So with brakes and brake cams installed, I’m reaching for my bare 3mm thick 7075-T6 aluminium chassis that boasts of being the longest in its class and will result in having a maximum wheelbase of 374mm, 5mm longer than the previous title holder, the LSP! Thankfully the side guards go on here first while there’s nothing else in the way and Dan laughs at me that he has already got his rear end firmly planted in place and is leading the truggy build off, but bish bash bosh and my front, rear and centre are screwed down to wipe the smile from his face, ah bless him, he was so pleased to consider himself in the lead.

I did then try the stock plastic arched chassis braces before switching over to the ally Prospec ones, although the stockers do have the benefit of a double capture to the chassis over the single attachment of the Pro parts, it would have been appreciated for a repeat of the double capture on the ally braces for further flex removal but I’m sure they’ll still do a sterling job whilst looking much more regal too.

I now reach the stage of tie-rods and steering links as I virtually have a rolling chassis and with the precise measurements in the manual, it is easy to create symmetrical tie-rods and an even base setting for my steering. This leads me nicely onto the radio tray with its plastic support posts that’ll have control over my steering as I plop two Hitec 625MGs inside it as well as a choice of two transponder mounts, one for PTs and one for club transponders. This all firmly attaches to the twin section receiver box that has a spring loaded aerial mount and grommet fitted to the box for the receiver wire to pass through, a waterproofed on/off switch and ample room for a hump pack battery before taking its rightful place on the chassis. Even the 150cc sized fuel tank gets fitted with special rubber grommets to reduce any vibrations and air bubbles in the lines, but Dan is now resorting to dirty tactics by hiding the tank posts from me in an attempt to delay my build… cue his cheeky girly laugh that gives his guilt away and one sharp slap later I’m back in the game.
All that’s left is to add the fuel spill guard and the gunmetal grey fuel filter before I’m looking at fitting an engine to my new truggy. Of course being a Mugen it would be a dream pairing to have the Ninja MR.21-BO1 to drop in there and as luck would have it, Ted Longshaw who is the distributor for both Mugen Seiki and Ninja engines in the UK supplied me with the aforementioned engine to accompany the kit. This not only means the MBX5T Prospec gets the power of the Ninja running through its veins, but I can keep my flow of gunmetal grey colour scheme going because it has the matching cooling head and goes with the supplied grey ally flywheel and Prospec mono block engine mount… how very cool.

Inside the 13t clutch bell goes a shiny set of three aluminium shoes and the 1mm springs that are already part of the kit which even includes all the shims you could possibly need. So onto the chassis it goes and once meshed I can sort out some of the nice smoke coloured fuel tubing before adding a polished OPS inline tuned pipe into the equation. At this point in the evening, the Chinese takeaway we ordered had arrived so we decided to call it a day and tuck into some well earned grub.

In the morning and with a very unhealthy fried breakfast and a few coffees inside me, I was soon back in my building groove and it was time to put the shock absorbers together, gunmetal grey aluminium ones of course. These are a new design long throw shocks and even longer than those found in the MSR kit which could explain the red springs, representing that they are specifically for the MBX5T shocks, so it would be advisable to run with a decent bit of droop to protect them from snapping a shaft on heavy landings. I filled them with the 40wt oil supplied and positioned them as per the setup sheet which was middle on the tower and middle on the arm both front and rear. Concluding my build now with the addition of the new nylon rear wing on its mount that has two more bits of gunmetal grey ally in the support posts and I'm bolting on the included GRP "Grips" mounted on yellow dish rims to finish and allow myself a bit of time to set it all up on my KO Helios transmitter. My Mugen masterpiece is complete and it was a thoroughly enjoyable build, yet I still had one more thing to do other than stand back and admire my handiwork . wait for Dan to finish his.

Ninja training

The Ninja MR.21-BO1 engine will require a good run-in process just like any other engine, but to find out this information you’ll need to refer to the funky CD-ROM in which the instructions are stored as there’s no paper manual supplied and that means somewhere on the planet a rainforest has been saved! You’ll find a wealth of knowledge on this disc including how it comes with an 8.5mm venturi fitted and that others are available ranging from 5mm – 9mm, that it features a seven port internal arrangement on the sleeve, how it has a maximum rev range of up to a shocking 43,000RPM and how each engine has its own serial number etched onto the side of the crankcase for a unique status.

