Review: Iw-02

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Mazda787b
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Review: Iw-02

Post by Mazda787b »

First off, let me say I am sorry that it took me awhile to do this. I am not giving an excuse, because I don't really have one, other than I have spent Sunday and Monday learning how to use my camera, I spent most of the day doing this. So here goes!

I remember back in the fall of '98 when I was just starting to get into true R/C. I stumbled into our local hobby shop with my friend, who to this day is still big into R/C. Upon entering, I spotted this car in a little brown box; it stood out more than anything there. The more I learned about the Z, the more I wanted one. That day, I picked up a RC Car Action magazine to get some ideas on what car I wanted. There it was, a spread about the Z and its all-new Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM bodies. I instantly wanted one, but because of their almost $150 price tag, I ended up spending the same amount and getting my B3, which leads me to now.

When I first learned about iWavers, I wanted an escape from Xmods. By the time I had enough for a 01, we all learned that they were releasing a 02. I quietly waited. I seen the release of the Carrera GT, the GT40, but something inside told me to hold off, so I did. When the 02s finally came up on Toy East's web page, I knew I had to have one, and the fact that the silver CLK would be available on the 02 convinced me to buy one. I would have paid $50 for the car and chassis, but they included that new transmitter we have all heard about. I was skeptical about the iWavers at first, but I am now a believer. Here are my thoughts:

Ordering, Shipping, and Packaging

I placed my order for the CLK readyset and X-Speed Pro motor the afternoon of Friday the 10th of December at around 3:30 PM. The order was processed Sunday night (Monday morning in Japan), and was shipped the same day. It arrived on Thursday. Ground shipping was going to cost $27 but would take 10 business days to arrive, so I opted to pay the extra $6 for Air. The thought of something coming from Japan in as little as 4 days form doorstep to doorstep is amazing!

Upon opening the box on Christmas (it was a gift from my grandfather), I was delighted to see the readyset and motor in there and nothing was missing. I took the car's box out and checked to see if anything was broken. It was in pristine condition. You could see many spare and tuning parts were included, including a full kit for converting to the MM (midship motor) setup, extra pinions, the receiver crystal, antenna, and even springs to adjust the front suspension and rear mono-shock.

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The whole kit looked amazing. The body looked spot on. The chassis looked like a Kyosho 02 with a few cosmetic changes. The Transmitter looked amazing. I couldn't wait to try this baby out!

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Pre-Drive Preparations

You have to do a few things before you drive. It is not much, and takes little to no effort. I would like go over one thing that may be over looked. You need to install 8AAs in the Transmitter, and 4 AAAs in the chassis. The antenna is held on by a screw, much like Xmods, but where these antennas attach, they have a small part of the circle at the base removed so you don't have to completely remove the screw each time you want to remove the antenna, just loosen it. Last but not least, you need to install the crystal. As you know, the crystals come with a little 'flag' on the end so you can easily remove the crystal. If it is not tucked in, it will drag off the ground, and could potentially pull the crystal out. You can see this in the picture of the underside of the chassis so you understand what to do.


The Chassis

The steering gear box is that of a MR-02 Mini-Z. It operates the same, and incorporates a servo saver to keep you from stripping servo gears, something that constantly happens in the 01 series of cars, Kyosho and iWaver.

The suspension is very nice, but for some reason my right knuckle sticks somewhat. I am not sure at the moment weather this is the knuckle or the kingpin due to the fact that the kingpins will not come out for me at the present time. The left side works flawlessly, and I would say with a set of polished kingpins, this car would handle like a dream. Or, you could even try to polish the stock kingpins with a Dremel or similar.

The chassis looks about the same as the MR-02 chassis except for the large cutout in the shape of an X over the PCB. I will soon be cutting this out to bring more air to the PCB. It also looks as though a Kyosho colored MR-02 chassis will work, and I feel the smoke version with gold-plated battery terminals will help bring even more power to the PCB.

The rear end, again, looks the same as the Kyosho's, but the way the damper attaches to the chassis it a bit different. Instead of mounting to the upper chassis plate, it mounts through the PCB to the lower chassis. It uses a T plate instead of the H plate, seen on the 01 series of cars, where one end does not have the two extra 'fins' connecting to the chassis. Instead, the 02s have two horizontal 'fins' at one end, connected to a long vertical piece that screws into the chassis. This is all one piece and the design "fits its name to a T." The kit includes the parts to convert to MM configuration, but my CLK shell is not long enough to accommodate this, maybe I will get one of those beautiful BMW M3 GTR Autoscales.

