Finally the hop-upped chassis arrived and Flo and I could assemble the cars. We met in my office and started assembly after 4 weeks of waiting. We ended up wrenching on the cars for more than 6 hours and stopped working at 2 a.m. in the morning. After the wrenching marathon we ended up in the pup district of Hamburg having some beers to celebrate the next step on our way to become competitive Kyosho Mini-Z racers.
Flo will make a review of his ride soon, so I start revealing my racing machine to you. My Mini-Z sports natural aluminium coloured chassis with all the cool option parts, money can buy. The front-axle is a mix of PN Racing lower aluminium a-arms, upper aluminium-arms and the Reflex upper arm-holder to adjust caster and camber quick and easy. I also took the original kingpin and mounted it upside-down to avoid binding and canting, associated with the original knuckles. The system works amazingly smooth and perfect.
The carbon-fibre plate of the lower suspension arm set from PN Racing allows the exchange of the steering-plate in a very short time. I bought a 0, +1 and -1 degree steering plate to adjust the car on the track. The PN Racing aluminium powerpod is machined from one piece and the motor is fixed on a separate plate what allows for a quick removal of the motor, easy adjustment of gear mesh and also an adjustment of the hight of the motor. Flo and I opted for the 98mm wheelbase, what suits to the most important bodies as the Mosler, for example. I also bought Delrin 64pd spurgears which are lighter than the stock spurgears and reduce running noise significantly.
The LMN-carbon-fibre T-bar (some call it H-bar) have a perfect tight fit to the chassis and the screw holes are also very tight, resulting in only a small movement of the bar after a crash. This then leads to only a minor tendency to become tweaked. The hardness seems to be perfect from my first feeling. Even after an excessive treatment of the carbon-fibre friction-plate and it's plastic-friction shims, I was not very happy about the result. The solution was the Atomic titanium friction-plate, which has a much better adhesion factor against carbon-fibre. The damping-operation was way smoother and consistent! To adjust the look of this overhanging plate, I spend some time in my basement to start the next hacksaw-massacre and lifted the outline for less weight and a much better look. To assemble the plate, I took some silicone o-rings under the plate to reduce vibrations and to soak-up some energy, when crashing.
As one of the last tasks I lightened the Robitronic transponder by ripping the electronics out of the plastic case (that I designed some years ago when I used to work as a designer for Robitronic). I then wrapped the transponder in shrink wrap to reduce weight and dimensions. To secure the transponder on the chassis I used a good double-sided tape. After the chassis was completed I started to prepare my bodies to check for the correct ride-height on the chassis. After checking, I was a bit surprised, that ALL original body side-mounts sit too low. The body would touch the ground and the wheels would touch the body from the inside. I decided to glue the body-side-mounts 3mm higher to rise the body for more ground clearance. I also cut away the inner front light housing a little wit a rotating multi-tool, because the front wheels touched it at full steering angle and fully compressed front suspension. Front and rear wheels need enough clearance to the body and the body needs enough ride hight to the ground. Otherwise your car will make some very strange things on the track as it bottoms out during cornering or when the suspension is compressed over bumps.
That's it for now. Stay tuned for our our first track testing report!
So long, Michael
