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After an amazing event in January for round one of the Tamiya Championship Series, the series returns to Ottawa for round 3! Hosted once again at the Sutton Aviation Raceway. This time the races move outside to a brand new freshly paved track. With Billy and Mihia at the controls expect another flawless event.

For more info:

-Ongoing updates visit the FORUM
- TAMIYA Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2HbYbODx9s

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The Schumacher Cougar SV2 is Schumacher’s brand new 1/10th 2WD off-road buggy. It is similar to the existing Schumacher Cougar SV with some important upgrades. This new buggy was released in late March of 2012. The build itself was very simple as the kit is packaged similar to all Schumacher products. This particular kit has 5 bags labeled A thru E and inside each of these there are packages for each step in the instructions that are labeled 1 through 56. The build itself was very enjoyable and it’s awesome building a car and not having to look around for the right screws, bolts, spacers and other small parts that can be tricky in some other kits.

The build starts with one of the most noticeable differences between the Cougar SV and the Cougar SV2. The Cougar SV2 has a brand new hard anodized alloy chassis. It is 8 mm longer than the standard Cougar SV chassis. The alloy chassis has a beautiful laser etched Schumacher logo in it also. The new chassis gives the Cougar SV2 a lower center of gravity making it much easier to drive consistently. The chassis has optional lengths that can be purchases as well using the same Cougar SV2 body (The front bulk head has 3 body mounting positions that can be used.. Seen later). This setup option will be helpful for different types of tracks and surfaces.

The next steps are installing the lipo battery tray and the rear arms onto the alloy chassis. The Cougar SV2 comes standard to run a 2 cell saddle lipo pack (Or a shorty lipo pack). The kit comes with a 4 degree toe in rear strap (same as the Cougar SV rear strap).

The Cougar SV2 has upgraded steering levers which are durable. This offers an extremely linear steering response. The rest of the front end is the same as the Cougar SV. Similar to the Cougar SV there is no servo saver built into the steering rack. Some racers may prefer to run a servo saver on their servo. As noted earlier in this review the Cougar SV2 has optional body mount positions. This allows racers to run the same body (without reaming new holes) to fit the different option chassis lengths.

The next steps include installing the transmission. The transmission of the Cougar SV2 comes with new internal and external CNC gears. The differential in the transmission can be run in a low or high position similar to the Cougar SV. The differential in the kit is a small diameter lightweight big bearing differential. It is designed to have a low rotating mass increasing performance.

When you install the rear driveshaft’s you will notice another subtle difference from the Cougar SV. The driveshaft’s have a longer bone and a shorter axle when comparing to the Cougar SV driveshaft’s. This has been tested by Schumacher and shows this change gives the Cougar SV2 buggy more rear traction when comparing the SV to the SV2.

The front and rear shock towers are very strong made with 4 mm thick Carbon fibre. The front shock tower is similar to the Cougar SV however there are more positions available for more fine tuning compared to the Cougar SV. The wing mount used is similar to the SXIII and moving away from the wing mount used on the Cougar SV. This makes the wing more rigid compared to the Cougar SV giving better rear down force. The existing wing mounts (which use elastics) can still be used however if you wish to run those instead.

There is a new anti-roll bar used on the Cougar SV2. Schumacher tested this new roll bar and noted better handling when compared to the Cougar SV anti-roll bar. The other huge advantage to this anti-roll bar is it is now mounted to the carbon fiber rear piece instead of mounting to the bottom of the transmission casing. This makes it easier to access the sway bar and removes the chance of the thin plastic piece breaking where the sway bar mounted on the Cougar SV transmission casing (This happened on my Cougar SV).

The Cougar SV2 comes with a beautiful set Pro Spec Big Bore Shocks with titanium nitride shafts. These shocks are the exactly the same shocks used on the Cougar SV and the CAT SXIII and have proved to be an amazing set of shocks right out of the box. The pistons for these shocks are CNC machined as well.

Another difference you will notice when looking at the Cougar SV2 is how the rear transmission is mounted to the top deck using a turnbuckle. Personally I don’t enjoy the look of this compared to the previous method of attaching these two pieces, but it comes with more practical uses. This piece allows you to modify the stiffness of the chassis which will be a nice setup tool depending what type of track and surface you are racing on. This also allows you to remove or change the motor without removing the battery posts (Unlike the Cougar SV).

