Mission Possible – Schumacher Mi4

UK based company Schumacher’s range of ‘narrow’ electric touring cars has come a long way, since starting in 1996 with the SST, which turned out to be a very successful TC platform. What followed was the exquisite Axis mid-motor cars that proved difficult to set-up but as fast – if not faster – than the SST range of cars. The current Schumacher TC platform is called Mission and has evolved from the Mi2(EC), Mi3 and Mi3.5 that went back to a more conventional design and suspension geometry compared to the Axis chassis. The latest incarnation is the Mi4 that offers the same race-proven suspension like the Mi3.5, introduced in 2008, but with a more LiPo-friendly chassis and bulkhead layout making it ‘future ready’, with more and more race meetings allowing the use of 7.4V LiPo batteries. We found out what the new UK tourer has to offer.

Front
Nearly every part of the front suspension is redesigned compared to the Mi3.5. Only the medium flex wishbones come from the predecessor. Most noticeable are the new front bulkheads that allow the suspension plate to sit at an angle doing also away with the often fiddly alloy mounts for the ball studs. Ball stud height is adjustable via different washers and link length is adjustable with one of the three different suspension plates. Included in the kit is the shortest of the link plates allowing the longest possible upper links. Longer plates are optionally available to shorten the upper camber links to adjust the suspension set-up.

Moving further up the bulkhead the new shock bracket is visible. It’s made out of thick(er) 3.0 mm carbon fibre and shows some revised mounting positions for the shocks. To fine tune the belt tension the front spool sits in purple alloy housings known from the Mi3 range of cars. Differential/spool access is as easy as 1 … 2 as you only have to unscrew two hex screws to remove the alloy locators of the eccentric housings and presto: the axle is removed from the chassis. The wishbones mountings are revised compared to the Mi3.5 as they are of a one-piece plastic design instead of the multi-piece alloy versions found on the previous car. However the alloy mounting brackets are available as optional parts in case you wish to add that extra bit of rigidity or tuneability via shims.

Also new on the Mi4 is the centre point steering. Well, stop! The centre point steering is known from the Mi3 range too but the new set-up shows forward facing ballstuds instead of the vertically mounted on the Mi3. The updated design allows for better adjustability via shims in combination with the three different holes of the lower mounting plate. The steering set-up itself does not incorporate a servo saver, therefore an external one for the steering servo is supplied. Since we opted to use a strong metal gear servo we choose the one of the strong plastic servo horns supplied with the kit. In case you use a plastic geared servo we recommend to use the servo saver mentioned.