Now Running X - 7 Gen 5.1 Prototype
 

All you photo freaks check our FaceBook page for pix Saturday Aug 6 of Paul running the Gen 5.1 at Summit R/C in Fort Wayne, Ind.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/X-Fact...87542711292903

5 new action shots, one of some unusual action in the pits, and -- hope you are smiling with us -- a body-off shot of Paul working on the car in the pit.

Rain-shortened program had just 1 qualifier and the main. Paul won the qualy when the other car (Only 2 in class) broke. Paul hit a couple of pipes in the main and finished second. The good news is the car's speed.

Paul set fastest lap in the qualifier and again in the main where he was 2 tenths ahead of the winners' best. The really good news is that the 4WD is much faster than the buggy, just as it should be, and of course Paul's X - 6 Squared is not slow.

Normally a driver's 4WD is 1/2 to 1 second faster than his buggy depending on the track. In buggy they had 2 qualys and the main, and, while he didn't TQ or win, Paul had fastest lap in qualy and also fastest lap in the main. His fast qualy lap with the X - 7 was about a second faster than the buggy lap, and in the main the Hero Lap was 1.4 sec quicker than the buggy.

So the X - 7 is fast out of the box, and we are ready to begin working on the set-up. How fast can it go?

Hi Chazz.
Why not start showing inside pictures of the car to get the hype going for real? Just talking about it does not impress me anyway? People love to speculate and comment on new cars. Take myself for an example. Am in the market for a new 4wd but I am choosing between cat sx3, Durango and Tamiya 511. Not seen any x-7 pics so I do not consider it yet but I could change my mind:)

Cheers
Alex H

All in good time, West. The Gen 5.1 is very close to a production car in many areas -- a few tweaks left and set-ups to develop -- and when it's ready, you'll get the full magilla. Paul will be running his today in public at E & N in Columbus and leaves Tuesday for the R.O.A.R. Nationals in Cali. Of course that's a public venue too.

We have been giving you performance data, and will continue doing so. It really doesn't matter what the car looks like -- we could use a rubber band for a driveline -- so long as you can win with it.

So... when will Ellis run his?

I believe he already has....

Maybe, maybe not. But I really meant races, with pics and stuff :thumbsup:

briefly and sounding like a bag of spanners from what i saw?!! :p

I'm looking forward to seeing the car, just like everyone else, but it does matter how it looks. Rc racers love great engineering and that's what many people buy, look at Durango, or the Vega, or the quality Atomic Carbon conversions.

I really hope the new car has that professional finish to it, and is not powered by rubber bands :)

We tried rubber bands, and, no matter how tightly we wound them, we only got about 3 1/2 minutes run time. So it's back to electric...

Ellis has gear cases from the original Gen 1 car seen at Cactus. We had them made at an outside shop and they did a terrible job. Paul's Gen 5.1 gear cases are made in-house and are far superior. The Gen 1 cases actually have the diff in them cocked to one side, so the left outdrive is higher than the right!

The noise heard at E.P.R. Sunday was the diff gear slowly disintegrating. When it finally destructoed, E stopped running the car and went to his Kyo & Tamiya cars to win the race.

Ellis and Paul are both very happy with the way the car handles, and it has plenty of speed.

Paul and I got back from running in Columbus around 9:30PM Sunday night, and we are making new 5.1 gear cases now -- at 1AM -- for Ellis. Will air ship them to him Monday. This is part of the dedication and expense of developing a new car. We're having fun!

:thumbsup:

The car looked really good, and right on the pace from the work go, really composed and looks to have a lot of potential. To be banging in the same lap times with a clicking gear and an 'out of the box' setup is really impressive.

Thanks Ian, I was tempted to type that when I read the negatives above, but felt it would be better coming from someonce who was independent of us and who was actually there to see it (like you).

Yes we had "clicking" as described above by Chazz in Ellis car, but we know what it was and it is being recitified as we speak. Glad to hear the car "even with" a clicking tranmission was still right up there on the pace.......

