Kyosho Mini-Z AWD MA-020 Review and Drift Upgrades
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- Опубліковано 24 сер 2024
- In this video, I want to show what mods I've made to the stock MA-020, and share my thoughts on why I made those changes. This car started life as kit 32610W, Toyota AE86 with a 90mm wheelbase, narrow front, 0.5mm offset narrow wheels. It's full of old school JDM charm.
Currently, MA-020 and MA-030EVO are the Mini-Z AWD platforms. The newer MA-030 was designed with a higher performance ceiling, but MA-020 is the more flexible chassis as it can do 90-98mm wheelbase while MA-030 can only support 94-98mm. With the large number of 90mm autoscale bodies, MA-020 is still relevant.
MA-020 is a shaft-driven AWD chassis similar to larger touring car designs. A motor located on the left side of the chassis drives a spur gear on the central drive shaft, which drives the diffs at the front and rear. CVDs connect the diffs to the wheels. MA-020 comes with a silver can brushed motor, which provides more than enough power and with good throttle control.
Though it's mostly plastic, it's high quality plastic and parts click nicely with each other.
Let's talk about upgrades. The most important one is the drift tires from DS Racing. The LF-1 ends up working the best for me on the very slippery wood surface. The alloy rims are R246 TE37 for looks. The gold flange lock nuts are from AliExpress.
Another important upgrade for a drifting MA-020 is the front springs. The stock front suspension is quite stiff. From my experience, the softer the front feels, the easier it is to execute a drift transition. The softest option I've tried is the GLR front spring set (GLR-003-S). The softest spring pair in red is a game changer for the MA-020 in my opinion. The stock rear end is soft enough out of the box so no change is needed there.
The most expensive upgrade part, but quite essential, is the front one-way diff (MDW017). It allows the car to initiate a drift more easily. Plus it's required for the counter steering mod I will describe later. What the one-way diff does is letting the front wheels spin freely while the car decelerates.
In the rear, there's the rigid axle (MDW024) which removes all diff action. Locking the rear wheels in a drift car increases predictability of the rear end.
A major mod seen here is the counter steering mod, which alters the spur gear and diff ring gear to overdrive the rear wheels vs the front. A consequence of this mod gives the AWD car some RWD driving characteristics, such as requiring counter steering to sustain a drift. Here we can see that the rear wheels make around 1.9 rotations per rotation for the front wheels.
One durability upgrade in the car is the metal CVDs driving the four wheels. I picked up a set by 3Racing which is cheaper than Kyosho's. They work well.
Finally, I have the Mini-Z gyro installed here. Normally, I'd say it's not needed for AWD, but with the counter steering mod, I think there's value.
Okay, I've done way too much talking already. Though MA-020 chassis looks clumsy compared to other more advanced AWD platforms such as GLA or SZ2, it runs smoothly.
Not only does this MA-020 drift in basic circles reliably, it's also switching direction on a dime. AWD doesn't like to swing the rear around, but half the mods done to the car make the car tail happy.
(Hi Loki!)
With the AE86 body on, the MA-020 looks pretty scale. Yes, it'd have been more realistic to back it with a RWD chassis but this is what I have now. Those super soft GLR front springs are magic! Before I put them on, I couldn't control direction changes so readily.
Here you go, my MA-020 and how it performs after several mods. While I enjoy the challenge of RWD drifting, I also enjoy what the MA-020 offers in simplicity and fun.
This is Sammy and thanks for watching!
Music: "Journey to the Stars", Savfk ( • Journey to the Stars b... )
great video sammy!
Thank you! 👍
Nice video as always,thanks for sharing,cheers🍺🍺
Thanks! This was a fun video to make! 👍
Clean drifts! Could you provide a link for the counter steer mod parts?
Thanks! I needed to create the CS gear manually using gears provided in the kit, in addition to the front one-way and rigid axle (also needs to modify this one). Please see this video on all the steps I took to do the CS mod: ua-cam.com/video/K_e2-9uSVHA/v-deo.html
What part number for gyro?
Loki is adorable!
He's always sneaking into our videos here!
I’m in shock that cat isn’t murdering that RC car
@@justbobagian Luckily for us he's very well behaved. He seems to only want to mess around with things the size of a ping pong ball.
Sammy love your videos that is why I am making my M020 like yours I just want to ask where did you buy your R246 TE37 thanks
Thanks! I got them quite a while ago on banzaihobby, but I see they don't really have them in stock either. I checked several other places and they all seem to be out as well, unfortunately.
