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Old 2018.04.18, 07:58 AM   #16
EMU
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I bought plenty of Autoscales when they were $30. At $40 I bought a few. At $50, I only purchased white bodies. It's hard to justify for racing, especially when the quality of the plastic felt more brittle in certain colors. I still have my first MR02 enzo autoscale, and its still in pretty good condition. Yellow bodies seem to be much more durable than red. The white bodies typically can out bash any of the Autoscales. The plastic has a little more give.

I really don't want to see any of them go away.

As for sanctioned rules, it is something to be worked on... but since the majority of mini-z racing is underground, or isolated, it is really difficult to get on the same page. The best rule set that I have seen for mini-z was the Carolina cup series.

Even with 4-6 tracks within an hour of one another, the rule sets were very different. One tracks "stock" class was near modified speeds (fastest motors that were AM stock fet safe), while another would be a Kyosho stock motor, and another PN 70T. Gearing up for regional events, youy had to adapt to the rule set of the host. I have about 25 mini-z cars, mostly because I raced at many tracks and many of those cars had purpose built setups for specific classes. Some tracks were carpet, others rcp... which meant switching from one surface to another would require an entire overhaul to dial the car to the surface.

I want to be optimistic about the situation. If an investment bank has purchased Kyosho, they see potential in it. I hope they can see the potential that mini-z has, and get an update and increase in production of the Autoscales that are so nice to see on track.

Arch, I just wanted to apologize for using my ugly white bodies that I ran at the last race... I had intended to use a different 360gtc in mod (gold) and my f355, but the white 360gtc and f40 just worked better. The gold one is a beauty on lower traction and is more aggressive. Too much for me to keep up with after my hiatus. I sent you a pm regarding setup advice for 90mm a few days ago, don't know if your seen it.
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Old 2018.04.18, 12:19 PM   #17
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Never need to apologize I swapped my 90mm over to a 2.5 that already had the double a-arm last weekend. This improved things but still looking to dial it in so to speak. I have decals for the 911 GT1 coming and will either run the F40 or the 911 GT1.
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Old 2018.04.18, 02:12 PM   #18
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A couple pointers for the f40, side vents over the rear wheels should be removed from the inside. A little styrene or lexan cut to fit and glued in the place of the vent for strength helps. I covered mine with a green vinyl.

Place the side clips a little lower than you normally would, to increase clearance between the rear wheels, to shock and the body. You can trim the upper interior if the rear window for damper/shock clearance, and cover the window with lexan covered in vinyl as well to hide the hole.

I would try the body with and without the rear bumper. See whether you like the mass in the rear. If you prefer without, you can trim the rear bumper considerably of material without being visible on track. Removing the screw posts and glueing into place. A little fabric medical tape over the glue on the seam (while glue is wet) will prevent the bumper from coming off in a rear ender.

The front wheel diameter is restricted, so 19mm wheels are recommended.

The 911 gt1 tends to need less body work to be competitive... but I love my f40. I had removed my rear wing on my body for use on an awd years ago, and used reflex wings to dial in downforce for stability. I used a simple spoiler that mleemor had given me in 2010 to dial in the rear. Removing the wing reduces the CoG of the body, which can help sort traction rolls from that end. Something that was needed on the AWD when I was running it.

Hope the pointers help. If you need pics, let me know and I will send them your way when I have time.
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Old 2018.04.24, 06:34 AM   #19
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I don't like what I'm hearing, this definitely opens up any Kyosho line to risk, including Mini-Z.

Quote:
Originally Posted by EMU View Post
Getting dropped by KO for electronics didn't help their case either.
Do you know when this happened?


Quote:
Originally Posted by EMU View Post
Kyosho lost a lot of racers with the switch to the sports electronics
Any more information on this also?
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Old 2018.04.24, 06:48 AM   #20
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The KO issue, do they not pair with them at all on any products any longer or is it just selective reduction in specific lines, ie; Sports Series and the like?

Regarding Sports Series, you can't really blame them. God knows most of the NA market has been crying about the cost creep and the only way to combat this is with a 'entry' level product. We can all agree the I-Series was a flop the first time they tried this. I don't believe the Sports Series in and of itself was terrible. You got what you paid for in the end. What got everyone tangled up, and rightly so, is the constant shuffle of frequency systems. ASF/MHS isn't as much as issue as it's backwards compatible. FHS/FHSS is frustrating in that those who bought in, are not stuck with gear they can't use moving forward and are already sunsetting the FHS gear after relatively short run. Our local LHS sold through a lot of Sports Series kits, more so than ASF or MHS. I still have a tool box full of Sports Series cars to figure out what to do. It's cost prohibitive to convert to FHSS or ASF with DasMikro boards given I would still need to buy transmitters and KT-18's are vastly overpriced. It's only marginally more expensive to simply replace them all with FHSS and leave the rest to scavenge parts.

FHS is still better than Xmods, just for some perspective... I would argue to some degree that Sports Series, for all it's faults, brought more in than pushed away. The DC club experienced real growth with the Sports Series in play. Much like the Xmods, getting them out there an in people hands is more valuable than catering to a smaller group of highly competitive racers. At one time, everyone seemingly had an Xmods. Sports Series seemed to have at least learned lessons from I-Series and did a better job. Far from perfect mind you but again, it's 'entry' level.

Last edited by arch2b; 2018.04.24 at 06:54 AM.
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Old 2018.04.24, 08:09 AM   #21
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I agree that Sports series probably brought in way more that it caused customers to leave as competitive drivers still had an option.

The Sports series definitely brought in a lot more profit for the Mini-Z line also. It was strategically engineered that way:

Newbie buys Sports RTR Kit > mods Sports chassis > buys Sports chassis upgrade radio (forget what it's called) > car not competitive enough > either buy ASF/MHS conversion PCB or chassis kit > needs new radio as previously upgraded sports radio incompatible.

This sales strategy is annoying as hell, but understand product incompatibility is intentional to drive sales. The ASF and MHS kits aren't priced so high due to cost, they are priced that high to drive sales of the much lower cost Sports kits and force the above upgrade path.

Ironic how what we're complaining about was in the interest of profits, and it's now the loss of profit that jeopardizes our beloved hobby.

Food for thought.


My concern is we're going to lose the competitive MHS and brush-less lines, in addition to fancier auto scales. Kyosho Japan's website doesn't even have the Ferrari auto scale pictures on their product pages any more due to licensing. The Sports lines are definitely more profitable than the Pro lines.

Last edited by BitChar-G; 2018.04.24 at 08:15 AM.
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Old 2020.01.15, 08:30 PM   #22
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Any reflection on how Kyosho has faired? I haven't been here for a while but it feels like re-release of popular bodies, great scale American Classics in 1/10 scale. The large push on the 20th anniversary marketing materials.
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