Hi Everyone – introduction :)

[mrbishi]

Hi everyone,

I m new to the whole Mini-Z scene and thought I d introduce myself – firstly, what a great little forum – have read some interesting threads here !

Through the recommendation of two friends who own modified mini-z s I decided to take the plunge and picked up a RX7 FD3S Initial D readyset kit.

http://www.jonhammond.net/images/random/mini_z1.jpg

http://www.jonhammond.net/images/random/mini_z2.jpg

http://www.jonhammond.net/images/random/mini_z3.jpg

I ve had plenty of fun with it in stock form but after having a go on my mates with the larger motors/ hop ups I had to place an order. $200 later I have a few bodies and A LOT of hop ups jetting there way over from the states – can t wait 🙂

One thing I have learn t is that mini-z s don t take too kindly to crashing and my poor RX7 body has gone through the wars in the small period of time I ve had it racing round on some really nice smooth outdoor concrete carparks. Unfortunately its lost both its side mirrors, rear spoiler, snapped antenna (had a spare), broken 2 rear stock wheels (using friends spares) and has sustained some frontal cracking (which a bit of araldite has been used to strengthen it).

http://www.jonhammond.net/images/random/rc_1.jpg

http://www.jonhammond.net/images/random/rc2.jpg

While waiting for parts to arrive I hooked up some homebrew lights –

http://images.jonhammond.net/dave/miniz_light3.jpg

http://images.jonhammond.net/dave/miniz_light4.jpg

http://images.jonhammond.net/dave/miniz_light6.jpg

http://images.jonhammond.net/dave/miniz_light7.jpg

A few observations I have made so far – I was getting the servo glitch problem when my transmitter batteries were down to the low green/orange LED – a fresh set of batteries solved this for me and another friend.

My stock diff sometimes decides to do some funny things all by itself – it will lock the left hand side wheel randomly and no amount of taking it apart and putting it back together will solve this completely – ahh well my ball diff should be here soon 🙂

Well thats about it! Look foward to continue reading all the interesting stuff in the forums.

Cheers, 🙂

Jon (aka. Mrbishi) 🙂

[dgs73]

welcome to the forums, mrbishi! Cool title, too… Yeah, you’ll find these things are heaps of fun, but damage can be unavoidable… most of us Sydney racers have multiple shells, which now just means multiple damaged bodies. But it’s all part of the fun. I’ll tell you now, these bodies dont hold up to well to pranging at 57 kph…:smiley2:

[mrbishi]

57 kph ! thats just mindblowing dgs73 🙂

What sort of motor/setup are you running to acheive that kind of speed !! I think I will stick with the xspeed for a little while (at least until my friends with mini-z’s all decide to upgrade to larger motors/turbo setups) hehe

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

[Geo-Z]

Jonhammond? Looks like jurassic park aint shut yet ;)j/k

Welcome Mrbishi! The mini-zs are nifty, aren’t they? the size, coupled with the amount of hopups available should transform a grown adult into quivering juveniles onslaught. DGS73 is the usual old timer here, so are ph2t and a few others. We race on Sundays at meadowbank. Feel free to join.

The stock diff is quite inadequate for prolonged use. I took it apart once and sanded the bevel wells, this resulted in much less locking up. The tinest grain of sand will do that! Do you race in a clean area? The best bet is to race indoors on ozite, but of course, no-one here has that setup.

BTW jon, what brand of ball diff do you intend to use? we recommend nothing less than the kyosho brand……

[mrbishi]

haha Geo-Z 🙂 Don’t worry I’m not a crazy old man with dinosaurs locked in his garage hehe 🙂

You sure are right about turning a grown adult into a quivering lil kid (hehe I’m not sure how much my wallet likes it 🙂 Wish I could join you guys but alas I’m over on the west coast in Perth 🙂

I think the stock diff problem could be caused by it getting dirty. So far we only race on ourdoor really smooth concrete carpark surfaces – we try to sweep it down as well as we can but I’m sure dirt still gets everywhere. Planning on maybe building a carpet track in the garage at some stage but need to read A LOT more on track construction.

The ball diff I ordered was:

TOPCAD (#MZA14BK) Ball Differential Set – Black

I hope this will suffice otherwise out comes the wallet again 🙂 hehehehe

Cheers,
—
mrbishi

[Jay-Z]

hey mrbishi, so mini Z`s are happening over there too!? how come the user name? ..used to have some old lancers done up for rally, what are you driving? ..& geo, long long time no see!!

