Like all good truggies you get a rear wing with the ST-R, this has the bonus of being a standard 1:8 buggy size, a lot of truggies can’t get away with this as rules for racing these trucks in the US state the wing must not be wider than the body, fortunately the ST-R’s body is very wide! You get a nice set of Kyosho ten spoke wheels with the kit and I added some Pro-Line Bowtie MT tyres to give it a real racy look.

Awesome artwork

Having related the battle between Kyosho and Mugen to that of a cat and dog, we asked Jim at Absolute Control to replicate this in the paint schemes and as per normal he didn’t let us down.  While Nobby sports a full on throat ripping Bulldog look, I opted for the stealth like prowess of pure feline power and manoeuvrability of a panther!

The power house

I was lucky enough to get the brand new Sirio S28 STI “MX” engine to run in this truggy.  The important thing to note with this engine is the STI badge, this represents the highest quality product Sirio make and the 28 MX is the first monster sized engine they have produced with this label. 
All the engines in the STI range are hand built, perfectly balanced and polished off for a perfect fitting.  You’ll also find extra porting on them and a nice bit of etching on the con rod and if they are STI engines are good enough for the Sirio team drivers, it should give ample power for me.

It’s certainly a top bit of kit and with a retails price of around £205 it’s in a different price bracket to the cheap .28 engines around so is targeted towards the serious users with its five ports and ABC piston and liner.  Don’t be mistaken into thinking this engine is in the same league as the cheaper ones though, as I found out to my pleasure this engine will give any RB or Nova Rossi big block engine a serious run for it’s money.  The basic instructions included with this recommend using fuel with a minimum of 10% castor oil so I turned to the use of Blue Thunder, a very well established and reputable brand available and professional stored by Helger Racing. The MX engine was coupled up with the Sirio formula buggy EFRA approved pipe and the kit provides everything you need to set up the clutch, from a blue anodised flywheel and aluminium clutch shoes with Kyosho 1.0mm springs as well as all the shims you’d need.

The running in procedure was a little tough, purely because of the amount of compression there was. I resorted to all the old tactics including backing the glow plug off and warming it up with a hairdryer first. I even had 3800mAh batteries in my Mugen starter box which still struggled slightly but fortunately the engine was firing up virtually straight away. As the engine loosened during break in the power really started to come through. I can't say I've ever been over impressed with a .28 or large engine, preferring the power band from a decent .21ci engine but the Sirio 28 MX soon changed all that. Unlike the cheaper "monster engines", this didn't back off the power at the top end and still had more to give by the time you were braking at the end of the straight, I honestly feel that the extra money spent on this engine is a very worth while investment, coupled with the Kyosho clutch system and a good tuned pipe like this Sirio one, it's got more kick than a donkey being castrated!

Test Drive

So after around 15 hours of building this kit up I finally got to drive it!  15 hours indecently is probably around 3 hours longer than it would take most other people, I had to stop and take pictures after most stages and keep answering the office phone, still it wasn’t a bad day’s work.   
Having completed the build and break in procedure, I was all set to let it rip on the MaxBashing track and luckily we had the endurance race on so there were marshals out and I could really give it some, it’s not like I wouldn’t have anyway but this way I didn’t have to do my own marshalling.
I’ve driven a few truggies this year and all have been quite good on the track but this instantly surpassed them all.  The turning circle on this is awesome, so much so that the non off set wheels supplied with this run the risk of rubbing against the turnbuckles so I trimmed the steering down to 75% throw on my transmitter.  It felt so lively that I was over steering all the time, I got used to the feel of it soon enough though and was then happily hammering around the track.    Using non offset wheels and normal buggy sized hex adaptors does mean it’s slightly narrower than kits like the Mugen and CRT, this reflects in its straight line stability but on the flip side means it’s more manoeuvrable in tighter section and if you want to make it wider you can easier add offset wheels or even hub extenders.

Despite it’s narrower stance I still found the ST-R offered great stability down the straight and the lighter diff oils made it easy to get a four wheel drive power drift into the corners, although there was some under steer here so perhaps a different combination of diff oils will suit my driving style better, I feel some experimentation coming on, that’s just so not me, I’m well and truly a missionary type person. 

Final thoughts

I must admit I’ve been hanging on for the ST-R for quite some time and put my name against doing the review at a very early stage.  There’s a certain prestige to owning a Kyosho, they are a well established company with a great track record in every sense of the word and I wanted a truck that was going to help me on the track, not hinder me and after a good amount of running with it, I certainly feel it does this for me.
The build was a little tough going in places and perhaps not something someone with no experience of nitro buggies or trucks should take on but the instructions are very precise and easy to follow, even if you are left rummaging around for parts at times.

The drive of this kit is simply outstanding, it easily out classes the other truggies on the market at the moment, even those that have been immensely popular this last year. It’s results that count and Kyosho certainly can’t be beaten for their results in the 1:8 buggy market and this ST-R looks like it is set to dominate the outlaw monster class in a similar fashion, although perhaps not in my hands.

Distributed in the UK by Kyosho UK