The gear differential gave me problems at first. It spun too free, causing the car to always pull to the left, and turn left tighter than right. This was fixed when I removed the E-clip holding the diff together, and packed it with Team Associated Silicon Diff Grease, and solved that problem.

The wheels are your standard plastic wheels. Wide in rear with the standard in the front. Mounted on these wheels are made of the softest rubber I have seen. They look to be made out of silicone, the same thing used in slot car racing. They grip excellently on every surface. But watch out on pavement, these tires are pretty soft.

Before I show you the pictures, I will be speaking about the hardware. I always complain about the hardware on my cars. I seem to be always stripping my hardware, whether they are Phillips or hex screws. But let me tell you, the hardware in the iWaver 02 is insane! They have a nice luster to them, and are stronger than anything I have seen in a R/C before. I strongly recommend using a high-quality Phillips screwdriver. These screws stripped my Tamiya screwdrivers, and the only thing that seems to work is a Craftsmen screwdriver.

The motor is descent, about the same speed and torque as a Stage 1 Xmod motor. It is ok for casual driving, but it is not that great for spirited driving. The motor leads aren't soldered to the tabs that well, and I ended up having to re-solder the leads back on the positive and negative sides (this happened on the X-Speed Pro as well).



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The Body

The body is accurately detailed. The D2 livery is executed beautifully, and as far as I can tell. The front emblem is very flexible and will not break off in a rollover. The rear spoiler has taken some pretty hard blows as well and still sits intact. The only thing on this body that seems flawed are the taillights. The red under the lens was painted on poorly, but other than that, the body is beautiful.

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The Transmitter

What can I say, the transmitter is excellent. The LED is ultra-bright, and some people may want to put a piece of black electrical tape over it. Although I have not used all of the following features, they are certainly nice to have:

Condition switch
Alarm buzzer
Alphanumeric LCD screen with high intensity blue LED monitor
10-model memory
Model copy and clear functions
Model naming
ABS braking
Brake mixing for large cars
One-channel program mixing
Steering and throttle exponential
Servo reversing on all channels
End Point Adjustment (EPA) for all channels
Multi-function timer up/down with lap memory
Steering dual rates
Throttle ATL
Digital trims
Function select dial/switch
Steering speed
Charge jack for optional NiCds

It also has a switch that you can use for a third channel. As you may or may not know, they do not produce 3 channel AM surface radios (at least not any that I have seen), so I am not sure if it is functional or not. It seems as though it is, due to the fact that you can do some reversing and such on the third channel, but I do not own a three-channel car or truck, so I cannot be certain.


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X-Speed Pro Motor

The Pro motor comes in simple packaging. It looks very glossy in the packaging, but it is terribly fast! The can and endbell both have ball bearings in them, the brushes are made of carbon and the magnets are of the famed rare-earth metal, Neodymium. The can has a beautiful chrome finish, but has a shiny sticker that I removed once I opened the motor (I think it said iWaver or X-Speed on it). I installed it in my car, and after a few seconds of running, I smelled something burning. I quickly shut the car off, and felt the PCB cover where the FETs are located to see how hot they were. They became very hot during that short run. I checked the FETs to see if they were intact. There was nothing wrong with them, so I figured that was the breaking in of the motor. The only complaint I have about this motor that the motor leads aren't soldered to the tabs that well, and I ended up having to re-solder the leads back on the positive and negative sides.

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Conclusion

This is a great car, and I would recommend it to anyone. It drives like a dream, and the few flaws it has can be fixed with ease. It is an epically great deal for the racer, who ends up replacing most of the parts on their car anyway, so you get a solid base to work off of, and you get that wonderful transmitter. You can't go wrong here, the deal is too good to pass up. My advice to you is buy from a shop here in the States (Ripper or MZR), and save yourself a heck of alot of money. The car is great, and with new kingpins, differential grease, and even a cheap bearing set from VXB, you will have one killer car.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate is a 9.0. .5 points each were deducted for the sticking kingpin, and the extremely free diff, but those can be easily fixed.