[jamiekulhanek]

Hey mrbishi, and welcome to ausmicro.com!

Just you wait, this hobby will consume you! 🙂

The topcad diffs are usually not too smooth when new, and need a lot of breaking in.

In my 84km/h MR01 it was a fantastic diff once broken in, but do remember to drive with it fairly loose untill the diff action is very smooth and doesn’t feel grainy.

May i ask where you ordered it from?

And what other hopups did you order??

Cheers, and enjoy your stay :smiley2:

[Jay-Z]

oh yeah mrbishi, how did you bust your stock wheels? my miniZ`s been through alot (crashed, kicked, jumped, and foxton) and the wheels are a bit scratched but i can`t imagine them breaking! what`s the secret??

[bithed]

…wELCOME mRbISHI…Just my kind of fellow 😉 HUNDREDS of dollars worth of hopups you say ? Well anything breaks in the meantime just drop me a line…Ill have it there in 5 days 😀 or thereabouts…

[merc-blue]

welcome mrbishi
mini-zs are great im sure u will be ordering a nelly soon.. if u really love ur mini-z

[dgs73]

Quote:

57 kph ! thats just mindblowing dgs73 🙂

What sort of motor/setup are you running to acheive that kind of speed !! I think I will stick with the xspeed for a little while (at least until my friends with mini-z’s all decide to upgrade to larger motors/turbo setups) hehe

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

running a totally rebuilt Plasma Dash, 11t s/s pinion, 800mah Sanyos, 2×6 fet stacks. Alot of alloy and titanium. Pics are around somewhere, I have’nt had a chance to update my gallery as yet…

[dgs73]

Quote:

Jonhammond? Looks like jurassic park aint shut yet ;)j/k

Welcome Mrbishi! The mini-zs are nifty, aren’t they? the size, coupled with the amount of hopups available should transform a grown adult into quivering juveniles onslaught. DGS73 is the usual old timer here, so are ph2t and a few others. We race on Sundays at meadowbank. Feel free to join.

The stock diff is quite inadequate for prolonged use. I took it apart once and sanded the bevel wells, this resulted in much less locking up. The tinest grain of sand will do that! Do you race in a clean area? The best bet is to race indoors on ozite, but of course, no-one here has that setup.

BTW jon, what brand of ball diff do you intend to use? we recommend nothing less than the kyosho brand……

or there’s the Square diff… comes with a titanium shaft. Damn nice piece of kit… (thanks again BITHED…!!)

[mrbishi]

Heya everyone thanks for all the replies ! 🙂

Jay-z:
Always been a big fan of Mitsubishi particularly the Rally Cars. Hence the name 🙂 I was running my car with the 8 tooth pinion just doing runs on a nice long flat concrete carpark and simply turning/doing power slides broke both back ones. Im not sure but looking at the stock wheels the RX7 comes with they are quite thin around the area they attach and hence they sheered off at this point on both wheels. My other two friends with the RX7 bodies have also busted 2-3 wheels before they got there new bodies/wheels.

jamiekulhanek :
Ohh I think I’m already on the path to dangerous consumption by the mini-z monster 🙂 I’ll keep in mind what you mentioned about the diff – hey a question does anyone use “dry” style lubricants on any bits in their mini-z ? Another very expensive hobby of mine (downhill mountain biking) uses dry wax lube for the chain and I was thinking this could be perfect for the mini-z (doesnt attract dust etc etc like we lubes).

I ordered the parts from rcmart.com (woah they have a lot of stuff). Heres the list of hopups I got (hehehe bare with me 🙂

– Kyosho AutoScale B.A.S.C. MUGEN NSX 2002
– Kyosho AutoScale No.4 FORD FOCUS WRC2001
– Xspeed motor
– 3Racing (#KM-005) Rear Damper For Mini-Z
– TOPCAD (#MZA21S) Spring damper + Plate + Spare spring
silver
– TOPCAD (#MZA13S/1) Alloy F/Knuckle Arm W/Shart(1Deg camber)
– TOPCAD (#MZA38) King Pin for Mini-z
– Kyosho Parts (#MZW12) Front Stabilizer Set
– Kyosho Parts (#MZW5) Rear Suspension Plate Set/3
– Kyosho Parts (#MZW106) Mini-Z Inner Antenna
– Xtra Speed (#XS1-2SV/W) Mini-Z ALUM WIDE WHEEL – Silver
– TOPCAD (#MZA14BK) Ball Differential Set – Black
– TOPCAD (#MZA08S) Alloy Motor Mount for Mini-Z – Silver

and a few things I ordered elsewhere (Ausmicro and private)

