Kyosho's Super Ten GP 4WD

 

This page is a place for pictures and details about mine and my buddies' Super Ten. From what I can see, it is a good car. They're tough, tunable, scaled and has tons of cool aftermarket parts. However the reason why I bought it is because the car can be raced. Over in Singapore, Super Ten series races are held every 3 months. It's one of the more successful races with every race having at least 50 participants. Most of the time there are about 80-100 participants with 8-10 heats and ending the day in the late evening. Some of the cars are so hopped up and looks really trick. Below is a short review of the Super Ten.

REVIEW

The assembly of the Super Ten is rather easy, easy enough for a first timer. The chassis is an aluminum double deck. The upper deck holds the radio gear and helps to strengthen the car and allows easy removal of the radio gear for maintenance by just unscrewing a few screws. Once the upper deck has been removed, there's easy access to the engine and the whole chassis for maintenance.

The suspension is rigid and strong as it consists of two A-arms. Front and rear camber and front width can be easily adjusted by just turning the oversized pillow ball with an Allen key without needing to remove the wheels. Basically the suspension design is like those found on Serpents and Piccos. The suspension can move very freely for up and down travel as well as steering. The front suspension has a torsion bar attached to the lower suspension arm to decrease body roll. Caster can be adjusted by changing the position of the 2 spacers on the upper arm. The arms are made up of a tough and rigid material and so are the bulkheads and differential centre mount.

The car has two identical front and rear "gearboxes" or "cages". In them are two bevel gear differentials which can be adjusted by using heavy grease. In the centre of the chassis is the spur gear which has a Stainless Steel perforated disk brake attached to one side of the drive cup. The brake pads are stainless steel lined with a rubber pad. From the centre , two drive shafts transfer power to the front and rear differentials. The differentials has a beveled ring gear around it made of metal which is driven by a beveled pinion gear connected to the centre drive shaft. The wheel axles ride on metal bushings wherelse the rest ride on ball bearings.

The Super Ten was recently updated with softer compound tyres which really help solve the problem of spinning out. The first generation kits included hard rubber tyres which provided little grip. The revised Super Ten also includes blue bellcranks which are stiffer and stronger than the previous ones. The kit includes a GT15SCR pull start engine which is to me really fast when coupled to a 2speed and tuned pipe. Out of the box with the stock set up, the car flips easily. This is because the car's ground clearance is high as the shocks have too much down-travel. Spacers must be placed under the shock pistons to limit the down travel to lower the car so that it doesn't flip as often. With the older kits the stock set up made the car squirelly and almost impossible to turn as the slightest of steering input would spin it out due to the hard rear tyres. A pair of Low Profile High Grip tyre for the rear will help remedy this problem. The revised kits already include softer tyres all around.

Engine

The kit was supplied with the GT15-SCR engine which is a .15 pull-start engine. The engine came with a Cast Aluminium square head whose looks and cooling properties have much to be desired. The engine looks exactly the same as HPI's .15FE and Tamiya's FS15LT engines. I bet they're basically the same engine produced by an OEM manufacturer. However unlike Tamiya's and HPI's engines, the GT came with a 2 needle carb. It has both a high end and low end needle and would definitely help in the tuning of the engine as well as the bottom end punch. The manual for the engine claims that it produces .68hp. An airplane style muffler is also included to complete the engine/exhaust package. The engine started easily and performance was acceptable. Because of the heatsink head, the engine overheated easily. I also had 2 engines that ran inconsistently and overheated no matter how rich I set it after break in. The engines most likely developed an air leak somewhere which causes it to run erratically and inconsistently making it a pain in the hindquarters to tune. Because the engine are very similar to the Tamiya and HPI, I bet the optional aluminum heatsink heads for the above engines would work on the GT. Other than the overheating problem and the mess the engine makes the engine is a pretty good one.

Performance

Out of the box, the first generation S10 kits which came with hard compound radials all around, made the car very twitchy. On parking lots, the rear end always wants to swap ends with the slightest steering input. At high speeds, it can get hairy. You really need a steady hand to control it and prevent it from spinning out. However by just replacing the rear tyres with a pair of the high-grip radials would sort the handling out. The car handles much better and doesn't spin out as easily. With the proper oil-spring-tyre combo the car would handle very well.

 

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