What makes the XX4 handle so well??

[MHeadling]

It's an old design and still winning today, so what makes it so good?

Is it the geometrey?

Weight distribution?

Drive train design?

Materials used in chassis, wishbones?

Alot of cars use the xx4 as a benchmark for geometrey, Cat sx3, 511 seem similar

[Tom3012]

Pretty much all of what you said... It was designed from scratch as a 4wd buggy, not a converted touring car etc, guess that helps too!

I used mine for the first time in a while yesterday, what a car!

[Robby]

Originally Posted by Tom3012

It was designed from scratch as a 4wd buggy, not a converted touring car etc, guess that helps too!

[MHeadling]

Yes few valid points there but has anyone got any specifics or measurements as to why it handles so well and why other manufacturers copy this geometrey??

[eyeayen]

As it was so good why isn't it still made ? What are Losi doing ? Does anyone know if anything new is on the horizon ?

[racingdwarf]

Originally Posted by eyeayen

As it was so good why isn't it still made ? What are Losi doing ? Does anyone know if anything new is on the horizon ?

Think that was to do with pushing the xxx4 world wide as a company,I never drove a xxx4 but have been told it just was not the car for uk tracks. then I think when horizon took over at the time the word was they were very unintrested in the racing market, more the rtr but that now seems to have changed with the 22, and with luck if the 4wd project does ever break cover it would be nice if it were a losi xx4, but a little stronger for todays high speed brushless racing, but sadly I doubt it will, designers just don't work like that. I agree with johnM shows up the latest cars when you watch them.

Why was the car so good? look at the other cars from that stable at the time...some guys that realy knew what they were doing,you can still put a well set up xxcr round a track and be blown away by the time it can set

[terry.sc]

Originally Posted by eyeayen

As it was so good why isn't it still made ?

It's not made any more simply because the chassis mould was damaged and Losi wasn't selling enough of them to justify the expense, I believe the last year it was made Horizon Hobby managed to sell 4 kits in total in the UK as everyone was using old cars.

The big problem with the XX4 was the transmission drag, and you struggled to last five minutes. The XXX4 was a revelation with a much more efficient drivetrain, and a chassis and suspension which handled so much better on the US tracks it was designed for. Nothing wrong with the XXX4, it won the 2002 Worlds as it was faster than the XX4 on the track, but when you consider the tracks the XXX4 was made for were all solid packed and rollered clay with a smooth surface you can see why it didn't work over here. The XXX4 is still in production, but is limited to which tracks it works well on.
Eventually the battery technology caught up with the XX4 and Losi just rereleased it instead of developing a new buggy for rougher tracks, cheaper than making a new buggy.

As for why the XX4 is still competitive, the exciting time for buggy racers was the late 80s and early 90s, new buggies came out that pushed the limit of what they could do time and again. R/C cars were big, and all the top teams had many paid drivers who could put a lot of time into development. When Losi came up with the XX4 they had an advantage with not having a previous 4wd buggy to develop from, so they could start with a clean sheet at a time when they were prepared to spend a lot more than they can today to design the chassis.

By the mid 90s the technology had settled down and since then every buggy has really just been a development of what had gone before. The companies today don't have the same sort of budgets for developing racing buggies, so when they started producing 4wd buggies again a few years ago the cheap and easy way to develop a chassis is to start with what was the best suspension design around and build from there. There might be a much better geometry that's much faster, but no one is going to build as many development cars and employ as many drivers to them try out as they used to.

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by MHeadling

It's an old design and still winning today, so what makes it so good?

Is it the geometrey?

Weight distribution?

Drive train design?

Materials used in chassis, wishbones?

Alot of cars use the xx4 as a benchmark for geometrey, Cat sx3, 511 seem similar

easy, Witchcraft

It does show the lack of real progress in cars over the last 15 years though doesn't it?

[Robby]

Originally Posted by MHeadling

It's an old design and still winning today, so what makes it so good?

A liberal sprinkling of magic dust at the original factory by Pops Losi.

Recent years they've been using stripper glitter.

[fredswain]

I was always a huge Losi fan. I ran the original JRX2 and still have 2 of them. I also have a XX and a XXX. Gil Losi Jr knows how to design cars. I look at the original days with him at the helm as being an entirely different company than Losi today under Horizon. I don't have a 22 and probably won't ever have one.

X-Factory took the best parts of the XX4 and XXX4 and put them together into the original X5. That car has the XX4 suspension with the XXX4 drive train but used only 1 belt. It was a fantastic car.

[SHY]

Originally Posted by fredswain

I was always a huge Losi fan. I ran the original JRX2 and still have 2 of them. I also have a XX and a XXX. Gil Losi Jr knows how to design cars. I look at the original days with him at the helm as being an entirely different company than Losi today under Horizon. I don't have a 22 and probably won't ever have one.

X-Factory took the best parts of the XX4 and XXX4 and put them together into the original X5. That car has the XX4 suspension with the XXX4 drive train but used only 1 belt. It was a fantastic car.

Yes, I still have my X-5. But I could never get to grips with that belt skipping Even with 3x custom made belt rollers it skipped like a crazy kangaroo... But it drove really great! A bit too much dremel work though for the average Joe.