Kyosho Mini-Z 4x4 MX-01: How to Install Big Wheels and Other Parts You Need!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.พ. 2022
- Back in November when I decided to buy a crawler, I just wanted to have something I could drive indoor slowly and easily. But of course, I couldn't resist adding some upgrades. Let's see what I did.
Before installing upgrades, let's set a baseline in the form of the maximum side leaning angle. This is clearly not very scientific but it should still be interesting to see if these upgrade parts will improve this aspect of performance. Lean the truck towards one side as much as possible until it just about tips over. We will repeat this experiment later.
The most common way to increase a crawler's performance is lowering its center of gravity. I will add some brass weight at the wheel hubs to start. These are NexxRacing's front knuckles and rear caps. Both of the rear caps combine to weight 15g. This isn't as much as I thought, but hopefully all the weights down low will start adding up. The Nexx front knuckles are less substantial compared to the equivalent brass parts made by Kyosho or others. They combine for 7g only. Parts look well machined though.
Replacing the front knuckle requires detaching the shock from the axle in order to remove the knuckle. The bearing is retained via 3 screws. The Nexx part comes with appropriate machine screws. Everything fits perfectly here.
The rear cap installation is easier. Simply unscrew the stock plastic cap and screw in the brass part. Except there's a problem. The cap fits, but somehow it's just a little too thick on the flat surface. The inside of the stock rim doesn't clear the new cap. That's pretty annoying but fear not. I'm going to swap out the stock wheels anyway.
I picked up these 1" Injora beadlock rims and 49mm tires. They look pretty nice and aggressive. Just look at the size difference compared to the stock wheel! Despite its size, the stock wheel actually works quite well. It doesn't not weight much though at 6g. The aluminum Injora wheel checks in at a good 22g. That will further lower the center of gravity.
To mount these rims meant for SCX24, I need to add these brass hex adapters from eBay. The adapter further adds weight, as well as extending the track width of the truck. They fit perfect onto the Mini-Z mount. I'm sure the bigger tires and all the extra weight will stress the stock 5-wire servo, but how beautiful do they look? But because these tires at 49mm are significantly larger compared to the stock 42mm ones, we need to check wheel arch clearance. For example, at maximum suspension travel, the rear tires touch the front of the wheel arches. This is particularly a concern for the front tires because steering creates even more opportunities for the tires to touch. The front tires touch touch both the back of the wheel arches and the front bumper. As demonstrated here, these 49mm tires on 1" rims will cause rubbing during hard turns or with some articulation.
There are a few solutions for this problem. I picked up MXW009-3 which will lift the body and bumpers up by 10mm. It's possible to solve the tire rubbing problem by using longer shocks, widening wheel offsets, or limiting suspension travel. Raising the body does worsen the center of gravity, but at least the truck will look even more aggressive.
Body lift done! Even with the larger wheels and raised body, the scaled look remains. 10mm is enough to eliminate the most of the rubbing issue for these 49mm tires. Note there's still some touching here at full steering lock and full suspension travel. There's also a little bit touching at the front bumper. These cases are minor enough now that I'm happy to drive the truck around.
So after adding brass parts an alloy rims, how much does the truck weight now? In stock form including the batteries was 283g. The truck now checks in at 390g, an increase of 38%!
Okay, the remaining question is, does it crawl now? It's too cold to find an outdoor space to crawl, so I threw some pillows together on the couch. The servo needs to work noticeably harder than before, but it seems to be okay on this terrain. I'm quite pleasantly surprised by the performance I'm seeing here! There's not a ton of grip available on that fabric, but the truck grabbed on and climbed. So the truck has gained some performance and also cool factor.
We can come back to this side leaning angle test. Let's see if it can lean further after the upgrades. It's clear that the truck can now lean more.
Wheels: www.amazon.com/dp/B093PWMFR4?...
Hex Adapters: www.ebay.com/itm/403238962356
Body Lift: rc.kyosho.com/en/mxw009-3.html
Nexx Brass Front Knuckles: www.helidirect.com/products/n...
Nexx Brass Rear Caps: www.helidirect.com/products/n... - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
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Love how long this one was! Looks so fun to the point where i almost want one for myself 😅
Thank you. It's pretty fun to learn about crawler architecture and crawling!
This was really cool. I ordered just about every brass and aluminum part for my mini z 4x4 (white jeep too :) and can't wait to wrench on it and put the upgrades on. Yours is so cool! The performance upgrade seems to make it way more fun to drive too. Got a blue jimmy miniz 4x4 too I'm going to upgrade a little bit. So far it just has the brass universal joints, as does the jeep. That's the number one upgrade for them IMO. the old plastic ones both broke on both trucks.
Thank you and I'm glad this was useful! I can definitely see the cvd joints being a weak point. The brass option is pretty clever there. Enjoy modding the 4x4!
Awesome video, it answered a bunch of questions of mine
Glad it helped! When I decided to install bigger tires, I didn't know whether I needed to lift the body or maybe do something with the suspension. I went for the body lifting route which worked out nicely. I figured others might have the same question too.
Yeah buddy! Looks awesome!
Thanks! I love how it turned out!
Nice updates. Bigger tires make it look cooler.
Thank you. I got the inspirations from watching your videos and seeing how you did it!
