Kyosho HOR: Suzuki RGV-T (Part 2)

Today I finally started the build. Here's a shot of what's included in the kit (except the servo). The servo I am using is the Futaba S3101, nothing special, it's just a standard servo. The bike only has 11 steps, so I thought this would be a quick build!



First thing I noticed when I started building was the type of plastic used. There are two types of plastic used in this kit. One is the typical brittle stuff like those used in model kits and the other is some type of fibre-reinforced plastic. The FRP reminds me of the type of material used on the Tamiya Dark Impact suspension arms. Another thing that I noticed were the amount of flashing on the plastic parts. Since a majority of my builds are Tamiya, I guess I got used to the good quality and excellent fitting. Some of the parts in this kit had poor fitting, but most of them could be fixed with some plastic shaving.

This particular piece here gave me grief for a while. It is a steel rod which slides into a brass piece. The hexagonal part of the rod is connected to the servo and the brass piece is connected to the bike rider. The steering mechanism of this bike relies on the leaning of the rider instead of direct steering of the front forks. Anyways, the steel rod was just a hair too wide in diameter so it couldn't go in the brass piece. I thought it was just tight fitting, so I grab the good old rubber mallet and pounded the rod into the hole. Except than it got stuck not even halfway through the brass piece. At this moment, the rod was stuck, it couldn't go in or out. To make things worst, the rod goes through part of the main frame of the bike where the servo is mounted.



The good news is that I have another new in box Kyosho HOR kit. So just for checking, I took out the metal rod and brass piece and test fitted them. It fitted perfectly! So now I know I have a faulty part on my current build. I ended up taking off the brass hex on the rod with brute force and rebuilding the assembly with parts borrowed from the other kit. The above piece is stuck together and is useless. I have to contact the hobby shop to see if I can get a replacement for my other HOR now.

Another problem I ran into was that the kit in stock configuration wasn't made for the use of a rear oil damper. The original counterpart was just a spring shock. I used a regular 10th scale touring shock in place of the spring shock, but it looks like the travel (how much the shock can compress) might be too little. I am thinking of trying a micro damper to see if it would be better.

So after many problems, this is all I got done today. Time for some chocolate Pocky.