MST RMX 2.0 RTR Learning to Drift Series - Part 1

Welcome to part one…

We started with an MST RMX 2.0. It’s a ready-to-run, 1/10 scale rear-wheel drive drifter that includes all the electronics, including the gyro. It has a brushless motor and speed control power, but you will need a 2S LiPo or 6-Cell NiMH battery pack and four AA batteries for the transmitter.

One of the coolest things about this platform is getting the chassis with nearly a dozen different scale, realistic bodies. The one we are using is the LBMT. It looks a lot like a Ford Mustang with a wide body kit. This car has never been driven, but we did assemble the body, put the light buckets in, added the rear wing and a few other items, like the side mirrors, so that we could take a few photos.

We added the transmitter batteries, and as is, the car was pretty much ready to go other than needing some car batteries. And since ProTek just came out with their new packs, that is what we selected—the ProTek 6400 2S shorty battery, it’s lightweight at only 219 grams.

Note: The difference between having a heavy and a light battery is to tune your center of gravity, depending on your traction levels, and we put that to the test.

After adding the battery and checking our steering trim, we saw how the stock RMX 2.0 worked on different surfaces. First, we tried some donuts on the commercial-grade carpet in the AMain corporate offices, and the car felt pretty good, right out of the box, using the stock tires that came with the drifter. They hooked up well on the low profile, low-slung industrial carpet. However, the car seemed a little fast, maybe too much grip.

Next, the tile in the front entry proved a little too slick. The tires didn’t have much grip—perhaps a softer compound would work better. So, we moved on to the warehouse. It has a concrete slab closer to most garage surfaces. The concrete proved to be very slick, and the stock tires hooked up even less than on the tile. Our last surface test was the AMain Hobbies parking lot. It’s sealed pavement, and the tires worked pretty well. It was probably the second-best surface behind the carpet.

We found out that the stock tires that come with the vehicle are the gold compound, and they’re on the harder side of the compound spectrum. Our retail store has a carpet drift track inside, and that is where this car does most of its driving. So, this car deserves carpet-specific tires, and we will get them, just not yet that will be in part two of this series. In the meantime, the car worked best on the carpet. We were able to drift that rear end way out sideways without it getting away from us. But taking it back to the slicker surfaces, the rear end just had a mind of its own.

Does battery weight and location affect drifting?

So, we were curious if different battery weight balances would affect driving characteristics—specifically the rear end swing. We have found that traditionally when we add weight to an RC car, it adds traction. So, battery type and placement are what we put to the test.

In areas where the vehicle is slipping too much, we hoped to get it to hook up better with a bigger, heavier battery. Alternatively, if the car hooked up with too much traction on the carpet, we could go to a thinner battery, reset the ride height, and have a slight advantage.

We left the car completely stock for our test and tested it on the carpet. These are the batteries we used:

Full-size Battery
311 grams

Shorty Pack
219 grams

LCG Battery
170 grams

Note: There is nearly 100 grams difference between the full-size and shorty pack and almost 50 grams difference between the standard shorty and the low CG.

First up is the full-size stick pack.

We found out that it is easier to initiate a slide with a heavier stick pack. But the rear end got away from us much easier, kind of like the back car of a rollercoaster where you’re just being tossed around a lot. It felt more like we weren’t controlling the slide, just trying to rein it in.

Next up is the standard shorty battery.

The car slid pretty well, and that rear end felt more manageable, but the downside was that the back end looped around if the car went too fast.

Lastly was the LCG shorty battery.

The sliding felt the best, more on our terms. We could slide and pull out of it with ease. The only con we had with that LCG is that the rear end would still loop around on you if you were going too fast—like with the standard shorty.

Results

The batteries made a big difference from an unmanageable to a manageable state. Although all surfaces are different, and your results may vary, testing varying batteries gained us valuable information, and we’re more prepared moving forward.

Summary

The car is tons of fun, and it’s very manageable in its stock form using a lightweight LCG battery. However, we will keep the regular shorty as a tuning aid because that extra weight may be helpful on other surfaces.

Next up:
We experiment with these drift tires in part two of our "Learning How to Drift" series.
Yokomo DRC Competition Drift Tires
MST CS-R Carpet Tires
MST CS-R Soft Tires

Watch Brett's Review

Learning To Drift - RMX 2.0 Drift Series - Part 1

For even more bashing fun, watch the Learning To Drift Series on our YouTube channel, and while you're there, be sure to check out our new product reviews, and how to videos.

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MST RMX 2.0 1/10 2WD Brushless RTR Drift Car w/LBMT Body MXS-533720R

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