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VintageMA -> Just sharing - M18T - best 1/18 car I've ever bought!!! (7/30/2007 2:55 AM)
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I've owned and spent a ton of $$$ on a RC18MT, Losi mLST, and Losi Mini-t Pro and have to say having just bought and put together a XRAY M18T, that it is THE BEST, HIGHEST QUALITY mini car I've bought to date.
I have probably put and extra $300 in each of the cars before the xray car to make the car stable and driveble on a 2S Lipo/Brushless motor system. The RC18MT was downgraded to a RC18T with on road tire, a lot of aluminum, tons of upgrades on the suspension and chassis, and the inevitable steering slop issues inherent to that car. The Losi Mini-T - which was (and still is) a nice little car - but on a 2S/BL system all is wants to do it back flip most of the time. The mLST which was just a disaster - viscous diffs, new suspension, lots of steering type upgrades - and eventually giving up because it is just a car with too high of a CG that it will just bounce all over the place with any speed given to it.
Soooo..... having read tons on how good xray was - I took all of the best electronics from the above 1/18's and purchased a kit for the M18T.
The build is as follows:
M18T kit - totally stock except for all option nickel coated pivot balls.
Custom painted body - nothing fancy, just blue pearl metallica spray paint.
Receiver - Novak XXtra sysnthesized FM
Servo - XRAY XMS01MG Micro Servo
ESC - Mamba 25
Motor - Lehner (LMT) 1015/12 (6667 rpm / volt)
Battery - Apogee 2S 2200mAh LiPo
Gearing - 14 pinion / 54 stock spur (geared for about 30 - 35mph and based on passing traffic it was about right on mark)
It took about 5 hours to complete the entire build, plus a few more hours tweaking the build just driving it around indoors on the steering and suspension and tweaking the Mamba25 on the computer with the CastleLink.
Just got to take it outdoors today to a nearby parking lot, and I have to share the this little truck is amazing. The steering and suspension are right on. Zero slop in the steering yet the servo saver totally compensates for any bad bumps. The tracking is straight on and except for trying to turn at almost full speed I wasn't able to get a traction roll even if I tried.
This little buggy is solid - it probably flipped about 10 times and lanedd upright on every flip except for one.
I have the aluminum CVD's on the way, but with the way this littel guy performed today I don't know if I will even install then until I have a breakage with the plastic ones - more weight = less power.
I guess I am just hoping that someone trying to figure out which truck to get reads this and saves themselves the expense of getting the wrong truck and dumping tons of $$$ into just to get it driveable.
I already had all of the parts because of my past purchases - but if I could return all of the cr*p I have bought over the past 1 1/2 years and recover the wasted $$$ I would so go with my setup above with no question.
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