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sg219
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Post by sg219 »

Great reveiw.

But.....

Copy Cat.

Somebody else with the same name did this already at another site, almost word for word.

Your too late. :-)
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Post by crazydave »

Nice review. I love my 04, so I'll agree with all of that.

Here's my honest opinion, I hate Kyosho. Their stuff is way overpriced, and yeah it's quality stuff, but their 1/10th scale sport kits are kinda cheap and way overpriced for what they are. Pro level kits seem to be struggling to keep up with the technology of other companies, yet they cost more.

It also bothered me that RC Car Action always seemed in cahoots with Kyosho, delivering gushing reviews of mediocre cars... and yes I was one who was misled into buying a Kyosho car, and that's why I'm mad. ;) :lol:


For that reason alone I avoided Mini-Zs, but now I'm a believer. The fact that my 04 monster is lighter, faster, and handles better than my Xmod with stage 2 motors (I'm making an assumption on all accounts, if it's not lighter, faster, better handling, then it's at least on par), has me convinced. A monster should not be faster than a car.

But I still think Kyosho is overpriced, and I think the fact the Iwaver can be produced for nearly half the price and include a butt kicking radio helps my point.

The only problem is, now that I have my foot in the door, I'm getting tempted to buy those expensive Kyosho hop up parts, but damn $30 for a Mad Force body set, $25 for a pair of oil filled shocks, that's $50 for a full set of oil filled shocks! Damn, might as well get another Iwaver, and I think I will. :lol:
...crazy man, crazy...dig it.
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Mazda787b
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Post by Mazda787b »

Thanks guys.

I have a few updates.

1) I removed the kingpins last night. You need to remove the E-clip at the top then I needed to use a hammer to hit it out because my knuckel does not have a big enoughg hold for some reason or another. I found out that the kningpin was all scratched and knicked up. That, and my knuckel's hold being too small in diameter led to my right side binding up. Looks like I will be buying a polished set from MZR after all.

2) When I run on the carpet in my basement, the grease in the diffieerential picks up dog hair and binds up shortly. I have to remove it for cleaning every 10 minutes or so. I do not have the E-clip holdgin it together anymore so I can dtrip it down easier.

3) Re-installed the X-Speed Pro last night. It is blindingly fast. It runs with no problems now, but the Neo magnets seem to pick up little metal shavings that were burried in the carpet.

I am ordering bearings and kingpins this week, hopefully they will be here before I go back to school.
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Mrv9292
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Post by Mrv9292 »

Nice review,
i just have an old 01 tho

but how do you remove those e-clips on the diff they are so hard to pry open :-(
Mazda787b
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Post by Mazda787b »

I used a pair of needle nose pliers.
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Post by betty.k »

hey mazda, sure you didn't leave anything out? :lol:

good work, thanks for taking the time :-)
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Mazda787b
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Post by Mazda787b »

No problem Betty, I promised to write one. I didnt want to rush anything and write a crappy one, that is why it took so long.

Also, I retract that statement about the FETs handling the X-Speed Pro motor. They fried today, I have reverse only. Thankfully, I recieved 30 SI4562DY FETs from Vishay for "testing" last week.

I am cashing another check tomorrow, that is another $50. I am going to purchase a ball diff, dry bearings, kingpins, and a few other things from MZR.
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Post by SuperFly »

Nice review.

Here's a DIY solution for the sticky kingpins that works great and saves you the hassle of ordering new ones.

Remove the kingpin, and stick the very tip of it in a Dremel or drill. You want to insert as little as possible while allowing it to spin true.

Get some metal polish (I use Brasso) on a soft cloth, and with the kingpin spinning in the Dremel, pinch the kingpin with the cloth on the spot that has the polish. Work it up and down, oh baby. Then let it dry and repeat the spinning and pinching with a section of clean cloth. Spray a tiny amount of WD-40 on a cloth and wipe it on the kingpin.

Super smooth action, check it out.
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Mazda787b
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Post by Mazda787b »

Hmm, Thanks I will have to try it on the left one. The right is marred up so bad that it scratched up the inside of the knuckle. I have the FETs stacked now, waiting to be installed. I am now just waiting for teflon sealed bearings from Dinball, and to find the 18 or 16ga superflex wire because I removed my switch and that crappy stock wiring. I just got some nyloks from SG219 as well.
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