MadRat - Making it club ready to race

[jo90]

Hiya

I just managed to pick up and ex-demo MadRat for £59.99 for my son to start getting used to racing....and for later when i start racing off-road again.

So far I can tell the shocks will be a weak area from what I have read. I don't want the best of the best and i dont mind if they are not adjustable collar (using spacer clips is fine). What would people say are the best upgrade for them ? Happy to buy second hand here too.

I've ordered bearings already to replace the oilite brass bearings in the hubs. Noticed that the rear hexes where plastic and nakered, so im temporarily using some 4mm Hotbodies one's off my TCX to get the car by for now. Is there a good replacement for these, assuming the X2 uses metal ones ?

The towers are the graphite plastic type, are these up to the knocks club racing would give, giving as well my son is totally new to racing, so the car is bound to get a knock or two ?

Aside from this would there be anything else anyone recommends as spares to carry ?

I realise I could go mad upgrading it all, but perhaps then it would be just buying a whole new car, so this is more about making sure hard wearing area's are covered and not worrying to much about competitive performance.

Cheers for your help, it's really appreciated !!

John

[lordnikon]

John sounds like a decent start with the bearings. If you are running a brushless setup then certainly think about the diff balls being upgraded to ceramics. Idler gears can be problematic, again you can get metal or nylon upgrades for these.

Shocks wise a used X2 or X2C set, Team associated B4 ones all fit. I believe even ansmann do some metal cased ones for not much $$$ although they will be the non-adjustable type.

[Lee24h]

The graphite shock towers are okay for club.
Level although i bin my x2c at the end of a straight and i broke a front
One it depends on how much straight line speed you have
And if your likely to crash full throttle at the end of a straight
Atomic carbon make a 4mm carbon tower which i am buying at the moment

[cigbunt]

spares are cheap, get wishbones all round, front/rear shock towers, and front bulkhead.... i dont think you need carbon but its a "nice to have"

make sure your got the right tyres for the track that'll make all the difference!

[Hpi_guy]

I run my mad rat standard apart from electrics and bearings, and one set up correct it corners perfectly, the only things that I break are rear hubs and front chassis plate my stock shocks are fine

[Dave Dodd]

Defo the idler (ar28t)
front lower nose cone
front upper susp arm holder
the shocks may be okay for a while.

if your using a mild motor like a 13.5t or slower then the diff will be fine

dont see many broken wishbones or shock towers on a rat

hope this helps

[Dandare]

These are the budget Ansmann alloy shocks:

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/ansmann-...products/33115

Some say these fit too, not sure whether you'd need to mod them for the correct amount of droop though, at least the top mounting is alloy (unlike the above Ansmann ones) & they're threaded bodied too:

http://www.cmldistribution.co.uk/cml...tId=0000006168

[Mad-Wolfie]

all i ever really broke on the rat is the front kicker (but the design has now been improved so less break now & the only other real problems i have had are with the t-plate & the hinge-pin holder.. the pin holders tend to break easily & the t plate can get stretched where the hinge-pin holder is secured through it as the holes go oval shaped & eventually work through, other than that the only thing i broke is the c-hubs as the studs can weaken the plastic if tightened too much or if they take a knock at the wheel.

The only other upgrade i would suggest is to change the shocks as the tops tend to go weak & will pop off - the kit shocks are certainly very capable for club racing (i've even seen rats at some bigger race series on kit shocks), but the tops will weaken you could prolong the life a little by using PTFE tape on the threads, but the best upgrade is just to change the shocks. I have used the 75mm Aluminium Damper shocks on the front (part number 201000037) & the 95mm version of the shocks (part number 201000039) on the back but using the springs & parts that come in the kit shocks changing the weak plastic body for the metal ones.

The idle gear is a weakness, but i find keeping the diff tightened up can help as it seems to be a problem with heat, a loose diff will generate more heat in the gearbox & then with the build up of heat this softens the plastic so the teeth strip easily, also a drop of 3-in-1 oil keeps things cool, a lot of people say don't put oil or grease on the gears (just in the diff) but a quick squirt helps keep the temperature down so for that reason & that reason alone i recommend it.

Hex's used on the X2c are pretty much identical to the rat kit standard, the easy fix is a tiny drop of superglue on the pin when fitting to stop the hex sticking in the wheel & the drive pin faling out & getting lost & by only using a totty drop shouldn't be too difficult to remove the hex should you have a bearing failure or hub fall to bits.

I've only ever broken one shock tower & that was when a car landed on top of mine when landing off a jump & took the impact with the shock tower.

Spares wise, i carry a pair of wishbones & a kick-plate (just in case) the other thing i would tempted to carry is a set of c-hubs, as they can break when the stud pulls through, however fitting a longer stud & fitting a nut on the back can stop this pulling through.. if you see a split, a drop of super-glue will stop it getting weaker.

[Mad-Wolfie]

Originally Posted by Dandare

Some say these fit too, not sure whether you'd need to mod them for the correct amount of droop though, at least the top mounting is alloy (unlike the above Ansmann ones) & they're threaded bodied too:

the plastic eyelets on the alloy ones i have used have broken (usually as a result of me driving it into something solid) but i had some old ARE-1 shocks so used the parts from them to fix them again, however although i've not tried, i'm pretty sure the X2c shock top eyelets will fit as you can buy just the top eyelets, bottom eyelets & end caps as a seperate part (number 125000430)

[jo90]

Thanks for all this info guys, I really appreciate it.

The car is effectively to get my son racing. Im predominantly into Touring right now with a view to doing some off-road once a local off-road track opens (Maritime).

I will organise getting some of the cheaper shocks, towers and hubs as spares for him. It sounds like the car was a good bet to get him started which is good to hear.

If anything else can be thought of that might help I will always appreciate the knowledge.

Cheers again

John

[Lee24h]

My biggest advice is race clean and slower until you get a feel for it otherwise you'll use your spares quickly
remember
to finish first you must first finish

[Mad-Wolfie]

Originally Posted by Lee24h

My biggest advice is race clean and slower until you get a feel for it otherwise you'll use your spares quickly
remember
to finish first you must first finish

spot on, if you can get round with a silvercan / kit motor without crashing, then go for the faster motor later.. i've lost count of the amount of people who just keep getting faster motors in the hope it will make them get better laptimes, yet the fact is they could get better laps if they didn't crash or learned the basic principles of car control - more powerful motor = more crashes.

Likewise, we have a guy at our club racing a mardave with an Ansmann clash 21 motor & cells.. he pootles round at a snails pace with really slow laptimes, but come the end of the season he is always picking up a trophy because he never crashes & ends up beating all the other guys who are running brushless motors & lipo power, purely because he just keeps going round without having marshals chasing his car as he never stuffs it.