New in the pits – Part 3
Walking further through the pits we have come across a number of new items that are making their debut here. Mugen team driver Travis Amezcua is a running a new chassis plate for the MBX-6, which is 5mm longer increasing the cars wheelbase making it more stable. He is also running the new Mugen springs front and rear which feature less coils so are more progressive and help give the car more lift off the jumps. He has with him a range of 4 different hardness to choose from with these springs, which he says are a little stiffer also.
Juraj Hudy of Xray showed us his heavily updated XB808. Starting up front there is new aluminium caster blocks and steering blocks, with the caster blocks featuring 3 upper wishbone mounting positions for extra roll centre adjustability. The rear end also sports new rear uprights that have inserts on the lower mounting pin which give you further options for adjustment. Continuing on the adjustment side of things, there are new wider aluminium lower suspension blocks that sport plastic inserts that allow a very wide range of adjustment and along with shorter rear wishbones the set up gives the car more steering.
In the drivetrain the central shaft drive cup sports new smaller sized bearings, the previous larger bearings used to collect dirt too easily. The central drive shafts are now also shorter because the drive cups are now no longer captured in the diff cases. For strength on the track he is running a front shock tower plate that reinforces the current carbon version as well as steel plates in the front and rear of the chassis to prevent wear.
Reds Racing are prototyping their new lightweight cooling head for their XR21T .21 buggy engine. Seen in the car of Italian Champion Fabio Boero, the new head offers a significant weight saving and more importantly it brings down the overall centre of gravity of the car.
RB are debuting their new longer manifold that manages to keep the mounting points on the engine and exhaust in the same position but stretches the pipe further rearward to avoid adjusting the exhaust position. The length of the new manifold is 204mm, which gives lots more bottom end power, perfect for the fast sweeping corner here coming off the pit straight. RB also off two shorter versions, which are already available.
AKA are here with their new Evo wheel, which is stiffer and sports a removable disc that increases the stiffness event further while creating a smooth internal surface that prevents the build up of dirt. AKA also have their new soft buggy insert here helps avoid the lateral deflection of the tire while at the same time increasing the vertical impact absorption for better handling in the bumps.
Team C Racing are debuting their new buggy here. Only finalised days before the event, it has only had a handful of laps done on it prior to first practice and we were told that it still requires more development work to bring it up to speed.
View the event photo gallery here.
