My Weapon of Choice... The RR-02!!!

Many of you guys have seen pictures floating around of one of our MR-02's which has the positive wire lead to the motor coming out of the center of the top cover. This car is a little project I took upon early this year when I was still a TGR factory pilot. Ozan, at TGR had sent me the latest version of his awesome speedo to test.

The new Spinner + is a fully adjustable speed controller, which can be programmed by following several easy steps in the set-up process. In combination with a KO Propo digital servo board and a de-cased Spektrum Micro receiver, I came up with my new electronics package.

By stuffing the new electronics in my MR-02, we started the transformation of that particular Mini-Z that today, we like to dub the RR-02. Many changes have come to the car, it has been converted from a Pan Car, to a Touring Car several times and back. The one constant that we love most though is the most important one: its driveability.

The stand alone hobby grade electronics put even the new KO 2.4 ASF boards to shame. The throttle feel and steering precision is matched only by those found in bigger scales.

At the time, only the PN Racing Pan Car class allows this type of electronics package, but we are constantly lobbying for them to be allowed in other classes as well. The cars are simply better.

The RR-02 is not just the electronics though, what allowed us to call it our own name was the combination of our Wide-Track-Front end (a.k.a. WTF!) and our new Side Damper Rear Suspension. Some may say that we are being self-centered by renaming a Kyosho MR-02 into a Reflex Racing RR-02, but if you really look at it, the only Kyosho parts we are using on this car anymore is the battery box, servo gears and motors. The rear pod comes from PN Racing, along with other tidbits from other manufacturers, the car is essentially all Reflex Geometry. And what makes one chassis different from others? The Geometry!!!

Anyways, I love racing this car. It is my habitual club racer and it will also by my entry at the PN Racing Regional in October at Kenon. Kenon is known to be the fastest track in this year's PN Racing Mini-Z World Cup, and if all goes as planned, the RR-02 might end up at the top of the standings at the end of the year before the finals in Las Vegas in November... ;)

Well anyways, enough rambling. I now leave you with some pics in its current touring car 98mm set-up.

Showing my rear end...

-jc

New Rear Suspension and 98 mm wheelbase

The second my eyes landed on the new PN Racing 98mm LCG mount I was inspired. It was not the fact thing down so flat (which is an added perk), but rather the upper carbon fiber piece and the mounting holes for it. Since the first time I ran a Mini-Z, I always wanted to try out damper tubes instead of disk dampers. Damper tubes tend to be more consistent and provide higher adjustability through the use of different thickness fluids.

Back in '05, right after the first PNWC I played around with a tri-shock set-up using the Atomic RM mini-shocks as the two side shocks. I really did not play around with it much because the car would push too much. The set-up was a bit on the heavy side and it just was not very practical. The disk damper cars were simply quicker.

With the new PN Racing motor mount, a lot of possibilities opened up. With the motor being so low, there is a lot of extra space in between the chassis and the mount. The clearance between the top of the motor mount and the top of the plastic chassis allowed me to install a side damper tube, very much like the one in the Inzane P28 to one of the outside front holes on the motor mount and then with a simple upper deck mounted fiber glass piece (much like our body mount system) I could connect it to the front of the chassis. To finish it off we moved the disk damper post further back and mounted a Kyosho oil filled shock absorber to provide the fore and aft dampening. If the motor mount was not so low, then the shock would have to be run much higher and therefore, it would not fit under the body of the car.

The performance gain of this new suspension is incredible. Our set-ups have now gone to 98mm wheelbases back from 94mm. The cars seem to carry much more speed in high-speed corners and much more grip under acceleration. In combination with the WTF, the cars have become much more stable at higher speeds and as a consequence can now lay down power comparable to the AWDs. As a result we are seeing much faster lap times with our 2wd modified touring cars aided by punchier, matched batteries and insanely fast hand-wound motors.

Below are pictures of the prototype rear suspension. Hopefully they will be out within the month. Production will be limited at first, so reserve yours at our store ASAP!

-CT

ruf checking in...

Hi folks... It's been a crazy few months for us here at Reflex. Even more so than when we kicked things back off at the beginning of the year. As you can see we are really starting to roll with some new and innovative products. 1/28 is here to stay and we're here to push it to levels it's never been before!

On a personal note, I've been moving to a new apartment, so my interweb superhighway access down until Tuesday... boo...

Cristian and I try to divvy up the responsibilities and each take a swing at the things we do best. We've both got a lot of irons in the fire and a lot of technical content in the works as well as product development, testing and promotion. Here are the things I've got on my plate:
1) Wide Track Front-end for MR-02 Article: Why and how it works!
2) F1 chassis build-up and blueprint: long overdue, but hopefully worth the wait!
3) T-shirts!!! BTW vote for your sizes! Cristian likes to shop at Baby Gap, so let me know if there are some big boys out there that want XXL...

-jc