New Schumacher 4wd
 

Ive heard recently from a reliable source who knows Robin Schumacher that there is a new Schumacher 4wd in the pipeline. No further information Im aware of but I could speculate that it may be based on the Mi3 Touring car which has been exellent since its release around Christmas time.
Anybody else heard anything?

Will, not to burst your bubble but the Mi3 has some issue's, and if they insist on basing in on a TC platform without some serious reworking of the bulkheads, be a big white elephant.

The xxx4 was based on the losi touring car, never was a great success on the rough stuff. Touring cars and off road needs are entirely different so why base an off road car on a touring car? doesn't make sense to me. xx4 was not based on a touring car look what an amazing car that is.

Would be good to see yet another 4wd in the market which has suddenly took off.

no, you are near but still wide of the mark Ryan, with the XXX4 they weren't jsut stuck with the drivetrain but also the chassis, which did work on flat blue grooved tracks.

Now, the only thing they could use is the pulleys from the Mi3, the layshaft is no good, it isn't up to it in TC, let alone off-road.

Is this the layshaft that is only attached on one side?

yes.

Be nice if they do make another 4wd, the cat was great;)

the Cat was and still is ace, the Mission was an off-shoot to an extent, but I can't see other than the pulleys being taken from the Mi3 to a new buggy, but then the pulleys are nearly the same as the Cat3000

whys the shoe maker thread in the AE threads?

I was thinking exactly the same thing... :p

eh, what, no it isnt :cool: ;)

doughty and lee gone a bit nuts i think :eh?: need to stop sniffing the tyre glue or something :rolleyes: :D

mahahaha...

DCM, you're quite correct that the Mi3 layshaft wouldn't be much use in an off rd car - but do tell me what is wrong with it for touring cars???
and the bulkheads??

Go on Matt;)

it drops, it could of done with a beefier screw fixing, otherwise it is a lot of pressure on an M3 screw to hold the layshaft in place. The bulkheads just don't seem suitable for off-road use, plus the way the suspension is mounted.

So if Schumacher WERE to make a 4wd buggy, they would need to make new bulkheads, front and rear, new layshaft mount, steering, dare I say, weight distribution too. If they were to slap a set ouf tall shock towers and buggy wishbones, they might as well not bother.

I do wish they go for a 4wd buggy though.

drops?? hmm, must keep an eye on that one. So far mine has been fine running 3.5 brushless, and no spur gear issues at all running 64dp. but you can never be too careful.

I still don't see any massive problems with the bulkheads. Weight distribution is fairly easy to work with. Everyone knows that "stick pack" doesn't generally work for off rd.

I wouldn't be 'convinced' of the bearing carriers staying put with the top loading bulkeads, not entirely convinced on them in a TC but time will tell.

I just hope they just don't do a parts bin special to make a buggy, if you get my drift.

mmmm schumacher making a new 4wd, buggy maybe, well maybe they should scrap all the junk they made since the last great buggy they made, the bosscat, and the cars that followed were pretty poor and badly designed.

Sorry but its a fact. The Cat had an awful front end and yes it wasnt a very strong car. Yes it made the basildon worlds A and yes Ben Sturnham made 2nd (Kevin Moore was really 3rd) but still not a good design. Great drivers make the As with bricks. Well Ben was a great driver as he managed to beat Brian Kinwald with a schumacher crappy designed 2wd at the Bristish Grand Prix not long after the worlds, (unsure if it was 1995 but wasnt 93 as kinwald raced a pred in 4wd) which wasnt designed well in the first place.

The design team needs to wake up and look properly at the opposition and design something new and fresh and not copy bits from all the other manufacturers, but design a proper racer like the XLS, and improve it properly like the Bosscat.

Maybe then it may be more popular again.

I think you should say how you feel welshy and get off the fence:D

ok, when the great designer left schumacher to those pearly gates up there the company didnt find anyone capable of taking over his position, and it appears that they just copied and altered the wrong way to make it worse rather than better.

They should find a designer capable, heck look at Kyosho, they now own Peak motors, Orion and Losi Junior who has done wonders in designing new 4wd buggies that have dominated, so it now looks like if schumacher want a piece of the action maybe they should look at what they originally did when they made the xls, get a good designer and a good team to develop it.

If Schumacher are sponsoring this Worksop series, does that mean they care about offroad again? :o Could it be true?

i think they should just re-release the bosscat..?

Bosscat is 15 years old isnt it? I think my Tamiya would stamp the bosscat into the ground, several times over.

Err, you seem a bit negative about Schumacher. Why?????

As a company they have brought a one truly massive innovation into electric racing (ball diff).

British engineering is the worlds finest. I look forward to seeing what they come up with!

Agreed, and the designer who did that is still there - it was Cecil.

Schumacher did two great cars after the Bosscat, the Cat 2000 was a big leap up and was an instant improvement over the Bosscat and then the EC with its laydown shocks was the next step up although not quite big enough to call it a leap. It was after then when they started playing with cells down one side, and changes for the sake of being able to release and market something as new when really it was just tweaked.

They dropped back when the XX4 came out, and they failed to attempt to learn from its inovations, I am mainly thinking of the moulded tub chassis and awesomely good shock absorbers.. I don't think they ever recovered since and went backwards perhaps?

I wonder just how involved Schumacher/Phil Booth will get, who will be testing for them and are they/will they be attending any race meetings to study what is really going on rather than what they talk about is going on in a boardroom discussion? I hope they are successful anyway.

