Kyosho Lazer ZX -- 2010 VONATs Entry....

[Bormac]

I own a ZXR mk2 and its a realy nice peice of work by Kyosho. Ive run it on a few occassions with a 19t Komodo Dragon and its very quick. I haven't run it with lipo's yet but I think it would be even quicker. The car has little drag on the drivetrain which will make for a more efficient racer but I found the car a little too loose in the rear. Im not sure how the get the rear end biting any more as i had a few suggestions along the way by those who know a lot about these cars. I know for a fact I could get a CAT or PROCAT to hold a better line through the infield under power and i think that is where this car lets me down in the OPEN motor class. I'd like to do more testing to see if i could get more power down over the rear.
Anyway this was my shot at doing an OPTIMA stylised paint scheme on the ZXS shell more than a year ago.







....and for what its worth I think the original ZX shell looked ace on Rob's vintage racer back at the enduro last year.

[Brandon G]

hi tecnica2001, I'll have to say that the ZX would have to be the better looking bodyset than the other ZX's, this is my car that I ran at Knox 2008 Vintage Enduro

cheers Bullfrog

Nice car man, I dig everything about it!

[Jay Dub]

I have a recently restored/moded ZX, and found (I bet it is the same on the ZXR Mk2) that these cars have insufficient rear toe in. The only blocks I can find for the rear of the ZX only give one or two degrees per side, and every car I have ever owned (including every shumacher) has had 3 degrees or more. Check it out with a camber guage to make sure. -Jeff

[tecnica2001]

I actually like that body that Bormac is sporting on his ZX, that's the ZX-S body that Kamtec sells, right??

Getting back at the wheel hexes, how the heck do you tighten the wheel nuts, if there's nothing to prevent the hex from spinning on the axle??

[Bormac]

The hex drive has a tapered fitting. Believe it or not these work very well providing you put the original hex on in the right direction. Make sure the side which has the machined cirrcles fit itowards the centr of the car and dont face them out. You'll see what I mean when you take a closer look.

As for the ZXs shell, yes Kamtec make this repro. While this is an actual original lexan shell from Kyosho though.

[tecnica2001]

Awesome, Thanks for the info...

[Bullfrog]

what are you doing with your ZX shell, is it in good condition ???

cheers Bullfrog

[tecnica2001]

It's in awesome shape, I just have to disassemble, clean and re-assemble, what am I doing?? it's going to be my 4wd entry for the VONATs next year...

[minichamps11]

I own a ZXR mk2 and its a realy nice peice of work by Kyosho. I found the car a little too loose in the rear. Im not sure how the get the rear end biting any more as i had a few suggestions along the way by those who know a lot about these cars. I know for a fact I could get a CAT or PROCAT to hold a better line through the infield under power and i think that is where this car lets me down in the OPEN motor class.

Interesting observations...... I changed from a Procat to a ZX-R back in the 90's and found them to be night and day different. The Procat was incredibly agile with stupid amounts of steering - a real racers car. The ZX-R was very easy to drive, very stable but no match for the CAT during cornering as it just pushed wide into understeer all the time. This doesn't sound like quite the same problem you're having with your Kyosho, but our opinions on the Procat seem to be the same - it was the better car of the 2.

I still love the ZX-R though, as you can tell from my Tamiyaclub showroom

[Bormac]

Ian my ZXR doesnt have the original rear uprights so maybe thats where its lacking in toe perhaps. It also has an alloy front pivot bracket for the rear arms to locate to. I realy need to pull this car out and have another good shot at running it for a while and see what else can be done to help its stability out of corners. Im sure with a little more patience i could get it handling much nicer.

[Mr. ED]

toe-in in the rear sounds very much like the thing to work on. Maybe you can use some tamiya touringcar option parts. Those are what helped me out resolving similar issues with my YR-4. Made a night and day difference

[isobarik]

The rear arm brackets that LA30 is comming with 2 different toein. Make sure that you are using the one with an #2 on them ( for more toe in ) and the one in the front of the gearbox should be facing upp and the one in the rear is facing down.

roughly they should look like this

front of rear gearbox \----/

rear of rear gearbox /----\

mvh isobarik

[Jay Dub]

The rear arm bracket #2 refers to the amount of toe in the rear hinge pin. This block gives the car 2 degrees of toe per side. The front block alters the amount of static anti squat the car has. There is no "Right" way to run it. It also has an effect on roll center. If you are having a problem with rear traction, the arms run closest to level (ie least amount of anti squat) would do three major things -One it allows more weight to transfer to the rear under acceleration (giving traction) allows more weight to transfer side to side (higher roll center), and it allows less weight to transfer forward during braking (providing less off throttle steering). It will also have a minor effect on rear camber gain which would provide more forward bite and less side bite (in a medium to high bite situation). I could go on and on, but these are the main points. Ultimatelly the car needs more rear toe (preferably in the inner hinge pin area) But it would be easier to add/find rear hubs that have 1 degree per side. Class dismissed -Jeff

[tecnica2001]

If you want to replace the front swing shafts, with newer Kyosho swing shafts, with pin hole, the Kyosho ZX5 sp 60.5mm swing shafts will do the trick.

I fitted some newer Kyosho front wheels onto the ZX and due to the offset, it made the front end narrower than the rear.

So Mark, at RCHR, took the liberty at measuring a couple of the swing shafts he had in stock, the 60.5 mm swing shafts were the best fit, I bought the Kyosho blue hexes, and some Kyosho mesh front wheels and voila... I need to put a spacer between the hex and the bearing, there's a bit of a gap there. But all in all the fit is good.

Now onto the rear swing shafts....

[Mr. ED]

rears are easy: 62.5mm ultima rb5 (the original not the latest)