Audi A4 -
Mini Z
MR02 RM
Chassis
Let me
start by saying this might be the nicest looking RC car I have
ever driven. This car could sit on a shelf and be a
display piece, that is until you drive it, then it might never
sit long enough to collect dust again. The car I tested
was the Kyosho Mini-Z with the MR-02 chassis. The body is
made to resemble the Audi A4 driven by Mattias Ekstrm in the
2005 DTM series and comes in a readyset package, all I had to do
was install the antennas and the batteries and I was ready to
run.
The body is
an extremely close match to the real car, with every little
detail finely detailed. The rear splitter, the winglets,
even the mirrors are very well done.
The paint
and decal work on the car is also amazing. You can see in
the photos that the blue has a sparkle to it that really helps
it pop.
The MR02 chassis that this
car comes with is a very neat and compact design. The
center of gravity is very low which definitely helps this car
handle well through the corner. The chassis is very low to
the ground which does require you to run on a very smooth
surface, any irregularities or pebbles can cause the chassis get
hung up and not move. But any normal kitchen floor, low
nap carpet such as an industrial carpet, or best yet any
concrete surface like a garage would be perfect.
The front suspension has
two small coil over springs which provide adequate movement for
a car this size. The rear of the chassis has a single coil
over shock mounted on top with a flexible T bar on the bottom.
This setup gives the chassis enough rigidity to handle well but
still absorb the small bumps that it may encounter.
This car comes with a 130
motor mounted very low and just behind the rear axle.
There are other motors that can be installed but the stock motor
provides plenty of speed for the majority of applications.
If you want a little more speed the pinion gear can be changed
out with a couple different choices that Kyosho supplies with
the car. They supply the tool to remove the pinion plus
all the different spacers required to make it an easy change.
The electronics include a one piece electronic speed controller
and receiver that performs very well, and a small servo that
provides plenty of torque to turn this car. All of the
electronics are mounted down the center of the chassis, this
leaves room for the 4 AAA batteries to be put along both
sides of the car. The car runs well on a good quality
alkaline battery, but for repeated use I would recommend getting
some rechargeable NiMH, they provide a little more power to the
car and they will save you a lot of time and money not running
to the store to get more alkaline batteries.
Overall this is a solid
chassis that holds its own in the kitchen or a race track, it
allows for a lot of easy adjustments. The car is also
extremely easy to work on. The body attaches in 3 places,
the nose and both sides just in front of the rear wheels, and
can easily be removed to work on the car or install new
batteries
The radio that is supplied
with the kit is a PERFEX 2 channel wheel type radio made by KO
Propo and requires 8 AA type batteries. The Radio was very
comfortable in my hand and even had a selector to move the
neutral point of the trigger, this allows a smaller or larger
hand to work the controller and both be able to be comfortable.
It provided enough adjusts that I could get the car to handle
the way I liked. The radio has adjustments for steering trim,
located just above the wheel, and throttle trim as well as
steering dual rate which can increase or decrease that amount
the front wheels turn when you turn the steering wheel. This is
very helpful if the surfaces you drive on are different, or if
the track or space is tight and narrow or wide and fast. The
last two adjustments hidden behind a door on the left side.
Now I have
been driving RC cars for about 30 years, and have raced them on
and off for the last 16 years but never really considered these
little cars too exciting. I drove 1/10 scale cars and
enjoyed the extra speed that these cars provide, but a few years
ago got a small scale off road truck and found it quite fun.
So, I was intrigued by this little car, the space required to
run it was much less than what I was used to, and it had very
decent performance.
So I took
it to a large carpeted room and began to layout a small twisty
track. I found the car stuck very well to the carpet and
allowed quite quick cornering speeds. The car was a blast
to drive and handled every type of track layout that I threw at
it. I drove for quite a while fine tuning my driving to
master the quickness of the car, and soon could control the car
quite well. I then went looking for another car, and soon
found someone who had one. This is when the fun really
started, we race for quite some time and found the cars to be
quite evenly matched. I thought I would have been reaching
for a taller pinion gear to get more speed but found that the
stock 6T pinion was quite quick enough for the space and layout
that we had.
I later
wanted to try the car on a different surface and decided to used
my garage floor. The garage is concrete, and probably had
some dust on the floor, but this was quite a different car to
drive on this surface. The car slid around a lot more and
required a lot more finesse to drive fast, but it was a lot of
fun to slide around a corner.
All in all
this car was a lot of fun to drive and the car came with
everything you need to work on the car other than a screwdriver.
The manual is very detailed and extremely through, it even
provides a full exploded view of every piece on the car.
This is very useful if you ever need to change or repair
something. The only downside of the manual was that it is
done in multiple languages, and can at times be hard to follow,
but if you take your time and read everything there is a
tremendous amount of information available to you. And if
you want to upgrade the car Kyosho offers a huge list of
optional parts from a motor, to chassis, to shocks, to wheels
and tires. You can even get different bodies, and modify
the wheel base to fit them.
If you are
new to the hobby or find that you have limited space to drive an
on-road car, it will be hard to beat the performance of this car
for the price.
Thanks to Kyosho for the car to review.
MikeG