Just so long as it rides the bumps like a xx4 is all I am interested in. Looking forward to seeing the final product, hope the price wont be too high, and on par with other brands :thumbsup:

i can say the car was very impressive at epr:thumbsup:
for its 1st ever outing very very good:thumbsup:


trekkker

Paul did an interview today with Jason of RCInsider.com, and they took vids of the X - 7 running in practice. I think those vids are going up tonight or tomorrow, so check it out. www.rcinsider.com

Our latest press release, about testing last weekend, is up there too.

http://rcinsider.com has posted an interview with Paul from last weekend's ROAR Nats. Under that Jeremy has re-posted the video he took of the old Gen 1 car at Cactus. In the Paul interview is a lap of the X - 7, and you can see that the problems from Cactus have been fixed and the Gen 5.1 car is quite a bit faster than the Cactus car.

Also at RCInsider are pix of the new SCX - 60CF. Please drool...

sc: ok a lower and upper carbon deck, why didn't i came up with that? :blush::D

naa never can make that, great job

So in the pics i think i see:
a lipo tray, so saddle lipos
looks like gearboxes front and rear and have a diff gear and layshaft gear for the external pulley.
Possible double belt and motor mounted like X5/511 orientation (look at the wires throught he window).

Come on Chazz, whip its lid of and show us some pictures :woot:

X7
 

i too believe the car runs a twin belt drivetrain lay shaft to idler to diff !!!
with the motor in the very center of the car .....it also may have some gears on the spur area to make it rotate the same way????? saddle packs......?? it also may have a splitter diff setup also to change the drive front to rear!!
as for the pics ......Chazz and Paul have said it before the car runs some new ideas that have never been seen on a 4wd! SO why give a way secrets!!!!

i think this car will be a rocket and as soon as Chazz wants to take pre-orders put me down for 2 or 3 kits!!!!!!!!!

I do have one question ......on the pics ive seen of the roar model car the front drive shafts have a metal sleeve in the middle.....is this because you joined 2 shafts together Chazz ? or r u running one-way rollers in there!
i think its the first as the bearings must be tiny!......:thumbsup::thumbsup:
after watching the roar video i want one NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D:D:D

I'm thinking its a 3 belt design like the sx3, which I have a feeling the x7 and the sx3 might be similar, only time will tell, but will it or the losi 22sct be out first...

Doc you are right the first time, it's the drive shaft from another car cut down with a sleeve to hold it together. Of course, on the production car, M.I.P. will make correct shafts for us. This is what put Ellis out of the Southport race with just 4 laps of practice; the crash broke both front driveshafts, and he had no spares.

And yes, we don't want to give things away just yet. Because we are very small and don't have tons of money to throw around, it takes us a while to do anything and do it the right way. There are several things on the 5.1 that we must change now because what we thought would be simple to assemble is proving difficult. So how to use the same engineering principle but make working on the car simpler?

The X - 5 still is a great car but finicky and needs constant maintainence. The X - 6 is a great car too, but the 6 Squared is so much simpler to work on yet retains all the capability of the original. People loved it when we made the changes, and the lesson is not lost on us. So we're hoping to have the 7 ready for market late this year, but don't bet on it, and in the meantime we'll keep certain things to ourselves.

Trust me, we want to show you everything ASAP.

Sweet!!!!:thumbsup:

please dont tease with comments "may be out this year":p

now im really hanging for it!!!!!!!!!!:o:cry::cry:

even in proto form it looks good!!
looking forward to seeing the finished kit!
those belts look mighty thick!!!

and made from normal material too!!!! not plastic(losi)stuff!!!!:thumbsup:
3 belts:lol::lol:

2 belts as X factory r looking for an efficant drive train not a crap one!!!
cheers
Mic

Taking a guess..... the layout is not too dissimilar to the old Losi JRXS touring car. Motor in the middle of the car on the centreline, with cells in the middle too (one in front/behind the motor maybe?).
Twin belt either side of a wide layshaft to clear the motor... but where it differs to the JRXS style would be the belts connecting to a gearbox (TA03 style!), meaning proper suspension and drive shaft geometry etc can be used.

