Academy SB V2 Sport review
This buggy is an improvement over the Academy SB, which was had a small following locally, so I had to get one for a review.
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A bronze bushing sits inside the spur to keep it centered on the slipper shaft. I test-fitted a similarly-sized
bearing (a diff bearing from the kit) as a possible replacement for the bushing but it didn't work because the
bushing is slightly thinner than the bearing. I stuck to the instructions and put the bushing back in. It
shouldn't be a problem anyway as the slipper is supposed to have a good amount of friction to work properly.
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The kit includes more than enough 0.2mm diff shims and bevel pinion shims to help keep the gears properly meshed.
The center shaft rides on 1050 (10mm X 5mm X 4mm) bearings.
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The center shaft seems on the edge of popping out of the rear cup. Without the top chassis plate, I could easily
flex the bottom chassis plate with my hands to get the shaft to pop out. The instructions says to mount the shaft bearing
holder with the motor mount side on the right side of the chassis but you can mount it on the left side if you want the
batteries on the right. I stuck to conventional wisdom and left the motor on the right.
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The kit also includes some 5mm inner diameter X 0.2mm thickness shims which I put behind the from shaft cup, hoping
this would keep the shaft as far back as possible to keep it from falling out. Doesn't seem to help much but I left them
in there.
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The steering bellcranks has its own adjustable servo saver and rides on four 840 sized
(8mm outer diameter X 4mm inner diameter X 3mm thickness) bearings. If you're planning to have the batteries down the
right side of the chassis, don't forget to build the steering the other way around (servo link on the left
bellcrank). The front suspension arms and C-hubs bind a little against the hingepins, so I did the Dremel-hingepin
trick on them.
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All four axles ride on heavy duty 1510 (15mm X 10mm X 4mm) bearings just like the diff cups.
Since this buggy is going to see a lot of dirt, I didn't degrease any bearings throughout the build.
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On the left is a stock kit rod end and on the right is a Team Losi one from a XXX-T. All the ballstuds on the kit
have 4.3mm diameter balls according to the manual. When I tried to snap one of the ball cups(rod ends) onto one,
it took a gargantuan effort and in the end, it didn't even pivot freely. The Team Losi one turned out to be a perfect
fit but needs to be cut to length. Team Associated and RPM ones fit too but HPI ones (part A303) snap
off too easily.
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The rear arm mounts are made of plastic, so I replaced these with aluminium hop-up blocks A3 and B3
immediately (parts number 98VP T006 and 98VP T008). These give 3 degrees of toe-in, There's a
small amount of play which allows the arms to slide forward and backwards slightly on the hingepins, so I
put in some shims. Access to the motor screws are difficult as the shock tower and drive shafts get in the way.
The motor screws themselves hardly protrude out of the motor mount, so I promptly stripped a screw hole in
one aluminium brushless motor can. Since then, I've replaced the motor screws with 3mm X 10mm cap head screws.
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The rear dogbones are pretty complicated as they involve several plastic and metal pieces coming together to form
what looks like - but isn't quite - a pair of CVD's. The aluminium spacer is tapered at one end and will only fit one way.
It should be pushed in all the way to make space for the bearing or else the axle won't fit properly and you'll
have a hard time pulling everything apart to start over.
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The kit pinion (left) has a very narrow row of teeth on it. It looks like it was waiting to chew up some spurs,
so I didn't bother with it. On the right is a pretty standard affair Yokomo 48 pitch pinion, which i ended up using.
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The kit shocks are really not very good. The "Dust Cap" is made of rubber and the damper clip doesn't sit very
neatly into place and seems to scratch against the shock shaft. The rod ends for the front shocks are the same
insanely tight ones in the steering and suspension links and when everything is put together, there's too much
friction everywhere. I've temporarily replaced them with some old Kyosho shocks from my junk pile.
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The chassis with electronics installed. The Intellect 3800 cells are slightly big for the molded slots but are
still usable. GP3300 batteries are a perfect fit.
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One shot of the Lexan bottom tray before I trash the buggy.
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Wearing our new team colours.
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The steering rack has 2 holes for Ackermann adjustments and the steering uprights also have 2 holes. In this picture,
I went with the front holes on the steering rack (as recommended in the manual) and the front ones on the uprights to
get maximum steering throw - which still wasn't very much.
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This is the steering mod some of the factory drivers are doing to get more steering throw.
Basically, the rear holes of the steering rack are used and the front ones are removed.
If any car needs more steering throw, it's this one, so I broke out the Dremel
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Track test -
Took the buggy out to a big track designed for 1/8 scale nitro buggies.
I installed a set of Tamiya Buggy Aeration Damper set (54028) with the blue dot springs
from the TRF501X set (53974 and 53975), Tamiya 400 oil all around, outer holes all around. The front suspension still felt too soft
but I went ahead with the bash anyway. For tires, I went back to the original kit tires, which worked very well at the dry dusty track.
The SB V2 was easy to control in the air as the front to rear weight was nicely balanced. On the straight, the buggy accelerated so quick,
I had to check after the first run to see if I had accidentally put in the wrong motor.
Around the turns, I sometimes got too eager and spun out, but with a little tuning, I'm sure I could get more stability without losing out
on too much steering.
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The only damage of the day - one of the kingpin screws stripped out of the steering hub (steering knuckle).
I got a replacement for the steering hub (VX-004) but the shop was out of king pin screws.
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The local Academy supplier had run out of steering kingpins. Luckily, Kyosho had a similar item (FA-021)
On the left is the kit Academy kingpin, on the right is the Kyosho one.
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The tricky part was getting the front hex hub off the axle cone.
In the end, I found a thin wrench in the household toolbox which was perfect for prying the hex off.
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There's enough room in front of the battery for quite a decent size receiver so that's where I mounted mine.
It helps keep the car balanced left to right when running lightweight LiPo batteries.
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