Aluminium hex mystery on JRXS type-R Solved

Found a source of the problem.

I found out CVD, LCD axle hole got enlarged after 1 1/2 seasons of use. the hole on my axles are oval shape.

I just tried new set of LCD and no problem with a same hub, same BBs, all same old alum hexes.

but here is the kicker

I looked at my 8years old XXX-S CVD hole and they are fine, perfectly circled holes.

only thing I can think of it is XXX-S CVDs are made by MIP here in the USA, and I believe all this LCD and RCD's are made in Taiwan even thought all the packaging showing "made in USA" (old green color tag) on mine

Losi once been sued for improperly used a “Made in the U.S.A.” label and lost, then they changed all their label to "Made in Taiwan" tag (new grey color tag) you can read the settlement here

in my past experience American steel products are far stronger than one that from Asia and I think this is a same case too.

now if your wheels get grindy even with new set of BBs then you will need to go buy new axles for $14.00/pair which will last longer than $12.00/pair alum hexes.

drilling a hole closer on this soft steel axle made things worse and I think Losi knows that.

Awesome race day at the beach

Went to Midland beach at Staten Island yesterday, even thought we had some clouds in the morning brave bunch of nuts gather together to put down awesome racing!

2 mains for Mini, 2 mains of 17.5 Touring, 1 Main of VTA and bunch of drifters.

weahter was so good through out the day, then right after all the race over we had flash shower for bout 5 minute under sunshine, then we had a HUGE rainbow on left side of the beach! what a beatiful site that was!!!

for myself I qualified 2nd and finished 2 nd in the A with my XXX-S,.

it is kinda hard to drive this car fast, since weight of mine is 1480Grams compared to 1420-1430 of all this new chassis also equipped with a timing boost ESC's,

I can see clearly newer cars moving quicker on every corner

TQ was my pal Alex V with a Hotbodies Cyclone, A main winner was also a Cyclone! (Jay F, from a long time R/C family)

many told me the Cyclone is da car to drive on asphalt and I guess they were right.

but I'm going to continue drive my XXX-S on the beach as long as I can stay on same lap with other machines.

XXX-S ready to go

2AM finally finished XXX-S for Racing, Hopely weather help us.

things I done for this race

• 41T pulleys all around, old 42 pulleys start slipping bad, I had few 41T pulley with a spool pad on it in my box, removed pad from one of pully to use for RR Diff, this change also lower internal Ratio to adapt a smaller pinion for easier motor removing.
• pad style spool on front, unlike sandpaper style (original XXX-S) this set up absorb bit of damage by skipping little under heavy load, good things for the outdirves.
• installed http://www.mcmaster.com/ thrust bearings on RR Diff.
• drive with LRP default dead band on ESC, I always moved Throttle trim forward until car barley start rolling, realised that takes lots of my brakes away, LRP dead band is more than what I like but I rather have powerful brakes.
• found out all those inner spacers I have to adjusting drrop in FR shocks taking oil volume away, I had 600 CST in last run, I might go 700-800 to make static feel same as before.

Racing this Sunday with my XXX-S

Going to Midland beach track at Staten Island this Sunday.

About a month ago I broke offset rear A-arm and had no spare, I went out to John's track with Regular arm as it show on left, car was pushing on 90deg square turns on power.

I bought a set of off set rear arms since then, also going to change pulleys (FR/RR) after 9 years of usage and going to try JRXS Type-R style front spool pad instead of sandpapers came with the XXX-S G+ cars.

I had sandpaper spool for a while with out any problem but lately its been slipping a bit, not sure if that is from age or not but I like the Idea of protecting tranny with that pad types of spool that can protect car's power tranny

Club race at Nanuet last night

Man! we had so much fun I ran my car to the bone!

nice flowing lay out in dry summer night, waht else can you ask for?

Aluminium hex issue on JRXS type-R, XXX-S

I had a wheel binding on my car few times and find out wheel axle pin got caved in to the wheel hex so deep, the wheel hex was pressing hard againt "Inner race" of My balls!

I guess this could happend to any car that use a HEX adaptor to mount a wheel

I asked this to my extended brotherhood of RCtech.net and found out "using a Serrated nut and tight em in right torque" can prevent this problem.

I remember at 360raceway I had to keep tighten a rear right wheel all the time and I have to admit I did over tight that few time.

The M4 Serrated Nuts are available from HPI (# 87270, 87269, 87267) Tamiya (42143)

XXX-s front end mod, In-board pin angle

There is about 3deg "in-board pin angle" on the front end of a XXX-S built in and that makes front end feel stiff cause that weird angles put pressure on hinge pins.

and I found following paragraphs from JRXS manual

" In-board Pin Angle: The in-board angle of the front hinge pins is adjustable in 1 degree increments from 0 to +2 degrees (angled out).

The car comes with a 0 degree front pivot block. Running more inboard front toe-out (+1 or +2 degrees) will provide a more responsive feel in the steering with less overall steering. Running less in-board toe (0 degree) will result in more stability with more overall steering."

Do I want more stablillity and more steering on my car?

Absolutely!

so i just put a rear suspension block(LOSA9848) on the front to square up the front end to make my car more 21st century car.

but that made my car's front end too narrow, I swapped wheel hex with pair of 0.255" (LOSA9688) to make 190mm front end.

front end feel lot more smoother, springier.

XXX-S

Yes I'm also going to talk about the XXX-S in this blog

the car have a sealed tranny that makes perfect for a parking lot track or a track with lots of dust.

I ran this at SOCAL raceway (asphalt) back in 2001-2002 for a season then I brought it back to life with me on 360raceway which was carpet surface in 2008.

Car was workign well on asphalt with normal (3-4mm?) droop with soft springs @ SOCAL but once I learned new way to measure Droop (1-2mm drrop over RH) and little bits of stiffer springs, the HELL broke lose!

one of the X-Losi driver showed me how to droop correctly for the XXX-S, just like old offroad cars this car need to be droop with shock's own length! (inside shock limiters) cause this car have a droop screw on the bumpers (soft rubber like meterial) once you put little bit of pressure on it droop changes every seconds!!

once I start drooping with shock length car became much smoother or lets say the suspension working correctley, in other words..adjust a spring collar 1 or 2 turn makes difference on Riding height.

I have few detail like to share, I ll be back soon

bye for now