Test driving the Piranha P2

[aaron_]

As this is my first post on the "new" forum, I'd like to introduce myself first.
My first contact with rc was quite some years ago. I first tried planes (5min flight, 1 week repair), then boats (well, not much action going on when there's no big enough pond around) and finally came to offroad rc-racing.
I'm doing it only just for fun, so no sanctioned racing for me. Apart from driving these things, I'm quite into the technical aspect so I did several articles on ball diffs, dampers, etc. and reviews which you can see at www.offroad-cult.org.

Regarding my reviews - big thanks to jimmy for showing what great photos should look like!! To put it bluntly: they taught me not to show just "something" but use depth of field, angle of view etc. to create a special "feeling" - though it's sometimes hard to get such things with a small sensor compact/bridge camera.

Now, let's move on:

The piranha P2 is a concept car of a friend of mine that's aim is to show off what is possible with today's technology.
Apart from several donor parts at the rear and front end (which are not hard to guess ) everything from the carbon/kevlar tube chassis up to the PET body is handmade.

The P2 may not look like a typical 2wd buggy, and neither does it handle like one. Driving the piranha feels more like driving 4wd since the rear end is soo stable yet responsive. (now I understand what Charles Sinclar - www.2wdrc.com - meant when he compared the rear end of conventional 2wds to a pendulum)
The P2 is not only stable but very predictive, so there are no nasty tendencies while accelerating, braking or cornering.
On the other hand, there are still some things to get right: Steering isn't quite where it should be, featuring only ~ 70% of other 2wds steering throw, which together with the not yet tuned front suspension adds quite some understeer.

Because of its stable driving characteristics, the piranha P2 could benefit from a good amount of oversteer which would make it very agile, yet controllable I guess.
However, due to LIPO battery (NiXX Sub-C won't work weight-wise), some other nasty stuff and a mere 1200g, it will never be legal under sanctioned racing.

[xx4-nutter]

good god !

that thing looks shit hot very nice, any pics of the guts ?

[PaulRotheram]

Pics of under the shell:

http://30486.rapidforum.com/topic=101474415088

[Lew]

Well that look's shit hawt!!! so slim though :O!! good job on making it.

[xx4-nutter]

Originally Posted by PaulRotheram

Pics of under the shell:

http://30486.rapidforum.com/topic=101474415088

hahaa a few mins after i noticed

cheers

[jimmy]

Hi Aaron and welcome! Thanks for the kind comments, the photos look GREAT

indeed, this project just looks amazing! really like it! The body off shots are really really cool.

[BenG]

Dude, I love that car. I wanted to build a 2wd car not too differnt to that, only with a Bj4 transmisiion. How did you make the chassis? Is it possible to buy a kit to do it?

Thanks

Ben

[Groomi]

Great to read all the info about this, really interesting stuff! I would never have thought about reforming coke bottles into wings etc. and the carbon monocoque is excellent.

Would love to see more of this sort of thing.

[zaquiz]

Awsome!!! Keep up the good work!