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So you think I would stick to electric cars?
24 Nov 2006
 Kyosho may not
make the best running cars. But sure makes the best looking
bodies!  Porsche made a car just like this. I guess that they scaled up the Kyosho body...
How did this happen?
A friend of mine (that got me into gas cars) is a teaser. He once went to
where I work with one new car. The Kyosho GP Spider MKII.
It was inevitable. I bought one. I decided to learn first with the
electric cars before getting into the nitro cars. Tuning a motor is no
problem for me (you know, with planes this has to be done well. They
have the strange tendency to fall from the sky if the motor stops
 ), but I thought that these beasts were very difficult
to drive. I was wrong. They are not. In fact that are much more stable than
the top electric cars
Building
 This is
the rear and front suspension of my nitro Kyosho GP Spider MKII World
Cup.
On the front I have HPI progressive green springs.
Here they are, the
front shocks fitted with HPI springs. The original
springs were too soft for my taste and the front of
the car rubs the asphalt when braking. I've seen that
with other Kyoshos, so before I ran the car the
original springs were changed.
This car has metric hardware (yippee!).
 Precious feature, if you loose parts like I do. Trying to buy
imperial nuts and screws in this country is like trying to
find a needle on a haystack. And in the end the needle has to
be bought on the US...
Imagine the face of the guys at
Customs! A small plastic bag with nuts and screws ???? 
Very easy to build. There is only one
or two things to observe when assembling the car.
-
The top graphite deck has to be
filed where the belt comes out to the front diff.
Otherwise the belt will touch it and strip.
-
Put thread lock on every screw that
this car has. I didn't and the first day everything came
loose!!
The balance of the first day in loose
parts was:
Top mount of front shock
One ball bearing of the belt tensioner lost
One nut that holds the rear sway bar, lost
There is some slop (a lot in my
opinion) on the steering. It's by design (?). I hope I don't
notice it when driving.
Be prepared with shims for the wheels. You'll need at least 2
0.2 mm and one 0.1 mm for each wheel.
The diff are 4 gear type and Kyosho
sells the optional ball diffs. Never saw a car with them and
I'm not planning on spending money on that.
This car needs, wheels and tires (if
you are running on the Kyosho Cup, they have to be Kyosho),
radio, servos, batteries and (just in case) the front bumper.
This car comes with a pair of red (soft)
and a pair of green (hard) springs. However I changed the front springs
for a pair of HPI green progressive. Very wise decision. The
front doesn't rub the track and it turns like if on
rails.
The
bare GP Spider MK II World Cup Edition (uff!), gives a pretty
good idea of how complex it is. The fan makes it look a bit
more crammed than it is, but the rear is full of
"things".
I assembled the car completely,
but when I was installing the brake linkage I noticed that it collided
with the anti roll bar. The solution was to invert the bar.
Instead of being behind the shock mount it's now in the front
of the shock mount.
The wheels you see in these
pictures are Traxxas chrome wheels. Too beautiful to run them
(eh eh eh!), but perfect for pictures.
I'm using HPI radials on this
car (not pictured here) and the general opinion is -
"Much better than any other tire that I tried".
However they are illegal on the Kyosho World Cup.
Hop ups? This car has almost
everything that you'll need. The guys that win races have less
hop ups than I do, but better driving skills and better tuned
engines. That's what counts. A friend of mine changed the
pinions of the 2 speed gearbox and my electric HPI RS4 Pro 2
still catches his car on the straight...
Everybody told me that the
clutch was terrible and would only last two or three runs. I
guess mine is good, because it lasted for more than 10. How
lucky I am! On a batch of a dozen cars, having the only one
with a good clutch must be some sort of a miracle .
According to the owner of the hobby shop where I buy Kyosho
stuff, it is! I don't even order the hop ups. He calls me to
tell me that he has something for me...Good salesman!
 I chose the Porsche 911 GT1
body. I guess it was a good choice, don't you think?
It has everything, even those little things you will loose when
you crash.
Rear view mirrors, windscreen wipers etc etc.
