[rschoi_75]

Just got mine in today! It looks good so far. At first glance it looks exactly like a Mini Quake chassis, but there are indeed a lot of little differences. I plan to break down the chassis tonight, but before I do that, I want to get at least one run in with the truck in box stock form. I'm currently waiting for my first charge to finish, so I'll give you guys a little feedback of what I think so far.

Shocks:
As most of you already know, this truck comes with 8 oil filled shocks with aluminum caps. The shock bodies are made of plastic and they are filled with what seems to be very light oil. The shocks are held in place by a 1.5mm st screw up top and a kingpin/e-clip combo on the bottom. nothing new here. Finally, the springs are similar to the stock white MQ springs in stiffness.

Lower arms
These look identical to the mini quake, yet are slightly different. The plastic seems to be made of a different compound, but is still flexible like the MQ arm (which is a good thing).

Upper arms
Simply stated, they rock. They are two piece arms with an aluminum tie rod installed. Camber adjustments are finally possible. This is a much appreciated upgrade. The plastic on the upper arms are also thicker than the Mini Quake upper arms.

Knuckles
Not much to say, except there is an additional ball stud hole for extra toe adjustments.

Shock Towers
Are very similar to the MQ, but have a slightly different design. More plastic is used and there is no upper chassis brace mount since the Rage uses an upper deck.

Upper Deck
Seems to be made of 2mm thick fiberglass. I like the concept vs the MQ upper brace, but it needs to be stiffer. A good 3mm carbon fiber upper deck would fit the bill nicely.

Wheels/Tires
Another high point of the XTM Rage. The wheels have a nice wide off-set and the tires have a pin type pattern with a very hard compound. Good for its main use: bashing. I also think these would be good in damp/wet packed tracks. For dry or loose dirt, you're going to want something else. MQ and Vendetta ST tires should work on these wheels. If you need tires for racing, I suggest a visit to the Vendetta forum and read Jaejw1's tire review.

Battery/Charger
The charger is your standard cheap-o wall type charger. It has no peak detection and there no led to let you know if its even working or not. The charger has an output of 0.5 amps. The battery on the other hand was a nice surprise. On the back of the battery you can clearly see the manufacturer: KAN. These guys are one of the better nimh manufacturers, so I expect some good results from this pack. *edit: A few other things. The battery uses a mini tamiya connector (?), so a standard 1/10th size tamiya plug will not work. The battery also comes with 15awg wires which is actually thicker than most. Not bad...


ok.... that's enough for one post. Here are some pics... enjoy.