Axial XR10 Reviewed In RRCi - CML Distribution

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kit reviewbut to lock an individual wheel and drive the other three,this will make the turning circle even smaller as youare not having to drag a locked wheel around.What is nice is they have made the axle readyfor this rather than making you go out and buya whole new axle casing, so saving you money inthe long run. The axle casing is 16 mm narrowerwhich will help when turning through gates, withthe narrower axle it gives you so much morespace to be able to position the crawler closer toa gate and still be able to get a clear gate.Next stage in the build is the links, the lowers arealuminium but with a nice plastic cover to helpthem slide on the rocks. Having alloy lower linksis good as they are nice and strong, but the addedbonus of having these sliders on just makes them somuch better as over time the links would normally wear down and getcaught up on rocks far easier. Optional bent links are available and arethe same ones as used on the AX10 so a nice option that is already outthere. The upper links are high clearance bent links but are made out of arather flimsy plastic, this isn’t a huge deal as again these are the same asthe AX10 bent links so a worthwhile upgrade.NO E-CLIPS AND NITRIDEDBuilding the shocks is the next stage, and I’mglad to say it’s nice and easy. The main body isaluminium and is open ended with a plastic capwith a bladder on one end and a cartridgeon the other with twoO-rings inside with onesealing the cartridgeto the main body. Anice touch is the titanium nitride coatedshock shafts rather than using my most hatedof items the E-clip, it uses an M3 nut to hold the piston. I don’t know whybut I still like this idea so much why doesn’t everyone do this? The choiceon pistons gets a little bit tough as included in the kit are some machinedpistons along with some moulded ones with differentrates. Finally, there are variable rate pistons, theseare two-piece which depending on which wayup you mount them you can either haveslower rebound or slower compression, anice little trick item but for the build. I wentfor the machined pistons just so I know Ihad the smoothest action.WITH MOA SOFTER = BETTERThe springs supplied in the kit are Axial’s red super soft versions, andthese are rated at 2.07 lb/in. This being their softest spring, it’s the bestoption for an MOA rig. I find that a generally soft set-up works best forme in competition, but having the rear a little firmer can help in somesituations. With this in mind I decided to fill the fronts with 30wtoil and the rears with 40wt just to get the desired feel. Onceyou’ve mounted the shocks and links to the axles thefinal step is to build the main chassis. This is a lotfancier than the old AX10 with fully adjustablepivoting shock mounting positions allowingyou to fine-tune your ride height and shockfirmness to your heart’s content.Links are mounted in a doubletriangulated position, with the lowersAbove: Motor plate bearings held firmly in placeAbove: The straight through rear axle and metal spoolBelow: Years of Axial’s development and knowledge rolled into just one rig…01/11 WWW.RADIORACECAR.COM 41
ci kit reviewAxial XR10 Competition MOA CrawlerAbove: The transmission boats a 37.9:1 gear ratio using the included 14T pinionAbove: Rod ends, upper and lower links and sliders…Above: Silky smooth shocks offer a variety of pistons to choose frommounted to the centre of the skid plate and the uppers to the outsideedge of the chassis plates. This helps eliminate axle steer, which is whatcan happen during the articulation cycle of a rock crawler’s suspension.Again this rig shows how far Axial have progressed the design. Anothernice design feature is the body mount posts and mounts, rather thancoming out of the side as with the old AX10, they come out of the top,something we all tend to now do in competition. These are mounted toadjustable shock mount plates, so when you adjust the angle of theseplates the angle of the body post would change. To compensate for thisthey have put a spline on the body post mounts so you can then adjustthe angle of the body posts and get them back to vertical. Anothernice touch is there are spares in the box that will allow you with a littletrimming to run a single body post at the rear.This can help if you get rolled you onto the roof, the body being ableto wobble offers more chances of being able to get yourself back on thewheels.SAFE FROM THE ELEMENTSAn electrics tray with sealed receiver box is mounted to the skidplate of the chassis, although I’m not really sure why a sealed box wasincorporated, as I wouldn’t want to get that deep in water to start with.But it’s always nice to have it protected just in case! If you are runninga nice small ESC included are two mounting brackets that screw to theelectronics tray, the M2 will fit on one but I decided to mount mine flat onthe tray to try and keep the C of G as low as possible.Before getting to mount the electrics the last part was to build thewheels and mount the tyres. Vanquish Products, a company well knownin the rock crawling fraternity and who have produced some of the bestitems out there, helped in the design of the wheels. With adding weightto wheels one of the most important parts when tuning your set-up, Axialhave made an internal weight system that you can add initial weightto the wheels. To compliment this, Vanquish has a very nicely designedwheel that you can also add or remove weight to help fine-tune yourset-up. Being incorporated in the design of the wheels has the advantagethat it can be adjusted real-time when the tyres are mounted. Theseweights are held in with a three-pointed retaining plate that is held inplace by the bead lock ring.These are not included in the kit but I picked them up from Vanquishproducts direct in the States (by the time you read this they shouldhopefully be available in the UK). One nice thing I found out while buildingthe wheels was this retaining plate could be removed without having totake the bead lock off. The wheel itself is two parts both made of plastic,with only one bead lock ring that pulls the two parts together and holdsthe tyre nice and tight. The tyre I decided to go for in this build is thenew HB’s Rover EX in pink compound. As ever with tyres compoundchoice is key, white compound being the preferred choice of a lot ofcrawlers out there. These new pinks are an even softer compound butwith a reinforced tread pattern to hold the lugs better. With the softercompound it also felt as if the main carcass appears to be a little thickerto help maintain the correct profile. So are the pinks any good? Well theproof of the compound will be in the crawling, so all will be revealed alittle later!42WWW.RADIORACECAR.COM 01/11
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Axial XR10 Reviewed In RRCi - CML Distribution

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