Some other new features when comparing the Cougar SV2 to the Cougar SV are:
- new bearing seal all around and larger transmission bearings (This makes all of the bearings in the kit last much longer)
- new spur gear cover. This will protect the spur against dirt / etc.
- Larger alloy motor plate to keep the motor cool.
- New aerodynamic body and undertray

The Cougar SV2 is one SEXY Buggy!

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The build starts with installing the motor mount on the 2.5 mm thick carbon fibre chassis. The motor mount on the CAT SXIII is a unique design with many advantages. It’s a ring that acts as a clamp to secure the motor in place. The motor can be removed from the vehicle by loosening 1 screw. The motor can slide from front to back by loosening 2 screws. It is by far the nicest motor mount I’ve used on an RC car. The motor is placed in the middle of the chassis to help with car handling and jumping.

The next steps are to make the slipper clutch, the pulleys and install the belts. The pulleys are CNC machined and are beautiful. They are not plastic pulleys like most 4wd buggies running belt drives. The belts are efficient low tension belts that mesh perfectly with the CNC machined pulleys.

The CAT SXIII kit comes with two ball differentials. These are similar to the other highly successful Schumacher Ball Differentials. The differentials can easily be changed to be set at low or high diff height and the belt tension is also easily modified with the Schumacher SXIII.

Once the differentials are installed the shock towers and wing mount are next. The wing on the SXIII was changed from the SXII. It no longer uses the elastics to secure the wing in place. Both types wing mounts have their advantages and disadvantages. The old wing mounts are still compatible if you wish to use those. The shock towers are very strong and are made of 4 mm thick carbon fibre.

The front and rear arms attach to the transmission housing with pivot blocks. This is a nice feature making it easy to modify the width of the buggy or changing the toe of that end of the car. The rear arms can be mounted in two different locations which can be a helpful tuning option. The servo mounts directly to the Transmission housing as well giving it an extremely solid connection to the buggy. This is also a nice feature because you can remove the servo without having to remove the under tray.

The SXIII comes with a beautiful set of Pro Spec Big Bore Shocks with titanium nitride shafts. These shocks are the same shocks used on the SXII and the Cougar SV and have proved to be an amazing set of shocks right out of the box.

The SXIII is setup to run a 2 cell Lipo saddle pack. This feature optimizes the weight distribution of the SXIII making the car handle and jump better than the SXII (when running a stick pack). The SXIII also has a new body which is designed to be more aerodynamic and provides better protection from dirt and debris.

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Within the Ottawa R/C community we have a wide variety of R/C interests.There is the hard core racer to the casual basher. Somewhere in the middle, you will find the videographers and scale builders. These guys spend countless hours building, painting and customizing beyond what comes in the box. From custom bodies, light kits and sound systems, there are no limits. Thankfully, they love to share their hard work with us as well. The following are some YouTube channels from Derick, Sang and Chris. Some cool footage of bashing to scale to some high level racing. Well worth a viewing if your into anything R/C. Check out the Media section for more videos and channels. If you have a channel in the Ottawa area drop me an email. I’ll add you to the page: tkgracing@gmail.com

• 1983GMCvan
• 2SubaruBrats
• GCMRacing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b131NIsk-lQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy3U31Wf1Is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbpdKjQPTaY

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Here is my little write up on the latest Serpent 1/10 electric touring kit “S411LE”.  The LE (limited edition) is a standard S411 with some of the optional parts come standard in the kit . Beside the platform minor improvements, the LE kit also come with a set of high quality tools consist of four allen wenchs, one flips screw drivers,  two socket  driver sand a turnbuckle wench.  The LE kit sell for around $520 US.   The S411 kit come in a small box with manual and 9 different bags.  Each one of the parts bag is for the 9 different assembly stages illustrated in the small but will organized manual.  The assembly step show in the manual are logical and is very easy to understand and follow.

Stage 1: Prep the chassis plate.  Because I am lazy   I have only sanded the chassis edge although the manual suggested that the edge of the chassis should be seal with CA.   As you can see in the following picture, this LE (limited edition) is of kit # 204 out of 300.  Serpent only released 300 of such LE kits to the market.

Stage 2: Build the motor mount and put on all the bulk heads and the rear arms

Stage 3: Build  the rear gear diff.  The gear diff can be build  in 2 or 4 gears configuration.   The following picture show the 2 gears configuration.

Stage 4: Build the front spool and put the drive belt on.

Stage 5: Install front Arms, install mid shaft and install steering rack.