– Unpainted AMG Mercedes CLK Shell
– Kyosho Parts (#MZ2) Small Parts Set For Chassis
– Kyosho Parts (#MZW17-30) Wide Tire 30C (MZW17-30)
– Xtra Speed (#XS7-1) King Pin for Mini-z (XS7-1)
– 1 x ausmicro anodized black wheel nuts
– 1 x ausmicro aluminium wheel nuts
– 1 x ausmicro bearings

Phew that was a long list 🙂 anything I’ve missed guys that you can suggest (mmm turbo/larger engine setup is tempting but I’ll learn with the xspeed first).

bithed: ahh yes I can see myself spending more dosh on this before I’m satisfied (if its possible to ever be satisfied). Do you run some sort of online store or have pricelists etc ? Or do we just drop you an email asking about certain parts etc etc ?

merc-blue: yes these woah-nelly things intruige me 🙂 wanna explain to me some more about them – I understand they are an add on that allows you to run larger motors that draw more current?

Woah 🙂 ok I think I’m done hehehe

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

Edited by – mrbishi on 14 September 2004 16:42:02

[jamiekulhanek]

I was gonna say you should have asked about hopups first, some of those do squat…the stabilizer is useless, i got one myself and the stock one does the same, if not, better job.

The x speed is still a quick motor, and takes some learning and skill to drive.

[TallduDe]

ahhhh someone else has bought the foxus shell!

but thats a highmount body.

you cant use the alloy motor mount with that one im afraid, unless you plane to use the focus body as a static item only.

but i would get rid of those ugly rx-7 fd wheels they are just wrong!

otherwise welcome to the boards

[bithed]

mrbishi what do you ride? i used to ride x-country before igot married…then i discovered theamount of fun i could have with my wifes cooking and a cold beer; or 3…Yes another expensive hobby 🙂 Bikes AND beer…

[mrbishi]

Got my rcmart order today – unfortunately after putting it all together its glitchy as all hell 🙁 its late now and I don’t have the patience to play with it anymore – anyone got any ideas that may help ?

Cheers,
—
mrbishi

[z-beam]

maybe the internal antennas the weak link:question:

[kevsta]

Quote:

maybe the internal antennas the weak link:question:

Yeah – that’s what stopped me from getting one. Most ppl that review it say it isn’t worth the money.

[mrbishi]

Hi guys,

Two friends of mine are running the internal antennae with no glitching at all so I doubt that the internal antennae itself is the cause. I can hold my car upside down in 1 hand and the transmitter in the other and the front wheels will glitch slightly to the left and right and not really be totally still for any amount of time.

Things I have done so far to try to solve this.

– replaced the transmitter with a brand new set of batteries – this fixed a friends glitch issues previously.

– added 104 capacator inbetween the two caps on the engine (read this on a webpage) – no noticable effect.

I think next I will try to take apart the servo and give it a good clean and try to give the trim pot as best a clean as I can without pulling it apart.

If all of this still doesn’t work I might try taking all the after market bits off and putting them back in 1 by 1 and testing. Before I fitted everything it was fine.

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

[mrbishi]

Something else that comes to mind that was kinda off was two of the screws (the top two in the pic) in the rollshock wouldn’t screw in any further than in the pic – just dodgy parts ? I tried swapping the shock around/swapping screws around but still the same result.

http://images.jonhammond.net/mini-z/mini-z_rollshock.jpg

I just realised the the Focus needed a high mount when I got the engine casing. I could still make the stock plastic one a high mount and use that right ?

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

[kevsta]

Quote:

Something else that comes to mind that was kinda off was two of the screws (the top two in the pic) in the rollshock wouldn’t screw in any further than in the pic – just dodgy parts ?

I remember asking the same question at the beginning of the year when installing mine. That’s normal, there are suppose to be like this to allow for movement and to sit a different angles if needed.

Quote:

I just realised the the Focus needed a high mount when I got the engine casing. I could still make the stock plastic one a high mount and use that right ?

