PN Racing Mini-Z RCP Slick Rear Tire 6º

The PN Racing Mini-Z RCP Slick Rear Tire 6º are the latest rear tires from PN Racing. Out of the packaging, these tires look like hard shiny pieces of plastic. But you can feel how soft these tires are when you're mounting them on your wheels. They are so soft, they start to come off the wheel after a few sets of batteries on my stock car. I have to re-tape them more often than usual. They should perform better when glued. I ran a 30 minute practice race with these tires and they look like they're just broken in. Besides the grip, another thing I like about these tires are the sidewalls don't wear out as much as the kyosho 20º. Worn out sidewalls usually mean you will spin out at the end of the straightaway.

I'm back!

Wow, has it been that long? I've been really busy lately mostly doing mini-z stuff lol! Anyway, continuing with my previous post, I've done 3 things (with the help of Grant) to make my car run right again. 1st is lowering the front, 2nd is removing the front lip on the 360 GTC body and 3rd was to shave off some material from the ML motor mount so it would not hit the chassis. My car ran ok but it was still not to my liking.

At that point I was ready to give up, but before I did, I wanted to try 1 last thing. To make my existing car a pan car. It was fast enough and I thought the spinning out problem might be solved by the increased downforce from the lola body as well as the wider offset wheels you can run with it. So, I took the plunge and I'm glad I did. It's so much fun driving the pan car especially when you have an NML Lightning SS powering your car through the straight! At first I was still having the spin out problem but that was solved when Philip (PN Racing) gave me a set of Kyosho 20s that were glued to his +3 offset wheels. Now it understeers a lot but I'll take that any day over spinning out. I just have to find the right setup for my driving style.

As soon as I decided to convert my car into a pan car, I started looking for another MR-02 to run in the stock class. As I was heading to the track, I get a phone call from Bing and he informed me that someone is selling a stock car at the track. I got there test drove the car and bought it along with a KO EX-10 Helios. I was so happy to drive a good handling car again.

Race Weekend

What a crazy weekend, We did back to back track days at MPT. Driving almost 50 miles each way for 2 days. Did I say Mini-Zs are addicting? My car did not run right on saturday... wrong setup + a fast motor = frustration. On Sunday though, we changed and modified a lot of things on my car which made it run close to perfect (in my book) but, my gearing was too long. I was running the modified Speedy 05 that day. I'll post the changes on my car later.

My car wasn't running 100% at MPT so I couldn't really give a fair review on the atomic parts I got. So far though, I can say that the motor is pretty fast for being a stock motor. Even with a 10 tooth pinion, it still had a lot of torque and great top end. The disk damper system, which has not been sanded at that time, was as smooth as the sanded PN damper if not better. I just sanded the disks and the edges of the titanium plate tonight and will test it at kenon tomorrow.

New Motor

The Atomic Stock R Evolution motor... I've been reading about this motor and people say it is the fastest stock motor available right now. I don't really need anything faster than my speedy 05 NML modified but I was intrigued by this motor. I got it just in time for a track day at MPT. MPT has a new bigger track layout, see picture 1. I was hoping I could run at MPT with the old layout just to see if I can improve my lap times with this new motor.

I just read that NML has made a motor I've been bugging him to design. I hope I could test this motor out soon.

Ball diff rebuilt, bearings cleaned and lubed, disk damper cleaned and lubed also... Just wating for the track to open.

Wear and tear

I haven't been so lucky the past 2 times I was at the track. Last Tuesday, I broke the upper arm that holds the king pin. Fortunately for me, PN Racing makes a part to that fixes that problem while adding caster. I went with the PN Racing MR02 Alm 0.5 Degree Caster Tower Bar. I only went with a 0.5 because the stock settings were working for me and I didn't want to stray away from that too far. So far, I haven't really noticed a difference. Maybe I'll try a 1 or 2 dregrees later on.

I also inverted the front suspension limiters as you can see on the 2nd picture. Rod has been telling me do this for a while and it's about time I tried it.

Blingin' 94mm Titanium Damper Plate System

I just replaced my PN multi length fiberglass disk damper system with a titanium one from atomic. Besides aesthetics, there's a reason why I replaced the PN piece. If you look at the lower picture, you can see the shaft that holds the disks, is positioned almost all the way to back of the hole. The atomic one on the other hand is positioned towards the center. This is because the PN disk damper is multi length so you can use the same disk damper system whether you run a 94 or 98mm wheelbase. The shaft lines up better on a 98mm wheelbase car though. The shaft on the PN damper was dented from hitting the fiberglass peice and made the rear suspension rough.

I also installed the Atomic Mini-Z MR-02 MM 2.8mm DPS Mount. The problem with disk dampers is it sits too low if you use the DPS mount that comes with it. Leaving the bottom spring compressed almost all the way and the top spring almost uncompressed.

I haven't tested the atomic disk damper system on the track yet but I can already tell this one is smoother than its already sanded PN counterpart. Can't wait to leave work tomorrow to test this out.

New Body

Mr. NML has finished painting my Ferrari 360 GTC body. I know my car will come back with battle scars the first time I take it out so I decided to snap a few pics of it while it's fresh. I really liked the little details NML put on the car. I used black atomic dish wheels with my favorite offset.

Ok, enough with the looks, lets talk performance. This body for some reason feels more nimble and leans less than the few bodies I have tried. It also has bigger wheel wells so no rubbing occurs. At MPT, I was able to lower my lap time to 8.1XX. I wasn't able to back it up but I will surely try the next time I get a chance. Also, the unpainted bodies seem lower in the back than the autoscales. I had to move the body clips a few mm so the rear end won't drag when my tires are almost gone.

I found myself using the sanyo eneloop batteries more lately. I got my fastest lap at MPT with these batteries. While the orion 900s are faster, I feel I can drive more consistently with the eneloops.