Stage 6: Install rear upright and axle and install 1.4mm rear sway bar

Stage 7: Install Chub, and drive axle and install front 1.4mm sway bar

Stage 8-9 : Build the shock, install shock tower and install front bumper.    The shock is pre-built!  All you need to do is to fill it up with shock oil.  Serpent shock has the same design as the original losi shock where you fill and close the shock at the bottome of the shock.  It use a rubber foam inside the shock to control volume compensation and re-bounce.  One advantage of this design over the more conventional design is the fact that you don’t need to empty the shock in the process of changing piston.

On the track, the car in stock form is pretty quick and easy to drive.   I have been racing the S411  for three race weekend now and the car is getting better with setup changes each time out.  The car react to small setup changes very well.   Just in Feb 15 race, I have make a switch from a 1.4mm rear sway bar to a 1.2mm rear sway bar in attempt to improve stability on entering corner at the end of the long straight.  This .2mm changes in sway bar thickness  has a profound impact  on how the car handle and yet it didn’t really scarify performance in other area on the track!

In the end I am very happy with the S411.  It has excellent price performance ratio and  decent fit and finishes.  The only things  that I  would complain about is that it is difficult to get the suspension blocks in the orange color not to mention  local support for parts are non existing.

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Building a TRF product is always something I look forward to. The instructions are well done and everything labelled perfectly and the geometry settings from the manual are really very close, making it a drop your electronics in and race type of setup. So it was no different when I got to build the new TRF417X. Each time I build a new car I alwasy seem to say “this was the best build yet” and I got to say it yet again this time around.

Opening the box you will find everything neatly packed. I always like to lay out all of the bags get my tools ready in a nice neat work space cause once I start a build I can’t leave the table till I’m done.

So let’s get started!
The chassis is a 2.25mm thick woven graphite. The changes from the original 417 are a norrower deck with more material being removed after the front and rear suspension mounting locations. The first bag of parts concentrates on the drivetrain. Starting in the rear mounting the bulkheads and building the included gear diff. I like to use Gilles Groskamps online video to build the perfect gear diff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_DhcfcO8dI

Assembly after bag A looks like this:
On to bag B:

Continueing with the drivetrain working on installing the front bulkheads and spool. Another option is to run the gear diff in the front but we’ll revisit this when I talk setup.

Included in the new car are some really nice balancing weights that serve as battery mounts as well. Very nice piece!

Next up is bag C. This is the tedious part with all the links lol! A little tip when you assemble is to make sure the arms freefall on their own after all of the susupension blocks are snugged up. This will ensure a free moving suspension on the track.

And after bad C assembly pics:

Onto bag D:
 Its getting close with the shock build and tower installation . I will also do a shock assembly section later on to answer some of the guys questions related to shock bulding.

And some after shots:

Another cool feature with the new car is the motor mounting. Now you don’t need special spur gear to get your mesh properly set.

And the race ready product

First impressions were good with the new hot rod. TQ and fastest laps but some bad luck while leading the main curbed the perfect day. Going to make some small changes to hopefully get some more performance and go even faster next time out!

Thanks to Joe Glover for this build review. Follow the discussion on the FORUM

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Schumacher Mi4CXL Build / Review

The Schumacher Mi4CXL is Schumachers new 1/10th Competition Tourer 4WD Sedan. The car was released in late January of 2012. The build itself was very simple as the kit is packaged similar to all Schumacher products. This particular kit has 5 bags labelled A thru E and inside each of these there are packages for each step in the instructions that are labelled 1 through 50. It’s much more enjoyable building a car and not having to look around for the right screws, bolts, spacers and other small parts that can be tricky in some other kits.

The build starts with installing the transmission on a 2mm carbon fibre soft weave chassis. The tranmission can actually be flipped either left or right to balance your car better (This decision would be dependent on the weight of your electronics / battery.) In this review it was built having the transmission built on the left.

The Mi4CXL kit comes with a Ball Diff for the rear and a light weight spool for the front. Changing the belt tension or removing the diffs from this car is extremely easy. Once the top deck is off you only need to remove 2 screws to remove each diff. This makes access to your diffs very easy and it allows you to change the belt tension or diff height with little work.

A potential option part you may want is the Spec R Gear Diff for the Mi4CXL (G868). This is not required, but it is note worthy that the option is available to those you like gear diffs.

