Taken from http://www.rccircuitcars.com/ 
Well as you all know I have been a Mardave nutter right back to the days of first having one when I was a Young lad in my teen age years.
So as Mardave was then owned by Wes Raynor and based in Leicester which was about 4 miles from where I lived this was great as we could pop over to the Mardave Factory and buy the bits of Wes there and then but it was a 1/8th I.C car back in them days then I think in 1976 the great electric car explosion took off and the car to have was in fact the Mardave ( now know to many Ardent Mardave racers as THE DAVE. . )
We still run them to this day in the hands of Chris Wilkinson so all tho it has changed hands a few times with Lee Bishop and now with Chris at the helm it was a real surprise to see this great little car starting to flow with the times and to my surprise it now comes with a GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic ) chassis YESS. . .
Don't get me wrong the ally chassis is ok but for ardent racers it needed to be Carbon or back in the old days when we made them out of GRP this now means that in a heavy crash the alloy twists and your now stuck with a bad handling car so to move with the times its nice to finally see the New Shape Chassis . . oh yes its shaped as well you guys. . .
Now as you know I have never held back on what Mardave bring out and if it was wrong you know I would say it on almost every Forum going that its totally wrong and it needs this or that so Chris was probably shocked when I rang and the Conversation went some thing like this . . .
Ring . Ring .Ring . Ring .
Hi Chris I have to praise you on the new car. . . . in fact I could have sworn I heard a thud when I said its Gazza and I want that new car like Yesterday hello . . hello you still there hello
Oh hi Gazza fancy you ringing what have I done wrong Now
Nothing mate its Mega just what the Dave drivers want cant believe you finally moved with the times Send me one out A.S.A.P I will even pay for next day delivery ( I can only imagine the look on Chris's face with others with smelling salts etc )
Err yea OK as soon as I have made up a few more kits Ill send you one out in a few Days . . No I want it now got to get it ready for the week end and the first Nats at Ardent . . Ok ill do my best to get it to you . . ok thanks . . bye . . Click
So with the minutes now feeling like hours and hours feeling like days . . . OK you get the picture
Well Thursday morning came to around 10:30am and a Knock at the door its the Royal Mail . . sigh here please . . Sure thing mate thanks bye
Wow I think I know what this is OK runs off into the workshop clears the bench and its rip open the package like a kid on Christmas morning
Oh yes look what I have a V12 Circuit Edition
And a Jiffy bag . . . yea its the GT2 shell
WOW. . . right make a coffee and we are off
Just look at that Chassis DroooooL. . .
LOL also it comes with the Ball raced front wheels I think this is now standard I'm not sure Chris to Comment on that
Ok before the Build starts I will be using a Diff and standard none ball raced front end and wheels every thing else is going to be a Standard kit build I'm doing no modifications to the car what so ever then I will race it this week end to see how I get on with it
Right so first off lets get the Front chassis bolts in and build up the front end and to my surprise gone are the self tapping screws and in with counter Sunk 2mm M3 bolts ( Chris this is a Nice touch well done )
Next up is the front wish bone and plate assembly ALL NOTE we now upturn the wish bone as they are further away from the chassis therefore the ride height will be less as in picture below and these are screwed into place with self tapping pozzi screws as it now incorporates narrow track along with wider wheel base so no counter sunk as the holes are quite close to each other ( Chris another pat on the back nice touch . . LOVE IT )
Here you can see how to make the front end narrow / wide as well as long / short
The complete unit ready to be fitted
Next up is the steering linkage and these are a nice turn buckle with plastic cups
Here you can see the 1mm castor adjustment
Ok next up is now going to be the Servo saver and for me I just like to run a 2.5mm drill through the plastic so as not to weaken it
The rear end is just as per Normal Mardave pod settings
and then comes the finished product
Happy Days . . . . love it
but mine weighed oh so light and I think this will be discussed at the AGM but here is the way I did it . . .with some builders Lead cut to fit around the inside and trimmed to suit I then cut a strip the width of the rear pod and rolled it to fit into the opposite hole
So you end up looking like this below
Then I scored the lead through the hole take it all out place on the bench and Soldered it to the other piece and let the solder flow from the top to bottom ( use some good flux I just used my normal iron that I used for doing NiMh Cells with
Now with talk of its got to much flex and it will give grip roll . . . that's the idea guys if you were going through front tyres like no tomorrow then all you now need do is to go up by say 2 or 4 tyre ratings so if you run your standard Dave on 44 fronts then fit 46 or 48's its that simple I normally run 46's and went for 50's and it was just right I could have tried 48's to give a bit more grip on the front but other than that and I kept them on all week end so that's 8 races on the same front tyre's how's that for consistency
So all in all I very nice Little car to play with and strong .. . . LOL did I mention strong well Just wait till you read up about the First meeting and the end of the Ardent Straight we had cars hitting the safety wall but that's another story but just to say that the Dave is stronger than a 1/12th car is an under statement
Ok Now the Bit That Chris is dreading likes & Dislikes
Dislikes
Just the one
Wish it came with the cobra battery holder as I don't like the Velcro and Lexan tray But as the Chassis is already Drilled to take the Tray fitting the Cobra one in the same place is deffo a no no as the holes are to near to the existing ones IDEA. . leave the chassis with no holes for the battery mounting. And have in the box a paper / sticky template so you can drill & fit either one or you have two chassis a Lexan mount one or Cobra mount one or a blank one you drill your self may sound daft but I bet you drill the servo holes to mount which ever servo you have ?
Likes
Every Thing the chassis is a little thicker than the ally one the 2mm M3 bolts are brilliant and the counter sunk chassis is done just right the new look of the chassis is good as well as its a little wider towards the rear which makes fitting the cobra battery holder a lot better as there is plenty of material to cater for it the New Gray Plastic rear pod is NOT like the first V12 VRX that came out and broke as you just looked at it but some thing else and yes its strong and it can take the knocks as you will see in my next write up about the very First Mardave circuit National stay tuned
Mardave web site <<<<<<<Click
All the Best Gazza