If it won the Worlds is must be good
(is it?)
Feb 24th, 2005
Some persons are a little bit more passionate than
others about RC cars. I'm probably one of the helpless cases.
The 415 since it was launched was calling for me.
However the absurd price of the car in our market prevented me
from buying it. It's kind of idiot to buy the car for more than
600€ when I race with Xray.
But when Marc Rheinard won the IFMAR World
Championship I thought it would be a nice idea to have this
collectible. I waited for the MS version (Satoshi Maezumi) that
has a few differences from the original 415 you see on the
picture.
I got one (not for 600€ of course) and I built it
like if it was for racing. But it wont be. It's just a
collectible.
I found a couple of big differences in building
when compared to the Xray cars. In spite being a very good quality
car, with excellent aluminum parts and very well molded carbon
parts, it needs a lot of shims everywhere.
The are a lot of very small aluminum shims of
different thickness to use on the suspension, on the steering etc
etc etc.
In the end, the car has slop. The proverbial
Tamiya slop. At first glance it's obvious that this car has to be
driven by someone who knows how to drive. This is nor a crash
proof car like the Xray. The graphite molded arms and hubs will
break for sure. Especially the rear ones. They have a particularly
flimsy look.
The MS version includes the new suspension
(Reversible arms), the new white low friction belts, new shock
tower mounts among other details that were used to win the World
title.
This car comes with central and front one way. It
seems to be the choice of every World Champion for asphalt. It
suits me perfectly, not only because they are better than me, but
because it's what I normally use. I only race in asphalt.
The car includes a set of Tamiya short Yellow
springs and matching pair of roll bars. This is probably where
the car excels when compared to others. The Shocks are amazing.
So smooth and so well built that are a fest for the eyes.
However I noticed a strange thing on the car.
Even when completely assembled the pre load shock nuts on the
top most position still leave the car with 5, 5.5 mm of chassis
height on the back.
Unless you screw the plastic shock end all the
way down it's not possible to have less clearance to the ground.
On my Xray I never run more than 5mm unless the track is very
very rough,
The instruction manual is another amazing piece.
It's done for complete beginners in spite of telling you how to
build a world class competition car!! But, no basic setup to
start...
In the mean time a friend of mine bought a new
Tech Racing MY02 Monster (the basis for this Tamiya car) and I'm
going to build the car for him and I'll make a review of the
process.
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