Great review thanks!
Thank you!
LiftUp!
You'll have to cut the fenders to get full steering angle with Mini-z's if you're going to go aftermarket tires. Also, if you go too lifted the steering link won't be able to fully articulate and can actually burn out the servo from the increased weight of the wheel and tires. Also keep in mind if you wanna upgrade the servo too you'll have to basically do a full furitek swap for it to work.
The body lift mod shown in this video lifts up only the body shell relative to the chassis (vs lifting the suspension). Because of that, it didn't alter the steering geometry. That said, the extra mass and larger wheels have added a lot more stress to an already weak mx-01 steering system. I would love to beef up the servo, or attach the servo directly on axle, if possible.
@@sammybaka be wary of lifting the chassis on the Kyosho it makes it super top heavy and if you do obstacles it wants to flip. Also like I said with the servo if you wanna go that route you’ll most likely want to look at the furitek product line. Servo, going brushless and also the frame set gives you some nice points of articulation. It’s quite expensive unfortunately but that’s the only real good option for replacing the servo on that machine. You won’t have much options like trx4m and scx24.
Great video. Just received mine the other day. It has a broken read axle gear but there's a replacement on its way. Love the model though.
I see you've also added the LEDs.
You don't have a part number for these do you?
Nice and hope the part arrives for you soon! The led kit for 4x4 is MZW429R.
Many thanks.
Time to order a few upgrades. 😊
Where did u get the hex adaptors? Don’t see them on eBay. Nice build btw!
Hi thank you! Do you see them here? www.ebay.com/itm/1-2set-Hex-Hub-Conversion-Counterweight-Adapters-For-RC-1-18-Kyosho-Jimny-Upgrad-/403238962356?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0
I wonder if kyosho will bring an upgrade for the weak steering servo someday. It‘s really struggling with heavier tires. But your jeep looks cool!
Sadly there‘s not many parts for the 4x4 here. I don‘t like the yeah racing stuff. I want genuine kyosho parts. I‘m thinking about buying a mr-03. maybe a evo with either the 4100 or the 5600kv motor. I first think about if i want to get into racing. Also there‘s not too much opportunity in my part of Switzerland
I'm not familiar with the scene in Switzerland. I hope you can find a community there. Kyosho doesn't have any upgrade for the servo and it's indeed a weak area. Unfortunately, it's quite involved to upgrade it to a 3rd party option because you will need to swap a lot of electronics and probably some plastic mounting parts as well (check www.ebay.com/str/3dsleekundesignsandrc who designs a lot of 3d printed parts). I haven't tried this but I read that using 2s lipo (using 2 3.7 lithium aaa + 2 dummy cells) increases the servo power.
Regarding a mr-03 build for racing, I would first see what rules are there for the club first. I have an mr-03evo too with the 5600kv motor. It's fun but it's sort of not that useful for racing. Standard rtr mr-03 in box stock is quite fun, and with superstock you want to go with lipo cars like GL/Atomic/Reflex/Nexx/PN. mr-03evo doesn't fit in either side. That said, it's still fun to drive and tinker with especially if you already have transmitter/wheels/parts that you can reuse on the evo.
@@sammybaka thank you for Your kind answer. I inow sleekun, i think he does cool stuff. Also i considered the furitek conversion tio get freedom in electronics. I am 46 years old and just getting back into rc again and i love the kyosho stuff since my childhood. I built a little rock crawler hill with stomes in a corner of my backyard. I upgraded the 4x4 with just the alloy front axle and yeah racing shocks, i have put a little frop of heavy thick greasein it. My friend and his two sons have axial sc24‘s. I like the miniz better somehow because of the scale details. I lrdered the brass wheelhubs and i will see how it manages. Other than that i will probably leave it like it is (maybe one day the kyosho dampers). Keep up the nice videos👍🏻
@@sammybaka thanks for your answer considering the mr-03‘s. My head goes back and forth when thinkig about the evo and you helped me. Maybe i get a standard rtr first jut for fun at home. Then i search for a community in the area. My appartment is too small for a racetrack, i could go into the underground parking lot with it, it‘s a big, smooth surface. But racing would be what i look for. I will follow your advice because i see your experience. Patience is not my strength. I really like the evo‘s and all there is to upgrade and the engineering of kyosho. But i could build on the rtr set as soon as i know more. I will look into the glracing and the other brands you recommended. If there would be a kyosho only racing around here i would definitely go for it. So i will research anout a community first👍🏻
Yeah I agree for racing it's best to find other racers first before building up a car. That underground parking lot must be good for your buggy. I don't imagine rwd cars will do well though since I suspect there won't be enough traction to prevent spinning out.
Hey man, I installed front brass knuckles, front axe, weighted wheels and now the servo has a hard time turning the wheels fully. Any idea what can be done?
Yeah the 4x4 servo isn't the strongest and it can struggle with the extra weight. When it's moving, the steering action isn't too bad. I've heard that people using 4 1.5v li-ion batteries seems to give the steering more power, but I haven't tried this. Unfortunately there's no servo upgrade option here without changing out all the electronics.
Do these little ones actually come with oil shocks?
Unfortunately no. They are simple friction shocks out of the box. The oil shock upgrade part# is MXW003R.