Chris

Chris they have already attended races this year...

first Robin turns up to a very wet and cut short Kidderminster, then Phil Booth turns up at Bury.

As for if there is a car in the pipeline, who will be testing and if they decide to use the mi3 as a base to work from we will only know if prototypes start to hit the track

Nope im on about the Cat 2000 and the awful 2wd that was out at the same time. The cars before them were great and yes the developments they put into the cars were and still are designs that changed racing forever. Hell they won a Worlds. However they stopped redesigning and comparing the designs that were used on the Cat 2000 it appears that they took designs from Yokomo and tried to make it work without making the design better. Heck im not the only one who thinks this, but someone has got to say it.

The XLS, Procat and Bosscat as well as the cougar were and still are superb designs and at the time state of the art, so what happened? Its like their designing team just stopped working and left. They were designing the best stuff and over night they stopped and started designing rubbish.

Yes the touring cars are good at the mo and the results are good but they need to make a stunning 4wd and 2wd buggy that doesnt have similarities from other manufacturers.

Kyosho can do it well, their 2wd is an upgrade from their last in 2002 (the Ultima type R) and the ZX5 4wd is well a copy of any shaft drive out there but they did the ZX/ZXR/ZXRR/ZXS and those were a design that are still superb for belts. Yokomo as well designed from a blank piece of paper.

If kyosho can and predator can (fragile but what a design), then maybe the schumacher company should throw away all their previous designs and come up with a totally new design where the weight distirbution is like a touring car and the weight is in the centre of the chassis, and the motor as well so that it will handle like a dream and that will not only appeal to the eye but be easy to maintain and be user friendly. Maybe they should have a look at what Losi were running at the off road worlds in 95, as the prototype was a great idea, however they are not going to produce it, so might give schumacher an idea on the chassis layout.

If they do then maybe theyd get my custom, and hopefully much more business, and maybe another title.

If you use a touring car layout on a buggy the chances are it wont work, (losi xxx4)
Tourers dont have to fly so the balance is totally different.

Also there must be a reason why losi didnt put that prototype car into production?

What if that reason is costs and not function?

Exactly chris,

we dont see what the teams try but im sure they try as many options as possible before we even see them at the track.

And even when prototypes appear trackside they usually have a few changes before going into production.

I remember about 98` losi did a gold pre production tourer that looked awesome when i saw andy moore using it, but it was never made.

the problem with revoloution rather than evoloution, is you can either have a sure fire winner, or a bankrupcy making flop. None of the Schumacher cars were 'bad' some were better than others. During the realms of the B3 and B3, the Cougar95/2000/fireblade were competitive on UK tracks, the likes of the B4 seen it off to the knackers yard, but then the design was really, 9 years old.

The Cat is a fine example of evoloution and I reckon, most examples wouldn't shame itself in far newer competition, and re-releasing worked for Losi. I for one would rather they brought out a car that is sorted, not a 'work in progress'.

Good Call. Me and a mate were talking the other day about cars from the past. You think what cars were winning ten years or so ago, against the cat 2000.
Main rival was the XX4, and its still winning today, so why couldn't the cat still win with a little stronger trans??

I have to say that if they put the touring car into production for a buggy then I have to admit its a good design, even if its not a well balanced design.

But what is wrong with making the car totally balanced so the weight isnt an issue. They appear to follow the other designers rather than think about how to improve the weight distribution (including where to put the motor) and work from there onwards.

I don't want to ever see another TC with long wishbones again.

I think 4WD design is too far advanced now for any company to get away with that and win.

This sounds like a good time to ask some of you more experienced racers about my Bosscat works.Ive kitted out my buggy with a 5.5 brushless setup and the car is what I consider to be very fast.The car is geared perfectly and performs well.I always liked the look of the Procat so I rebuilt the car with a Procat rear shock tower and Im running the Procat body and V-wing.The problem Im having with the car is it tends to slide out side ways in the rear too much.Im running Proline 'HOLE SHOTS' all round (these work best at the tracks I drive at).Being an Australian club racer our tracks are quite dusty and I'd like to hear what you guys might think will tackle the rear end problem.Any suggestions will go a long way.I might add that I think Ive messed with the droop a little by using medium length shock shafts with long shock bodies and no sway bars at all.I have been thinking of running a bigger wing with more down force.How free do you recommend the diffs should be too?Cheers-Jason.

I think that you will find it will be a metric bj4 with 2 belts.
Don't you think that you should see what it is going to be like before you say it is going to be a coverted TC. Parts will be from the TC but that is the same with the Atomic/Bj4, Yokomo and so on.

Mat white will test it as he is Schumachers top UK lad and don't forget they have some good US drivers as well.

For once I agree with some of what James has said. What I don’t agree with is that the latest laser is a great car or the equal of any other shaft drives. I actually consider it to be the weakest of any the competition 4wd cars right now. Cheap yes, but not actually that good. I base that on watching them, a go of one (maybe two) and the fact last year 50% of 4wd cars at the NE regionals were lasers and now there is only 1 or 2 of 60-70 cars.

more lazers than X5's dan.:D

I hope barry kicks your arse at southport national :D

FREE STICKERS TO ANY zx5 DRIVER THAT BEATS DAN AT A NATIONAL

Come on Jimmy you could offer 100K and the cash would be safe.:D