Over engineering?

[QuackingPlums]

Looking back (and drooling!) over the pictures of these vintage Schumachers made me think the other day; I have a Cat SX now, and can't help thinking that it's reached that level of over-engineering that we used to laugh at when people turned up at race meets with Avantes and JRx2s.

Does anybody elsee feel this way?

I still have a soft spot in my heart for Schumacher cars but something someone said to me recently made me realise that not many cars of the day were quite so raw and basic. Even the Yokes with their magnesium alloy gearboxes and fancy carbon fibre chassis braces were over engineered (how many people swapped that back to the traditional upper/lower deck design?!).

The one thing I miss the most about my old Cats is the plastic UJs - not once did I pop a driveshaft and on the one occasion where I totalled the front end, my replacement diff outputs/axles cost tuppence because the entire drive shaft assembly was plastic. A pain to fit together using that little fibreglass tool admittedly but so totally worth it.

The SX goes like stink and with a 6.5T motor/40C LiPo combo it is probably a lot faster than my XLS/Procat ever was, even with a 12 turn single and matched SCRs - or maybe that's just my dulled-with-age reflexes!

[pedro]

I think alot of people back in the day felt that the original cats were over engineered i remember how many parts you had to take off to change a belt especially when you had all the original diff and intergrator parts, thats why we all paid a fortune for all the one piece MMS parts when they came out, made the car much simpler one bottom diff and one top shaft bit like most cars are these days.

Peter

[uzzi]

Want a complicated car? get a Schumacher

What you have to remember with newer cars is the ease of maintenance in comparison to the older cars. With the old CATs you have to pull apart the entire car to get to the gearboxes and all the belt settings go.

[QuackingPlums]

Seriously? Well I guess I'm looking down memory lane through rose tinted glasses then!

I agree that the whole integrator assembly was over-engineered but the rest of the transmission was simplicity itself compared to my Optimas. A diff at each end, totally adjustable in situ, and a single belt between them. Not a single gear in sight.
The MMS layshaft was a must for any serious racer although I remember they had a tendency to tear your belts up if you didn't have them tensioned correctly!

I remember the rear diff carriers were of the eccentric design as they are with most cars now to allow rear belt tension to be set, and with the Procat front diff housing you could also set and keep your front belt tensioned even after a total stripdown - I was able to completely strip and rebuild mine between heats back when I was racing!

Maybe it's because I no longer race, but with my SX I can't help feeling that if I had to strip this down between heats, it'd be a bigger job. Also my fingers all got fat and no longer do what I tell them to!

[uzzi]

The SWB, XL and the XLS CAT did not have the front belt tensioner the PROCAT has. If you were to disassemble the front end you have to re-tension the belt again. If you had to change the centre belt you had to totally disassemble the car. The SX may look more overly engineered but I think from a maintenance point of view it is much simpler. Even with the simple change of fasters from self tappers to hex screws made a significant change in ease of wrenching on these cars.

[minichamps11]

Agree with Uzzi here. The SX's ease of maintenance is so improved over older Schumacher's it's untrue. Just try taking a diff out of a CAT 2000 EC and you'll see what I mean! That's before I get started about the nightmares of the SWB's integrator….

At first glance the SX drivetrain looks very complicated, and I suppose it may appear over-engineered compared to simpler all geared drivetrains (B44) or pure belt drive (511X) but there's a reason for all of it. Having raced with & spoken to a number of people involved with the SX's development, it's all about weight distribution, LiPo's and the motor. The motor rotation direction became a big thing on the 3 gear versus 4 gear X-factory X6. It raised racer's awareness of the effect the armature's kinetic energy has on a car's traction & adjustability in the air...that explains the madly complicated drivetrain.

Early in the SX's design, there was internal debate within Schumacher as to whether to have a traditional 2 belt transmission, but the team's racers convinced Phil Booth that efficiency is no longer the issue it was with NiCd's back in the 90's (what with the latest batteries and brushless), and that getting a car with the correct weight distribution for LiPo's and a motor that rotates in the same direction as the wheels were more important priorities.

That suits me - as far as I'm concerned innovation and being different are Schumacher's unique selling points and why I'm such a big fan. Some ideas worked very well (CAT crashback system - not good for consistent geometry but saved me many $'s worth of spares and allowed me to finish races where I would have broken other cars). Some, like the TopCAT's front suspension were poorly understood and never took off in popularity.

I have a Cat SX now, and can't help thinking that it's reached that level of over-engineering that we used to laugh at when people turned up at race meets with Avantes and JRx2s.Does anybody elsee feel this way?

Not me...Avante was over-engineered and under performed massively. It was too heavy, too fragile and too complicated. It was never top of it's game at racing. The SX was immediately competitive at the top levels of 1/10th buggy racing.
No idea how good JRx2's were on the race track, but I saw one recently and was mighty impressed. It's not that different from the a "standard" 2wd, just had trailing links instead of double wishbones. Me like!

[QuackingPlums]

I guess it's just the look of all the belts and pulleys... I haven't raced in almost 20 years so technology has moved on somewhat.

I guess I've turned into that old man who when I was younger I always envied because he had all the gear but no idea...

Maybe we have just the right amount of engineering now in the SX, and actually the CATS back in the day were under-engineered - because they had to be. Composites were expensive and only just making their debut and I imagine buggy design was a constant battle between performance, durability and cost. I still remember making my own fibreglass chassis in my mum's kitchen and covering everything in a fine layer of powdered white fibreglass...