Boorito's HPI Sprint 2

Well I have almost finished wasting money on my Sprint now.... I guess now I will have to find something that is just to tempting to pass up for me to spend more money on it, like a cheap rear graphite strut tower p: ....

INTRO!
Anyway :]. I am very excited to be back in the hobby that is remote control cars, I love how my time just flies by as I do random stuff with or to my car lol. When I first started looking for a new car I was not looking for a drift specific car thinking all I needed was some simple stuff to make it slide nicely.

BACK STORY!
Though I am still learning I figured for an all wheel drive car I would need a locked rear, an open front diff of some sort, some adjustable suspension parts, and drift tires. I found the Sprint 2 offered me what I was looking for in adjustable suspension out of the box, and it was very available, plus they offered it with the Falken Porsche. Though I had been looking into a new car for a few years, I kept pushing it off, finally my brother came across a deal on exactly what I had been looking at and picked it up as a Christmas gift for me.

Once receiving my neat little car I began to research making kit drift proper, only to find that most dislike the car for drifting because of the weight layout and that its 50/50 gearing. I agree with not liking the gearing right now, but the weight isn't to bad.

INITIAL OPINION!
Overall I would suggest an MST RTR over this any day now, but since I have it I let my self get carried away in buying cheap upgrades, plus replacing the stock stuff that broke almost instantly out the box.

I took some before and after pictures, and when I look at them I do not really think some of the new stuff did very much. But since this is my first car back into the hobby, I am really happy with how it has come in the time I have had it, and I can't wait to get a new servo in it to try it with all its shiny :]

I would have only bought the front 1 way if I didn't find that after a few runs a good amount of screws had fallen out of the chassis... Which honestly, I think to make this car drift really good out the box, lock the rear and play with the ESC settings a bit till you find a setting your comfortable with, and adjust the front camber and toe. If you want to get competitive with rc drifting, I can see this needing a lot of work... I also have not drove my car since the shiny upgrades, and maybe it will make a nice difference.

ANYWAY

It started as a new stock Sprint 2 sport with the Falken Porsche.
I had everything sitting around before I started trying parts one at a time.

I started with the front 1-way, and though it does help a little, I do believe a locked rear and the stock front would be much better than stock rear with the 1-way.

Next was a front alignment, which also made a good difference, but still did not allow me to do what I wanted with the car.

So next I attempted to lock my rear diff using body clips like a video I saw on youtube... I used clips off a tamiya, and they were WAAAAY to small, so I got a few good slides in before it failed and had it locking on and off.

Having now grown tired of looking at my pile of parts and dealing with my remote with no spring tension I decided to strip my car and start my rebuild, and to also attempt to relock my diff with bigger body clips......

The car is done, except my stock servo does not work with my Airtronics receiver, so now I get to wait till after I pay bills to find and buy the servo I want to try my car again QQ...

I am very happy with how it looks, and extremely excited about its new height, but very disappointed the cheap GPM steering knuckles do not offer me much for an improvement on steering angle. I get a very tiny bit which definitely helps the inside wheel, and even I can look at it and see much more and my stock axle will fall out....

REMINDS ME! Once the front diff went in I had tons of problems with the axles falling out till I adjusted the camber and toe, but thats cheesy I had to adjust that stuff to make an HPI part work... IMO

LOOOK AT MY PAGE OF JIBBER JABBER ABOUT THIS CAR!! GEEEEEZ IM SO SORRY IF YOU GOT BORED READING THAT!!!
So here are pics of the shiny toy car I have :]. I can not wait to get an MST or Sakura now.

Still new:

I added a Sakura diffuser so I can mount an exhaust:


I mounted the exhaust and did the front alignment the same day and took some pictures with some of the different wheels I have before testing it with my old wheels:


Top shot with Speedway Pal wheels and Sakura plastic tires:


and the steering angle:



After those pics were taken I put my HPI wheels back on and took it out for a test drive. The camber makes so much difference, the car is instantly more controllable while turning. After feeling a nice improvement here I decided to lock my diff doing what I saw online, not know I used the wrong size body clips. With the locked rear control becomes ALMOST perfect! But after maybe 4 figure 8s around some bottles the diff unlocked and the car ran like before.

I did not want to fix the diff only to take the car apart again when I was ready to rebuild it with the other parts I had collected, so it was time.

With the wheels I like looking at for some reason



next to the tt01 thats getting sort of built for my lady:


It has the same Speedway Pal Sakura wheel tire combo in these pics:




ANNNNDD NEW STEERING ANGLE !!! ... The control arms and steering knuckles are GPM from Asiatees. They look nice, and provide a tiny bit more angle. I may add more toe out to try and get just a little more angle while at lock.