewhere - the car is that good. so to sum up..go buy one now,you wont regret it!!
And finally a big thankyou to Team Xray driver Kevin Brunsden of apex models.