Simplicity... use the same gearbox+internals front and rear (idlers are on the correct sides if you rotate), and if you put the layshaft in the right spot, equal length belts as well. Cut down on spares, cost to produce is less... all with simple, intelligent design :)

thats how i think the car will be but with saddle :thumbsup:packs!

It's got 18 belts, 2 shafts and room for 3 lipos.

so thats why they had issues fitting everything under the body:lol:

The main transmission concept of dropdown gearboxes and twin belt to clear components such as batteries etc is nothing new and has been tried in several variation in touring cars.rally cars and buggies before.

Let's see their take though and if they bring something really novel in the table.

The use of small pulleys in the X5 transmission design was a big mistake in my view.The XXX4 had enough belt skipping issues with pulleys twice as large,using smaller pulleys is the wrong way to go if you want decent reliability from the transmission with what is more or less the same drivetrain concept as the XXX4

I will be watching with interest though.Good luck

The last few posts contain some really good guesses, but I will say this: there are no 'idle' things in the drive train, and there are a few unusual/clever/novel details which so far no-one has noticed.

Good to see someone from X-Factory/somebody who donates ideas to Chazz and Paul (Elvo) putting things in the right perspective and not fanfaring with false comments on major innovations (like the whole deal behind the X6) that do not hold any water:

The car main concept is more than possibly not groundbreaking - as Elvo said and as seen by the pic I posted as one example it is an older concept with some minor clever new takes.

Presenting things in the right magnitude is the only way for a business to achieve respect in the long run

Childish sloganeering and fanfare like is not going to save your ass in the long run when there is no depth in your claims

And in order not to come across as a hater/doubter or something similar.Cheers to Chazz for risking his pension fund and backing his son in an attempt to bring their flavour of fresh air in electric off road .He could have chosen more easy/boring things to do in his retirement as most do.

Just present things without megalomaniac tendencies or big claims . People who have been around for a while see through your claims immediately and flag them as unneeded

I recon the gearboxes will be like a B4 with three gears :)

Here's my 5 min ms paint guess work :lol:

http://i530.photobucket.com/albums/d...k_dyson/X7.jpg

Or maybe, like that, but with each belt directly driving the front/axle rather than idlers?

Well you do sound like that !!!!!!
no one said the drivetrain was a new idea.......its all the other things noone knows about that will be interesting !!!!!!!!
for a family run factory they do a very good job of making cars ......
lets see u do better.....all you seem to do is knock there work and ours.....
if you have nothing good to say on this forum then P$% O**!!!!

going buy your crap you have never driven a X Factory :p or is it they beat you on the track!!!
as all on this site DO drive one and put forward ideas and setups for each other...........
so i think we know our own cars pretty good!

That my thought too... gearbox's look a lot smaller than a 2wd 3/4gear type one. Also looks like the casing is more like a cover, as there appears in the front view to be a through bolt. Wonder if the alloy bulkheads support everything (axle bearings etc), and the white delrin is an integral cover, with a bolt to clamp it all together nice and tight...

Having said that, it looks like there is some carbon between bolt head/nut either side of the bulkhead. Bracing? Or some kind of belt adjustment by moving the whole gearbox (bit out there with that one maybe!!). Still look forward to seeing more the design when it comes out :)

As a guess,that's not bad! I like it. But it's not really unusual or clever or novel, now is it?

That's more like it! The gearboxes move indeed....

Wasn't that tried on the works 93 yokomo?

Yes, slotted rear bulkhead holes. It first appeared on the Yokomo works 91 in production form, earlier if you count the world winning masami Yokomos

Looking at the drawing DaveG28 did - if u took out the idler gear from both gearboxes in that drawing, and ran the layshaft gear directly on the diff, then u could swap the motor round and have it wrking the same way as in the cat sx3 ;)

The belts would run "backwards" in effect, when the car was moving forward, if u get my meaning, as well as the housings themselves being much smaller :D

Moving the gearbox to adjust the belt isn't unusual or clever or novel though, and it's easier to use a tensioner so I think there's more to it than that.
This may sound silly but do the gearboxes move whilst the cars in use?