Losi XX~RS

[RobScott]

Hi all,

Ive just got back into racing after 10 years out of it, when i used to race, the local clubs raced 12th and 10th touring, but now they have all gone back to buggies.
Seeing as though I had sold all my buggies once the touring cars had become poplular, I had nothing to race, so my mate gave me his old XX.
Watching the cars go at my local club, i noticed the new buggies handled a lot better than what i knew (i used to have a schumacher fireblade). So I decided to conver the XX into a more modern layout. I mid mounted the motor and trans, extended whe wheel bade, kept the pack down the centre for quick weight transfer on the corners ( most of my local clubs are indoors carpet with jumps, but one of them is a large offroad track on astroturf).

The car goes really really well, i am very impressed with it, but my driving is not up to scratch yet. Ive only raced 3 times so far.

Anyways, a guy on the Losi forum said you guys might be interested in the car.

[clm]

Love the car, although the small diameter of the touring car foams on the back make it look even longer then it probably is!

Chris

[RobScott]

yeah the carpet tyres do make it look a little longer, and the wing is also mounted quite high and far back, which makes it look long too.

As i am smashing bulkheads, and they are now impossable to find

cheers

[DerbyDan]

Wow! Welcome to the board & what a 1st post!

Here in the UK (whereabouts are you based Rob?) The advent of the high grip Astro tracks has forced the move towards mid-motor buggies as they do have a distinctive advantage with less power-on understeer & off-power turn-in compared with a rear motored car... so vintage or not you are at a dissadvantage straight away with a car of that layout.

Last year I raced a XX for pretty much the whole season - on the traditional old-style grass tracks it went really well, being able to compete, keep up & sometimes win against the modern mid-motor cars! But as soon as I tried it on an Astro Turf track I was out-gunned.... often by the same drivers that I had already beaten on grass. At the end of the year I picked up a real beater of a XX & contemplated turning it into a mid motor configuration.... so this XX is of great interest to me One question I have is what have you done with the gearbox (if anything) - it looks like you are using a sensorless motor/Esc so the direction of motor rotation can be easily be altered so I guess this negates the need for an extra idler gear that would be normally required for a sensored set-up?

[RobScott]

the strange thing is with the motor, i just wired it up as it came out of the box, all the wires on the motor matching their same colours on the esc.... its the first brushless setup i have used, as they wernt around when i was last racing.

I just fitted the motor expecting it to be in reverse... and it wasnt :S lol

I have only ever raced on carpet, untill last weekend, i tried the astro at Southport. The car went well, escept it was a bit stiff, as it was still in carpet setup, all i did was put some mini spikes on it and raise it up a little.

I'm in Preston, Lancs, Racing at Ribble, Blackpool, Southport.

The chassis is a bit of trial and error, and a bit rough. Once i have got the car working how i want, i'll then make a more acurate chassis for it.

Notice on the rear end, it just has a turnbuckle as a brace, thats so it adds a bit of flex to the rear end, as i'm still kinda re-learing how to drive, but in the future i'll probably make the top deck go straight to the tranny.
The double deck setup is what i used on my traxxas 4-tec....



The top car is my xxx-s which i bought just before i gave up racing... and yesh thats my pet tortoise just out of the pic, lol

[RobScott]

at the race track, people keep saying, why dont i just go out and buy a new car..... well, whats the fun in that? i like being different, and i like building cars, i enjoy developing the car more than i like racing to be honest.

Anyone can just go out and buy the latest top spec gear.... but when your beat them in car which you built yourself with 20+ year old parts, they get really pissed off ha ha.

I did the same with my old 4-tec. They are known as a low end bash about car, but mine competed with TC3's and SST's no problem most people thought it was a prototype HPI or losi, no one ever guessed it was a traxxas.

[DerbyDan]

at the race track, people keep saying, why dont i just go out and buy a new car..... well, whats the fun in that? i like being different, and i like building cars, i enjoy developing the car more than i like racing to be honest.

I really admire your outlook - & I guess thats why I like racing the old buggies against the newer ones.... but modifying them as you have done with this XX really takes it to the next level of dedication!

I too like running a car that people are unfamilar with & I must admit I don't think i've ever seen a 4tec before! - though I must admit it looks very similar to the Kyosho TF series cars so i'm not surprised that it went well. I used to run an RClab 7even which nobody seemed to have heard of! But i'm a great believer in that so long as you are decent driver, have the correct tyres for the conditions & enough adjustments on the chassis & the design is there-or-thereabouts, that you can get any 1/10 scale racer to win!

[Coelacanth]

at the race track, people keep saying, why dont i just go out and buy a new car..... well, whats the fun in that? i like being different, and i like building cars, i enjoy developing the car more than i like racing to be honest.

Anyone can just go out and buy the latest top spec gear.... but when your beat them in car which you built yourself with 20+ year old parts, they get really pissed off ha ha.

I love that attitude, at least the part about being different and "why buy a new car?". After restoring my old Optima, I had tons of spare parts leftover. Tried selling them here but nobody was interested...so I just decided to build more of 'em. But, I didn't want to just build the same car 2, 3 more times. I wanted an on-road car, I wanted a bulletproof, beefed-up offroad car, and I wanted a RWD car--and I wanted each one to address all the weak links in that particular model's design. So that's what I ended up doing, which turned out to be a major project--but like your cars, a whole lot more rewarding because it was different.

EDIT: Like you, I also get a kick out of having cars that people don't recognize.

[mytimac]

Welcome, glad you decided to post it over here on RC10talk. (That was me that suggested it to you on the Losi board, I get around)

[RobScott]

yeah cheers for letting me know about this forum

I'm doing some racing tomorrow night, indoors on carpet, and then on sunday at the offroad track, I'll try and get some pics of the tracks i race at

yeah its great using a car thats either vintage or no one knows about, so much fun developing them to compete with the up to date stuff.

[FasterLouder]

You 22'd it!
Great car,great attitude,welcome,man.
XXs are so easy to drive and people HATE getting beaten by a near 20 year old car,when they've spent big bucks oon the latest mouse trap.

HobbyKing sell carbon fibre sheets for a couple of dollars,just a thought.
They do 2.5mm,it'd look great.

[RobScott]

cheera dude,

the car went real well on friday night, qualified first in the B final, and came third.

I defo need an alloy front bulkhead, just wrecked another today, the trouble is, the stock black one is thin, and now they are 20 years old, the plastic has gone brittle.

what are the white nylon ones like? they any stronger?

[FasterLouder]

Nice one!
Appearantly the black one is stronger than the white one,but I've never broken either.
I think people prefer the looks of the black one,too.
Alloy Trinity ones are nice,but rare and super sought after.
Took me 5 years to find mine,and it cost a lotta money.
If you're going to run it hard,maybe try to find a used one with scratches that no one would put on a restored car?
They're super sexy,man...

[slapshot1979]

Mytimac was working on front bulkheads for us losi guys as they are the weak point, and somehow have gone from a $5 part NIP to really expensive in a short period. not sure how that project is coming for him? If you think which I do, that this is something you will break often, think outside the box. You have done so much cool custom stuff to this, whats a custom front bulkhead?? Needs to provide kickup, hingepoint, mount shock tower. Alloy ones are dear and moves weakpoint somewhere else. not the be-all, end-all part IMO

great work I love it. Any chance of seeing some video in action?

[slapshot1979]

Just looked at your pics again and noticed. How did you mount original bulkhead as they hinge off of chassis which you dont have. Pics please..Inquiring minds wish to know.

Also assuming you tagged something with a tire and broke the hinge point outwards... the front tie bar across front might have saved this bulkhead. see fasterlouders pic for example.