According to the rules of the
Kyosho cup only 5 holes are allowed. one 40mm hole on the
front window, the complete left window, a 25mm hole for the
exhaust a 15mm hole for the glow starter and a big enough hole
for the antenna.
If this was enforced correctly
I would be national champion. Nobody runs with a legal body
around here...
The
only problem with such a beautiful body is the number of
scratches I'm going to make when I crash...
 Everything else is perfect. The
decals were applied with the soapy water method and a lot of
patience. I used Tamiya smoke color for the windows and black
paint for the mirrors wipers and wing posts.
BTW, the wing has adjustable incidence and all the accessories
are fixed to the body with nuts. Anyway, you'll loose them
(trust me, I know...)
Running
A detail
of the drive belt, brake and brake linkage
The first run was strictly for running
in the engine. A made 3 complete tanks with a very rich
setting. Even with that very rich mixture the car was fast,
but very controllable,
Before even going to the track I
thought that the front springs were a little too soft. I didn't
have Kyosho springs and I just threw in a pair of progressive
green HPI springs. The results are outstanding. The car turns
perfectly and the rear still has some tendency to depart cured
with the body on.
I installed a couple of hop ups that
you will see in these pictures, namely the fan. After the break
in period I made a run with the body on and the temperature
after the run was too high. Even opening the needle a little
bit to compensate, it was too much. Now with the fan the
temperature is OK.
The brake is very effective and the car
shows no signs of steer under brake. The aluminum brake mount
has a different system for actuating the brake and this makes
it a bit more effective. However I like a lot of brake when entering
the curve and I had to adjust something like a "drag
brake". Habits from the electric cars...
This car is fast, so fast that you can
roll due to adherence. A thing I never saw before.
Acceleration is amazing and when it shifts the 2nd gear the
top speed is tremendous.
It has a certain tendency to let the
rear go, but a good body will help cure this almost
completely. This is one of the most "noble" gas 1/10
cars I've driven.
After my experiences with it I also
tried a NEO Attack 1/10 rear wheel drive, and I have to say
that this car runs on tracks when compared to that
beast. A bit too much brake or gas and you'll be spinning
forever.
People say that this class of cars may
become very expensive. I don't think so. Unless you spend a
lot of money with hop ups (and some of them don't add anything
noticeable to the dynamic behavior of the car) the cost can be
kept to the fuel and wear parts (tires, the occasional glow
plug, belts and at some point in time a liner and piston). I
guess that a lot of this idea has to do with some speed
secrets that some drivers have.
The cost of running an electric (in my
case) is much higher.
Of course there is always a lot of
"black magic" involved when you talk to some
drivers. Everything is a mystery. The fuel, the tire inserts,
etc etc.
The best one so far was (at my first
day at the races) a guy with an HPI RS4 Pro2 with the front
shocks mounted upside down (???). I asked innocently - Isn't
this mounted the wrong way? The response was swift and
convincing. It lowers the center of gravity. I had an
incredible urge to ask if he had weighted the two shock
halves, but I decided to go my way startled with the
incredible tricks I was seeing. However he was using 21mm
tires with modified motors and the grip of the car was
comparable to a rally car on dirt.
With these Kyosho cars I also see a few good
ones. The guys that make their own roll bars, have different
tires on the left and on the right of the car, etc.
From now on I'll have my own secret.
I'll do a ritual dance before the race. If I don't break the
car I'll go the the final. (That's easy, because we only have
8 or 9 cars every race,
).
I'd rather be helpful to a fellow driver instead of
hiding a few lame secrets that won't guarantee the victory.
It's better to be appreciated by the other guys than being
known as a secretive unpleasant driver.
Strangely, I think that this could be a
good car for a beginner (I am a beginner!). It has everything a
chassis should have, a good performance (enough to enter
competition) and made with 1st class materials.
9 July 2000
My first race ever! Not bad, not bad at
all. I guess that this race deserves it's own page.
Just
click here to read all about it
Specs
| Motor |
Kyosho GS .12 |
| Receiver |
Multiplex Pico 4/5 |
| Throttle/Brake |
Diamond MG servo |
| Steering |
Tower Hobbies TS 53 servo |
| Radio pack |
NiMh 1200 mAh / 6 cell |
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