The front section

The front diff is like the rear in that it gets fed its power through a centre CVD, but unlike the rear it is not offset and has 7,000wt oil loaded into it. The universal joint of the CVD itself takes the offset angle in its stride and the front chassis brace that has just a single connection to the chassis follows its twist and then straightens up as it makes a grab for the front top plate. This plate sits over the bearing filled steering assembly that has been fitted with the shorter of the two Ackerman plates with the longer one in a bag of spare option parts. The strong looking steering rods are only outdone by the even chunkier turnbuckles as they lead outwards from the Ackerman and shock tower respectively. The bigger turnbuckle reaches out for the top of the C-hub whereas the rods stretch a little further out to the steering knuckles, plastic ones for racing lightness and durability and also because the aluminium knuckles are an after market hop-up. Back tracking slightly here to the C-hub and knuckle connection, because there’ll be no worry of a lost screw finishing your race early as they are connected via a kingpin with a recess and grub screw correlation. The pins slide through the hubs and the grub screws channel through the knuckle and with the grubbers going through plastic, they haven’t a chance of vibrating out of position.

Again the front, like the rear has a pair of over sized threaded shock absorbers of the same quality but with 45wt silicone oil inside them and black springs outside them. Just as the front shares captured hinge pins and well braced long A-arms, it then shares the density of a 5mm thick T-6 ally shock tower that has four shock mounting options and three lower on the arms but without a need for the rear adapters, these rod ends go straight into the lower arms as per normal. The front also wears a sway bar, this is a 2.3mm thick bar which like the rear one can be changed over from the selection issued with the kit as tuning options, and I’ll close on the nose of the front bumper, it’s small and very rigid to take a heavy front end landing for when I let Dan have a go, not me obviously because I’m awesome!

Things to do

It’s not going to go very fast without an engine, the servos that make it move or the radio gear that tells them what to do is it, and a battery of course to make all of the above possible. The engine of choice for me is the LRP Z.28R Truggy Spec3 bump start engine that’ll rev to 38,500 RPM and has a power output of 3.95PS. Its heavy duty black crankcase houses a VTEC.28 ABC nine port liner, a piston CNC machined from high-silicium alloy with a double bushed fork shaped ally conrod and a 13mm SG crankshaft that has three turbo scoops!

The competition slide carburettor has VTEC thermal protection, a choice of 7.5mm, 8.5mm and 9mm venturi inserts and the whole engine is topped off with a 10 finned blue cooling head that proudly boasts its name, while firmly attached to the rear exhaust port is a Hong Nor big bore pipe with a 9.5mm stinger to get the best out of this great LRP lump. Happily the Losi 8ight’s four shoe clutch comprising of two aluminium and two carbon shoes is another item that is pre-made at the factory, all that’s needed is to slip on the cone, flywheel with clutch system, firmly wrench it on and cover with the 13T clutch bell that has an oversized inner bearing.

It’s getting spoiled now as the servos chosen to get busy in the 8ight-T are a pair of KO PROPO PDS-2344 high torque power digital FET servos that will pair up to my Helios a treat. They boast figures of 0.13 seconds for a reaction time and will pull 13Kg through the power of its metal gears. Now in the instruction manual it does say to fit your on/off switch before the servos, don’t! You’ll only have to take it out again as you need to feed the wires of the servos through special little holes to get to the receiver in the front box of the radio tray. I got myself an on/off switch with a charging harness so I actually needed to file a tiny amount off one of these holes in order to get the connector from the extra wire through the little gap. Wait further still as you’ll want to place your hump pack receiver battery in the rear box and thread its wire along the tray into the same hole before you can close the access point by finally installing the switch.

The servo arms are already in place awaiting the servos, all you need do is locate the correct horn insert (clearly stated in the manual), centralise your servos and screw them down in place. Take care with the carburettor’s throttle slide movement as it can rub on the centre diff mount on opening if not done right, I found the best spot for it was to have the ball end on the end of the carb at an eight O’clock position as it keeps the linkage straight and misses the mount completely.

The penultimate touch is to slip the aerial of my Spektrum Pro module through its holder and then secure it in place with a grub screw so close to the aerial tube’s location, once screwed in it pinches on the bottom of the tube to make sure it stays right where it is, never to fall out accidentally.

And finally, after cutting a small void out for the exhaust stinger, I can splash some pre-cut stickers over the body shell that’s back from Absolute Control and is now sprayed in a chequered flag front with a Losi green main body, cutting to a carbon fibre look rear end, this was going to yellow but only Jim knows what went on there. I do love the sleek low profile look to this body though as well as its strength through the sheer thickness of it.