Your ready set comes with a bunch of plastic bits, one of them allows the stock motor mount to be mounted in the high position.

Rather than put all parts on the car in one go, I tend to put things on one at a time to see if there is any ‘gain’ achieved from the part or if its just cosmetic.

For your twitching problem, is there enough solder on the antenna wire ?
K.

[mrbishi]

I’ll be sure to check the solder on the antenna contacts when I get home today.

I read an interesting thread here:

http://www.minizracer.com/forums/printthread.php?threadid=4595

I might grab some contact cleaner and clean out the little trim pot properly on the top of the circuit board. Now the next question what is the correct contact cleaner to get – I found all these below:

Jaycar Contact Cleaner Lubricant Spray Can

Jaycar Electronic Cleaning Solvent Spray Can

Dick Smith Contact Cleaner

CRC Contact Cleaner

CRC Switch Cleaner Lubricant

Any ideas – they all seem to do around about the same things but some are electrically conductive/don’t harm plastic/have lubricant 🙂 its all very confusing 🙂

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

[peteWah]

You need the paper fix in the servo…
Somebody_please explain this to mrbishi…
I have a sore brain:smiley2:

[bithed]

…i agree pete…i was getting round to it 😉

FIRST of all…i disagree with comments about the inner antenna…It ROCKS !! and if its not working them something else is the problem…Make your OWN inner antenna and feel the diffrence..I swear by the KYOSHO inners..They are really good…

SECOND…MrBishi; Pete mentions the ‘paperfix’…This consists of some paper folded up REAL small to keep pressure on the steering servo…fixes the flexing…to further that i have had great success with small bits of plastic cut from the packaging of any KYOSHO part…pile up a load of those to fill in the gap and you are away laughing again…

[jamiekulhanek]

Bithed means pack paper behind and down the sides of the TRIMPOT INSIDE the servo… stops it moving and glitching.

It does do wonders for like $0.000000000000001

Are you using NiMH batteries, or Alkalines??

[bithed]

Jamie sorry thats what i meant…my brain was in MONSTER mode…so long since ive had a date with a racer…

BTW Jamie our little discussion was never about money 😉

[mrbishi]

Thanks for the suggestions guys – I have read about the paper fix on elsewhere and will look into this.

Just returned from Jaycar armed with some contact cleaner and lube and 10 x 2300mAh AA’s (up till now I was using alkalines in the transmitter). My car is running the 900mAh AAAs.

I’ll let you all know how it goes tonite when I attempt to fix the prob 🙂

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

[jamiekulhanek]

You will notice a big difference in torque, speed and acceleration with AAA NiMH’s in the car…

And longer runtimes too!

[mrbishi]

I’ve had the AAA 900mAh nimh’s in my car since I got it – I’ve been using AA energisers in my transmitter but now have some nimh 2300mAh AA’s for that too 🙂

I still can’t get over the run time 🙂 my friends with their 1:10th scale things get 10 minutes if they are lucky and then have to swap/charge batteries. I’ll quite happily blast around for close to an hour before changing to my second set 🙂

Cheers,
—
mrbishi 🙂

[jamiekulhanek]

Quote:

BTW Jamie our little discussion was never about money 😉

Everything is about money…

[Geo-Z]

Yo Jay-Z long time no see too! i hope everything’s ok, sorry to hear about ur wheels!

Mrbishi, be prepared to order a few more sets of servo gears in advance….even the alloy ones tend to break sometimes, especially on an MR01 cos they have no servo saver.

Be ready to bust ur hard earned bucks on another MR01…followed by an MR02…followed by an F1….followed by a Monster or Overland….followed by a FET upgrade…followed by a….

ack. I’m already living off my fingernails. 😉

[mrbishi]

Well you’ll all be pleased to know I fixed my servo glitch issues. Took the servo apart and it was filthy.. cleaned it out, put some contact cleaner on the pot and did the paper fix. Also put some contact cleaner on the pot on the top of the PCB.. after that everything was good 🙂 had lotsa fun as my xspeed just arrived today hehe 🙂

—
mrbishi 🙂

[Jay-Z]

..so mrbishi, what kinda car are you driving on the road these days? i`ll hopefully make it down to meadowbank this sunday & say G`day. ps. that`s an impressive list of hop up`s you`ve ordered, sure have jumped in the deep/fast end!!

[Author]

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