XRAY 808 Review - oOple.com

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The 808 is Xrays latest 8th scale buggy - an all-new design which focuses on lower weight and a narrow chassis layout for better handling.  The list of new and improved parts is a chore to read, so I won't bore you with that - suffice to say the 808 looks to be at the cutting edge of 8th buggy design.

For the review I enlisted the help of regular 8th buggy racer Dave Grunill - who happens to live 5 minutes from where I work, making it a little easier to talk 8th with him.  Being a bit of an 8th newbie and with a fairly busy 10th season already upon us - Dave was to be the one racing the buggy for the review.  Other than the slightly scary things I'd never really touched before, like an engine! - the 808 is pretty much a scaled up 10th scale buggy - so naturally I'd be the one doing the build. On with the show...

The 808 is seperated into individually bagged stages - I'd only built one Xray before, the M18T Pro - but this just looked like a scaled up version!  The first stage in the build is the front and rear differential.

There's no real surprises here, just really high quality construction.  Even the moulded diff case feels really tough - and with what looks like a moulded-in steel bearing support on the back it should hold up well.

The out drives are machined from Hudy spring steel and have a small channel which acts as a grease reservoir - this needs filling with the supplied (smelly) graphite grease, lubing the outdrives as they exit the diffs.  

The out drives are pinned in place - which requires either a pair of tweezers or unfeasably small fingers, and the bevel gears installed - followed by four spider gears.  Xray kindly supply oils for the front (5000cst), rear (2000cst) and centre (7000cst)  diffs - with enough for maybe 2 or 3 fills each.

The nozzles are quite small - I waited to fill the front diff but cut the nozzle down for the rear.  I had no idea about a setup for the car so I built the diffs with the recommended oils - it can always be tuned later.