Kyosho Maxxum....

[Toyofast]

I take mine for a spin every once in a while when the sun comes out...







How it normaly sits most of the time...

[Mr. ED]

A rarity, and I'm real happy to see you running it!

[superfly]

Very Cool!!! I've read about the front wheel drive thing years ago and i hear that it was banned from running the 2wd class and it didnt work in 4wd so it was a lost cause for racing. How does it drive? Is it tough to keep running ie parts support?

[Mr. ED]

The gearbox is a variation on the ultima series: same gears with a diffferent gearbox and moterplate. Wheels and tires are standard Kyosho issue for that time.
So that part is easy enough to cover.

Most of the other stuff is pretty much unique to this car. And there were not so many of these out there...

I'll probably put some unpacked but mostly unused stuff for this car in the BST section in a month orso

Mine got never built in buggy form so I can't say much about the driving from first hand.
But we had a guest driving one in our club once.
The biggest problem seemed to be you had to put all the wight on the front or it wouldn't accelerate. But when you did that, it would nose-dive on tracks with jumps.

[Toyofast]

Very Cool!!! I've read about the front wheel drive thing years ago and i hear that it was banned from running the 2wd class and it didnt work in 4wd so it was a lost cause for racing. How does it drive? Is it tough to keep running ie parts support?

Back in the day when it came out it would have needed to run in the 4wd class. As an owner of one of these, I'd never try to race it.

It drives okay. If you gas it the car pulls to one side as it does a burnout. At full speed and trying to turn, it pushes really bad. Once you let off the throttle though, it'll hook to what ever direction you have it aimed.

I haven't done much to it but clean off dust from time to time and re-lube the gearbox. I run it once maybe twice a year. It's sort of dull to drive but cool to look at.

[badhoopty]

2 words, reverse donuts.



you still got that rc10 i tried to get off of ya awhile back?

[Toyofast]

2 words, reverse donuts.



you still got that rc10 i tried to get off of ya awhile back?

This one?

[badhoopty]

jep, i think that was the one.

[Team Best Performance]

Don't think that FWD buggies were that bad handling.Remember seeing front runner FWD cars in Japanese races around 89-90.What wa the actual reason and history behind their ban?Except from the Poprod and Maxxum ,I haven't seen any other FWD buggies currently in the net.Any Further info on commercial or mostly homemade FWDs that raced back then would be greatly appreciated.

[terry.sc]

Front wheel drives were originally classed as 2wd, so could run in the 2wd class, but after the 87 worlds they were banned. The world champs were usually run on a hard surface to last the week of racing. The tyres at the time were much harder so on a hard clay surface front wheel drive had a huge stability advantage, so much so that Schumacher (who didn't have a 2wd at the time) was running CATs with the rear driveshafts removed as the rwd only CATs were so undriveable they had the nicads strapped to the back of the chassis to try and put the power down. There were also several home built front wheel drives that performed very well, considerably better than expected.

It was predicted that front wheel drives would be developed (there weren't any commercially available at the time) and was thought that on low grip surfaces you would need a front wheel drive to compete so before anyone produced a commercial version front wheel drive was banned from the 2wd class at all future world champs.

[Team Best Performance]

Maybe, if front wheel drive vehicles were allowed to compete ,we might have seen a much greater chassis development rate and international interest in the 2WD class that might have probably benefited everybody in the long run.How did the FWD cars with the motor ahead of the front axle fair in bumps,jumps etc?

Maybe a Japanese friend or an old enough racer to remember those can tell us a bit more on cars like the one seen to be fighting the Ultimas in the photo below or the 5th car in the row with the thin rear tires...

[shodog]

I have a had time believeing that a front wheel drive car had such an advantage. I remeber when my friend bought a front wheel drive Nichimo. It was the laughing stock of the shop. the minute you hit the throttle, the front wheels would just spin without grabbing much traction

[Tadracket]

I think they are awesome if used in the right application. I have one under one of the legs of my kitchen table to keep the table level

[Ron Jeremy]

I was basically given (permanently loaned?) a Maxxum years ago, when they were new or newish anyways. I tried everything to make it fast. At the height of my achievement, it was a damn fast car... for going in circles. If anything like bumps or jumps were involved, it was just heinous. The local track would run oval once in a while and that is where I had the most fun with it. Although going in circles bored the crap out of me, it was interesting to see how a radically different drive train compared to the conventions of the time.
I am not sure on this part, but I remember making it 4WD? And 4WS? Using parts from another Maxxum or something like that. Was this possible? I swear I did that...

[Team Best Performance]

I think that due to simple physics ,an FWD with the motor inboard will never be able to transmit power to the ground as good as a RWD with the motor hanging off the back due to longitudinal weight transfer and the sheer amount of static weight on the front axle.That doesn't stop it from being an easy to drive car for a beginner.An FWD with the Motor ahead of the Front axle and wide front tires is another story though...I would appreciate it if people who had seen such cars running in competition could up their opinions,views here.