Back to getting this running though, it advises for one tank on the starter box before three further tanks whilst set rich and at least another two after a little tweaking on the HSN, once at least six full tanks of fuel have been teased through can some proper tuning begin. And believe me, you'll want to get a fair bit of fuel through this mill ASAP because the compression level is so high it needs some time before it'll loosen up and produce its full power capabilities. Not following these instructions could well see the engine fail to live up to expectations and run poorly through lack of patience, it demands a little respect and you’d be wise to give it some.

There are times when it was ridiculously hard to start purely through the high rate of compression which meant it got stuck at TDC because of this, so a powerful starter box with fully charged batteries is called for. I did my break in by the book so to speak as I knew there would be good times ahead and with each tank it got through a little more speed was achieved and by tank seven I was about ready to hit the track.

Race time

My freshly painted bodyshell came back from Absolute Control just in time for a track appearance and was styled to represent the dog against Dan’s cat to contrast the little battle we’d be having. Jim created a custom Mugen Seiki design on the rear bed, a chunky spiked collar and a ferocious growler of a Bulldog on the front that looks anything but friendly. You don’t need to ask me if it bites, there’s still a bit of blood leftover on the teeth from its last victim!
First impressions were that it felt tight, precise and very lively on the track, the gearing really does make it a hot favourite for the hole shot in the finals and with the power of the Ninja inside, it’ll have more than enough top end speed to keep the competition at bay. In fact once the Ninja has fully loosened up and the fact that the MBX5T is quite a lightweight racer, straight line speed could be hard to beat. The steering response is still very quick even though it doesn’t have a top grade digital servo controlling it, making the technical section of the track look quite easy to negotiate, although I didn’t have as much on power steering as I’d like when attacking some of the corners. I’m sure a little tinkering with the base setup and trying different diff oils will reap the rewards though as the truck has more than enough steering throw, it just needs to find a bit more grip. When it came to the jumps there were no problems, again the power to weight ratio and phenomenal acceleration will see it launch and fly with ease, so much so I had a job trying to land on the downside of any ramps because it didn’t like holding back.
Some people have already expressed their fears over the inclusion of wheel extenders and if they bother you that much, simply remove them and replace with a set of hexes from the MBX5 buggy and attach a set of offset wheels. I did this but used a set of Nubz to see if the turning circle would be tighter and it was slightly improved and without getting any rubbing issues either, but I’ll revert back to the extenders and GRP Grips for the larger diameter they give because they are a particularly good choice of tyre and I’ve yet to know which I prefer best. Durability wise, I’m very impressed. As per usual with me testing it was never going to be mollycoddled and it took some nasty landings whilst I was chasing that pesky Kyosho cat around the place, yet I still managed some respectable lap times in between landing on my roof here and there. So far so good though and no damage at all has been done at all.

Overall

As I’ve said the build is very enjoyable because the parts are of such high quality and they all fit perfectly into place without any slop or wobbles, however, finding some of the right screws in the wrong bags during the build got a bit tedious. But once the time is taken to put this Mugen truggy together properly you’ll have a very masterful truck in your hands. It’s not cheap and it certainly isn’t aimed at the inexperienced user, but if you take into consideration that you’ll not actually need to upgrade any parts on it compared to some other “Pro” kits, it will perhaps be a more financially viable purchase and one that’s immediately race ready too. The Ninja MR.21-BO1 engine wants more time to fully loosen up even though I’m into double figures on the number of tanks of fuel it’s already seen, it’s still not fully tuned yet so when it is I expect it to be frighteningly fast. I’ll switch over to a 14t clutch bell in an attempt to calm down the brutal bottom end punch, continue to fine tune the setup and race it as often as possible because this truck and engine combo really excites me. Looking back over the big picture, I think the MBX5T Prospec more than has what it takes to hang with the big boys, give the Kyosho ST-Rs and Hong Nor CRTs a damned good run for their money, and in the right hands I reckon it’ll be wagging its tail proudly as the undisputed top dog of them all!

Distributed in the UK by Models in Motion