2014 - Associated Mini Rival
back to Fyrstormer's Garage (originally posted on UltimateRC.com on 2014-03-13) I finished another build last night. I have to admit, I had my doubts about the Mini Rival at first. In stock form it was pretty slow, the gears were exposed, the outdrives were plastic, there was a weird hole under the motor for no good reason, the dogbones had a weird tendency to chatter when cornering, and even the strongest available shock springs were only barely adequate. However, I quickly discovered there were lots of upgrade options, and I went to work fixing the platform's weak points. The first problems I tackled was the weak motor. After trying a series of different brushed motors, I gave up and converted it to a brushless system. I ended up going with a Turnigy Trackstar ESC, a Turnigy 4600KV 4-pole motor, and 2S LiPo. (I'm not sure if the motor is actually 4-pole, because it rotates with no resistance when the ESC is off, unlike most 4-pole motors, but it makes plenty of t...