The top deck included with the Mi4CXL kit is designed for Asphalt. If you will be running your Mi4CXL on carpet it would be suggested to buy the Carpet Top deck. This runs around 25-30$ (U3914 C/F Top Deck Carpet – Mi4CXL).

The top deck is mounted fairly high on this car and is longer then the normal top deck in a racing sedan. This design was done to control the flex of the chassis. With the carpet top deck the Mi4CXL is very stiff, expecially considering the main chassis is only 2mm thick.

The Mi4CXL kit comes with a unique single pivot steering rack, gold turnbuckles and pre-assembled rear and front drive shafts. The front and rear shock towers are 3 mm thick carbon fibre. They both have multiple mounting holes.

The pivot blocks attach to the alloy transmission housing. This makes modifications to the rear toe and ride width of the car easy to modify. The front and rear arms come with droop screws as well.

The shocks in the kit are beautiful with Nickle-Teflon coated shock bodies and Ti-Nitride coated shock shafts. They are very simple to build.

The sway bars in the kit are mounted higher then Schumachers previous sedan. This was done to make the anti roll bars have a more linear response. These sway bars can be easily changed when doing setup changes as well.

The motor mount on the Mi4CXL is a very unique design with many advantages. It’s a ring that acts as a clamp to secure the motor in place. The motor can be removed from the vehicle by loosing 1 screw (The fact you can slide the motor easily from left to right also aids in balancing the car). The motor can slide from front to back by loosening 2 screws. The two screws remain attached to the rear transmission housing and slides back and forth.

The chassis has two mounting positions for the battery (10 mm forward or backwards). The chassis also has center balancing holes to check the balance of the car. Both of these can be helpful tuning items.

Special Thanks to Matt Stacy for this write up.

 For more info on this build visit the FORUM

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A few weeks ago my good friend Clint showed up at Dirt Trax with this neat looking radio that really caught my eye. Having had some frustrations with a few of my spectrum receivers lately I was willing to take the 40$ chance on one of these radios for my self. Its was hard to resist a  2.4Ghz radio that also does VRC! As many of you know I am a sucker for great deal and like 20$ lipos this radio is a real bargain.

Included in the box:

-Transmitter
-small 3 channel receiver
-bind plug
-short antenna tube
-DSC to USB VRC adapter
-under $40USD cost.

Features:

- Model Memory
- Servos NOR/REV
- Steering Trim
- Throttle Trim
- Dual Rate
- End Point
- ABS Settings
- EXP Settings
- Trainer Port (for VRC)
- CE & FCC certified

Like most transmitters you either love or hate the way they look. Personally i don’t mind its looks, the wheel and the orange/red stickers on it are probably the 2 things I’m not crazy about.  So the the first thing I did was remove and install some decals of my own. The wheel will have to wait till i find time to remove it and see if i can use an aftermarket wheel.. Then again that would almost double the cost of this radio! LOL

When you first power it on the blue LCD with white lettering really catches your eyes. All of its 8 key features are right there on the screen, no sub menus to get lost in. And this is where you are reminded its a budget radio. Everything you need to go racing or bashing is there, but there are some notable functions missing such as sub-trim,idle up,timers and adjustable frame rate. Also missing is an instruction manual, which is just a PDF download a way, not big deal. I was able to work my way around the thing without it till i got to the point of Binding a receiver. This is where you will want the manual in front of you. Out of the box though the radio comes bound to the receiver.

How to bind the RX (receiver) to the TX (transmitter):

1. Plug bind plug into CH3, turn on car, the LED light should flash
2. Hold down bind button on transmitter module while turning on the TX
3. The light should go steady now
4. Let go of bind button, turn off car, remove bind plug, turn off TX
5. Turn on TX and then turn on car, it should be bound now

