I received the MRCG Friday, Sep 5. I built it up with a Spektrum SR3500, Xray XMC-180 ESC, and used a Hitec HS-65HB servo while I was waiting for the Futaba S3154 to arrive. I used the Atomic Z2 as my motor. PN Ceramic diff, with 8/44 PN Pro Match pinion. I made a couple TRP 900mah battery packs. I like the power delivery, not quite as punchy as the R1Wurks or Orions, but still good.
I took it to Action RC the next day, which would be my only test day before the PN race. The servo would not fully center, and felt very tight. This made it very difficult to get any real testing done, as I couldnt push hard out of the corner since I had to manually center the car with the TX wheel as I got on the straights. Cornering speeds were faster than I had anticipated.
When I got home from Action, I see a package with the Futaba servo in it. I installed the new servo, and it really straightened everything out.
I decided to use body posts for the PN race, I stole some from an X-Ray M18. mounted them up, and the body fit perfectly.
My initial impression of the MRCG on the track, I immediately had to switch to a softer front tire. The track had a lot more rear traction than what I was used to at Action. After switching the tires, it took me a few laps to get used to the car. It took a little while to get used to the steering, since the car has much different balance than the MR02. It feels more like a 94mm car than the 98mm car it is.
The rear was very planted, and responded very well with power. I could get on power much earlier than with an MR02 and the car would still rotate. I could have gone softer on the front tires, but I didnt want to quite yet since I didnt have the handout motor yet.
After getting the handout motor, I installed everything the same as I had the Z2. 8t/44t spur. Got back out, the motor was not as smooth, and had much more drag. After a few laps I started to get used to it, and started to push a little more. Where I thought the car would start to lose traction after a brake, hard throttle, it wouldnt.
After about 10 laps, the car started slowing down a lot. Then stopped on the track after the right sweeper with a cloud of black smoke. I had steering response and could hear the motor spin up when I throttled. I melted the pinion off
Being that I was in the high speed section of the track, I was hit hard by someone. Breaking the delrin tie-rod horn that is screwed onto the tie-rod. Before even running a qualifier, the car was basically out. I didnt have enough time to rig up a servo saver, so I used a servo horn. I guess that was my biggest mistake.
I start to brainstorm as I look through the parts that I had to rig something up. After a while of searching and thinking... I was in the first qualify. I had to go out and race. I was qualifying with Sai Tam, Bill Crotty, and a couple racers that I race with in SI. While I was qualifying, I had an idea. After the race, I marshalled... then grabbed a stock top shock and started modifying it to use for the tie-rod horn. Installed it, as well as the Giro-Z wire leads then had to run in my mod 2wd heat.
After mod 2wd I had to marshall, then after that was the pan class. My car wasnt ready, I had a coupld more things that I needed to do. So I worked on the car as they qualified. I got it out for practice afterwards to test the new steering assembly. Lots of slop, but in the corners it was good. It felt better than it did with the HS65 servo, but I couldnt really take any more slop out without making it bind
I ran it in the next qualifier, was a little under pace due to the slop in the steering... and melted the pinion off again. My Anima II that I had for pan class was VERY hot, much hotter than the one in mod 2wd. Maybe it is the Xray ESC supplying more power...
My mod car shut down on me during the first qualifier. It had done it to me once when I was running at the local track in stock class, I didnt want to take any more risks of it happening so I converted my backup MR02 pan car for mod 2wd.
I worked throughout most of the night (until about 4am) on all 3 of my cars that I was running to get everything set up for the next day, I tried to remove a little more slop from the ghetto rigged MRCG steering rack. Also wired up a Better Power 1000mah pack to use, since it should keep the motor from getting as hot as it did. I went to sleep for about 3 hours (which was 3 hours more than I did the night before
).
Got to the track, set up my pits... and tried my stock car on the track. Immediately it traction rolled. Grip had gone up, temp and humidity were much higher that day. This made it annoying to work on the cars and drive as well. It was very sticky.
I put in the Better Power pack and got on the track. As soon as I would fully throttle, the car would go to fail safe. I couldnt use the pack with the car. Grant had given me a 9t and 10t 64p pinion to use to gear the car down a lot more. These were the ones with the set screws. The 9t burnt up as well.
I decided to run an MR02, I didnt have enough time to really develop the MRCG before the race. I swapped the motor, and installed the 10/54 ratio. The backup Pan car was now my mod car, so I had to convert a different 2.4 for mod. I pulled the front chassis from my Mazda 787 setup with WTF which had a Nascar mount, and the rear end from the old mod car that had shut down. Got everything set up, and took it for a spin. The car was VERY fast. Much faster accel than the mod car. After a couple laps the car started slowing down a lot. As I was bringing it in, right at my feet it stopped and blew a big puff of white smoke. Ed opened it up to do the fets, and one had shifted about 30 degrees and the one below it had fallen off the board. He changed the fets, but couldnt get reverse to work, and the new fets fried when trying to get reverse to work. So the board is toast.
I was out of pan completely. I am going to work on my MRCG over the next month, and try to get it prepared for the Worlds. 2 things I need to do, servo saver, and heatsink for the motor. I think it is a great chassis, my issues were not really a problem of the chassis. I had a really HOT Anima II, which fries pinions and boards, and a freak incident without a servo saver