Coming from Schumacher is the Contact Oval engine for 1/8th scale oval stock cars. Made in collaboration with legendary nitro engine manufacturer Picco the engine was specially designed to meet with the requirements of 1/8th stock car racing with a lot of bottom end torque and power with relatively low RPM. The new Contact engine achieves that with this engine due in part to its low exhaust port.
View more images and the specifications here
Available from May is Radtec’s new aluminium main chassis for the Xray T4’16. Featuring a very common design with herringbone-shaped cut-outs under the battery and electronics compartments the symmetrical chassis is machined from 7075-T6 aluminium and it comes black anodised and with silver edge details. As with all alloy chassis it is intended for the use on high-bite tracks as it offers less torsional flex than a carbon fibre chassis, making the car easier to drive.
Source: Radtec [radtec-rc.com]
Coming soon from Yokomo is the YD-2 rear wheel drive drift car chassis kit. Specially designed for RWD drifting the car features a specially designed chassis with an unique transmission and motor layout that reminds of 2WD mid motor dirt buggies with its high layshaft position. The somewhat higher centre of gravity makes for improved chassis roll during cornering while the front suspension parts allow for the high steering angles needed for drifting. Available as composite or carbon fibre chassis variant the car allows to use standard or shorty LiPo battery packs, it utilises new rear YD-2 hub carriers, YD-4 parts fit as a setup option, and the kit comes with a large rear diffusor. The YD-2 is set for a release this Spring.
Coming from HRC Racing are the 8mm long M4 droop screws with delrin insert. They add to HRC Racing’s already existing short-style droop screws and not only protect the chassis from becoming damaged, as it can occur with standard grub screws, but they also allow for more precise settings. The new longer variants come in handy when running high arm mount settings or highly angled lower arms.
Team C have introduced new aluminium shock mounts for the GT8 range of 1/8th on-road cars. Usable on the GT8, GT8L and GT8LE the brackets fit into the original shock mounting position on the lower A-arms and make for a more angled shock position in order to fine-tune the suspension geometry. The shock mounts come anodised orange and in sets of two.
Coming from Destiny for their RX-10S 1/10th electric touring car kit are an aluminium main chassis plate and new hard compound plastic parts. Starting with the chassis, the part is CNC-machined from aircraft-grade 7075-T6 aluminium and it comes gun-metal anodised and laser-etched. It offers a symmetrical design for equal left-to-right flex characteristics, strategically-placed cut-outs under the battery and electronics section for optimised torsional flex and it makes for improved handling especially on high-bite carpet surfaces.
The rumour mill is spinning at high RPM when it comes to possible new Team Associated vehicles after first prototype images of the new Stealth 3-gear gearbox surfaced and (accidentally?) information on a possible sixth generation 2WD off-road buggy leaked earlier this week. On top of this Team Associated’s own Rick Hohwart released an image of a possible AE formula prototype that he raced to a win at a local race held at the Tamiya America Race Track this past weekend. In a comment Rick added “I won the main with the car. Thanks to Bob [Stellflue, Team Associated designer] for designing it and setting it up for me.” We keep you posted on new information in either of the cases.
Japanese company Morotech have introduced the 12MW conversion kit for their Corally-based 12WC 1/12th scale pan car. Podium finisher at the 2014 IFMAR Electric On-road World Championships in the hands of on-road veteran Hideo Kitizawa, the conversion now received a makeover with harder carbon fibre parts and several refinements such as adjustable aluminium front chassis stiffeners, new inner castor blocks, two new chassis bridges behind the steering servo and in front of the battery as well as a new rear pivot block. According to Morotech the kit is for experienced modellers only and it will become available shortly.
Source: Morotech [morotech.jp] & RC Monkey [rcmonkey.jp]