My first test for this radio will be on VRC PRO! For years I just keep finding excuses not to try VRC.. I guess the 30-40$ USB adapter was part of what held me back, but more so, was the need to have your car connected to a laptop or worse using up a receiver and a receiver pack just for playing the game. For the price of the radio i would not have expected the USB adapter to be included but this was the feature that really pushed me to buy this radio. The USB adapter plugs into the DSC port on the radio and of course into your USB on your pc. The wire is about 6ft long which should be find for most people. I found the FS-SM100 USB SLOT FMS SIMULATOR online for under 6$ so this could be a cheap option for anyone that has a DSC port on their current radio. I could not test it on my DX3R as it does not have a DSC so I cannot confirm its compatibility. I installed VRC Pro on my 6 month old HP Quadcore laptop and calibrated the controller using windows game controller calibration. First thing i did was play around with the controller setting to make sure the game was happy with what was connected then i jumped into a practice run! It sucked. And yes Zoofy knows why…. I however, did not right away. So i played around with steering exponential and calibration. The steering was just messed up and the car not drivable. Finally i figured it out… Yes Zoof, the sub $600 laptop lacks a good graphics card. I’m a victim of  ”you get what you pay for”. When i turned on FPS readout it was clear, 30fps just was not going to cut it. So after a few clicks in the graphics options i was able to get the thing up to 80fps now i could drive! The radio worked great! I can now race VRC! At this point i feel my 40$ was well spent but there is more… Next up a road test in my 4wd buggy….

Test two will be a track test. As many know that Durango DEX410 chassis is slim and a real PITA to fit electronics into. My ESC of choice being the GT2.0 lpf is a fat unit hogging up much of the the limited real-estate on the chassis. The included receiver is very slim and slid in place nicely and i was able to wire everything up without issue.

The radio had a good feel to it, the 8 double “A” cells helped give it the “quality” feel that my DX3r lacks. The trigger was a bit large and even with fuel tubing on the brake side of things my finger felt loose. So i took a ligher to it and molded the trigger to grip my finger more. Swapping between this radio and my DX3r all night was pretty easy, i was comfortable using it and it did what is was supposed to do, glitch free and with zero issues.  But there was one thing found missing just before my main. I had dialed up the brake power on my ESC just before the main and during warm up i found i had too much braking power. Unfortunately the radio lacks brake alt. So you cannot reduce braking power on the fly, you have to dig into the endpoint adjustment setting to make this change. Not a deal breaker but a negative just the same.

For the money this thing is impressive. I would recommend this to anyone that wants to run VRC or needs a affordable 2.4ghz radio that’s not traxxas ugly. It passed my noob test with my wife, she thought it looked better then the DX3R a radio 10x more expensive. From talking to Clint i found out that on rctech guys have hacked the software and improving this radio, so perhaps some of the missing features are available with a bit of work. Ill update this after some long term use and once I look into the hacking options for it.

PROS:
-40$
-easy to use
-great display
-nice weight
-8$ receivers!
-included VRC adaptor
-feels good in the hand

CONS:
-cheap looking wheel
-no instruction manual
-only 3 characters for naming your models
-lacks some features of more expensive radios(sub trim and brake alt)
-decals and branding just screams cheap radio

Discuss this on the FORUM.

So small! RX between spur gear and ESC under the red wire!

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Dirt Trax RC just finished it’s 6th Carpet Series. The series consisted of 8 races between November 23, 2011 and January 11, 2012. Dirt Trax is an indoor Off-Road Carpet RC racing facility. The series consists of 1/10 scale electric classes including 2wd buggy, 4wd buggy and 2wd Short Course.

In the 1/10 electric 2wd buggy class Sutton Aviation driver Jake Solt took top honours with his Schumacher Cougar SV. Solt had an impressive 4 TQ finishes and an impressive 4 first place finishes in the 8 race series. John Gagnon driving his Losi 22 finished in 2nd place behind Jake. John had a strong showing with 2 TQ’s and 2 wins throughout the series. Joe Limlaw driving a Durango DEX210 finished a respectable third place. He had one TQ and four podium finishes in this series.

Jake Solt with his Schumacher Cougar SV

Sutton Aviation founder Billy Sutton took the series in the 1/10 electric 4wd buggy class. Billy was driving his Schumacher CAT SXIII. He had four second place finishes in this series. Joe Limlaw driving a Durango DEX410 finished 2nd. Limlaw had one TQ/win and three podium finishes. Sam Souky driving a Durango DEX410 finished in 3rd. Sam had many top 5 finishes throughout this series.

 
Billy Sutton and his Schumacher CAT SXIII

In the 1/10 electric 2wd Short Course Team GFX Designs driver Shawn Fraser took the series with his Team Associated FT SC10. He had two TQ’s and three wins throughout the series. Jeremy Medaglia racing a Team Associated SC10 was second in the series. He had 3 TQ’s and 3 wins. Shawn Robinson driving a Team Associated SC10 was third in the series. He had 1 TQ and 5 podium finishes

Shawn Fraser with his Team Associated SC10

Additional information and full results can be seen on the FORUM
Matt Stacey