@@sammybaka Thank you for replying I've been looking for that set of rims for quite sometime now but all of them are sold out found one at ebay but it is too much I'd probably use a different design what off set should I use if you don't mind me asking
@@littlesadface For the AE86 body on ma-020, I found that I need 0.5mm or 0 offset for the front. The rear can use up to 1mm.
Se podría usar como coche de carrera y no de drift con tan solo cambiarle los neumáticos?
Yes, ma-020 drives pretty well with regular grip tires as well, but in racing situations it's not as fast as mr-03. I think having the metal cvd upgrade is helpful. Keep the gear differentials and don't use cs drift mod.
Another great video thank you. Are you running 22mm wheels or are the tires just thick. They look big
Thank you! Those are standard 20mm rims. Proportionally they still look big for the 90mm body!
@@sammybaka Hi, 20mm and 22mm wheels use the same tyres? And what do tyres label 3.5, 4, 4.5 etc mean? Thanks
@@fwfefrtefdv4719 I wouldn't mix 22 and 20 tires. Where are you seeing the 3.5, 4, 4.5 labels? I'm not familiar with them.
@@sammybaka Hi, sorry that the degree 0, 1, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4, 4.5 etc were mentioned in listings for wheelset, not tires. And what should we buy?
@@fwfefrtefdv4719 Those are the rim offsets. They determine how far they stick out from the chassis. Which ones you get depend on what body you are running. For example, the Toyota AE86 body in this video is pretty narrow and expect 0.5mm offset and narrow tires at all 4 corners.
Interesting the "kit" shell is 90mm wb. I got the cheaper "replacement" shell and it's measuring up 88mm. Luckily the drzv2 can drop that short with a little finessing. Now if only someone made some 20mm watanabe's....
Oh it's interesting it's 88mm only but I imagine that's a fun one to drift around. What are the wheel offsets?
@@sammybaka I guess I'm running some funky kpi angle up front haha. Had to do a double take...
I forget offset but running some 20mm atomic gold 6 spoke. Nice and tucked.
Hi man…beatifull video. Can give link of rims and tires??
Rims: www.powerhobby.com/r246-1411.html
Tires: www.wolframrc.com/product/lf-series-28th-scale-24-5mm-od-drift-tires-ds-racing/103
Hi the DS racing tires is hand press fit or need to heat up then fit in rims? Where did you bought the DS racing tires from? All narrow? Thanks
I've been able to fit all my ds tires quite easily onto rims. I've purchased from wolframrc and asiatees. They've been mostly narrow so far except one set. The width depends on your body and preferences.
@@sammybaka Hi, i have noticed that the rim set come in 8 pieces a set. Numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 with two rims each type.
Can 1 set fit 2 cars?
1st car:
Front
1 + 1
Rear
3 + 3
&
2nd car:
Front 2 + 2
Rear 4 + 4
Or may share how to apply these rim on the 2 cars if i am wrong?
I believed that i have mixed all 8 of them up after mounted tires. How to identify them and segregate them back to 1, 2, 3, 4
Thank you
I don't have the rim set. If the offsets fit the cars you have, why not?
@@sammybaka Noted and thanks! I will mix and match then🙏👍
nice car. the rims and tires are narrow or wide? thank u
Thank you. I'm using narrow rims/tires here.
My motor fells kinda slow but also my wheels are pretty dirty so that’s probably it. I was gonna get the diffs but I was not going to get the wheels because I didn’t think I need them but now a am probably going to get them and also idk if you know this but do you know how to swap it to brushless because I saw somebody that a brushless swapped on but idk how to do it or where to get the parts as well but you where very help full thank you so much 😊
Be sure you've exited training mode which is set from the factory. It limits power to 50%. Also check that your wheel nuts are not on too tight as to bind the wheels. The stock kyosho drift tires are not too bad; they can work well, especially on office carpet. In my opinion, it's not worth doing the brushless conversion. ma-020 isn't meant to race on a track, and you don't need brushless power/efficiency for drifts.
@@sammybaka ok Tysm that probably it I did not know that the power was put at 50 stock I am so happy because I saw all these people online drifting and mine can only do like tiny little drift and I thought I broke it or something like that so tysm
Ok so now I have a big problem my mini Z remote control is not working my steering knob is not responsive but the stir trim is so the car is good but the remote is not do you know if you can help me
That doesn't sound good. Does throttle work?
Hi,
Do both MA020 & MR03 use the same gyro model MZW446? Thanks
Gyro compatibility has recently gotten a bit more complicated. Please see this table: rc.kyosho.com/en/gyro-matching