Build conclusion and electrical installation.
A car like this deserves to be set up correctly, so I borrowed an ‘M-Racing’ setup station. Marked Perspex plates bolt to the hubs for accurate adjustment of camber & toe-in. I set the car as follows,

There is limited amount of space for the electrics in the X11, as has always been the case with Pred's. I chose to go the standard route with this, ESC mounted directly on top of the servo. As everything is close together the wiring needs to be neat, servo leads routed behind the servo and bunched with the receiver. I did consider shortening them, but didn’t as I could not be bothered in the end. The power leads are naturally very short, which is nice. A tip from team driver Mr North was to heat-shrink the long steering link rod, to prevent shorting the cells when going in and out, which I would have done.

With my first ever Pred build done, I am a very happy lad. The car is a very nice piece of work. The parts are all of higher specification than any kit I have had before, and their quality is second to none. The small modifications I made to improve the build took very little time. The only improvement I would suggest would be to the build manual – clarifying the section on Bag 6.

A quick blast round the garden to make sure all is good and I’m immediately impressed. Power response is awesome; the steering seems sharp and precise. The first real test will come the next week, at the York regional. The grass track there is a bit of a legend, we’ll see if the car lives up to it’s reputation as the same.

RACE TEST
York Regional – 15/6/08
It was clear during round 1 that the servo saver was not up to the job. The throw on the servo is fairly short on the Pred, resulting in a lot of force from the steering being fed back into the saver when it’s loaded up in a turn. The pred will benefit from a good strong metal geared servo, I need to sort this out. I changed the saver for the weediest arm I could find, the idea being that a weak arm will strip/break before the servo if I him something hard. I prefer not to go smashing into stuff as a rule, so it turned out to not be a problem. On the handling side it transformed the car, making it feel very positive indeed. After the run I left the rostrum feeling very optimistic.

During the initial build I had some doubts about the standard kit body mounts, but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt – after all this is a review of the kit as it is designed. They did not last long as I found them too fiddly to live with at a meeting, especially when using a hand-out trasponder. For round three I changed to trusty Velcro. The shell is a very good fit, so this works very well.

For rounds 1 & 2 I used the standard kit shocks & springs, and found them to be very good. I had 40wt oil in the front and 50wt in the rear from the build. From ‘table-testing’ it felt a little over damped, but on the track it felt good. It was ‘slapping’ down a little from the jumps and was kicking up the rear on a couple of small bumps, but both were only minor.

For round three I changed to the new Big Bore 'Bad Boy' shocks, standard pistons & 30wt oil. I also had, thanks to Lewis & The Team, some different springs to play with. I dropped a spring rate all round from kit standard – front to Blue & rear to Yellow. On ‘table-test’ it felt great, more supple then before. When dropped from 4-5 inches the front was still hitting the table, but not as hard as before, the rear seemed about perfect. On the track it was noticeably better, not kicking up on the bumps, inspiring confidence to attack the track. Mid corner grip was better, I suspect due to the softer damping.

For round 4 and the final I made a change to the shocks again; replacing the standard pistons with some ‘Fister R/C’ items. These are blank pistons I had previously drilled. The rears I gave 2 holes 1.2mm, the fronts 2 holes 1.1mm – this to get a bit more ‘pack’. The front felt better on the table, but the handling on the track felt just the same as round 3. I have more pistons to play with, so I will be doing just that in future.

Southport national – 27/7/08
I was a little worried that my set-up from York would be off the mark for the Southport track. I was tempted to change the pistons, increasing the diameter of the holes front and rear. I decided against this, preferring for sake of comparison to run the car exactly as at York. This turned out to be a good choice as the practice sessions were very good indeed, I was holding pace with those drivers that would normally be expected to be slightly faster than me. The only sections of the track where I considered there to be room for improvement were the areas that have ‘natty’ little bumps. I was being quite conservative over these as the rear of the car was kicking up a little, similarly to York. For round 1 I fixed this by adding a little ride height, however this caused a problem in another section (the high grip downhill corner after the back section – if you know the track you’ll know), grip-roll caught me out just the once but as I didn’t want to remove front end grip elsewhere I just drove around that little problem – sorted.

My normal aim at a National is to finish top half – so a final after the middle leg of the ‘A’ is where I want to be. I managed this so was again happy with the performance of the car.

When it comes to RC cars there is always a lot of conjecture about which car is ‘fastest’. We have all seen the stuff babbled by those that always say whatever they currently have is the best – I’m amused when this changes every week. For that reason I’m not going to start raving about the handling, impressed though I have been. My results have been good (Regional B and a National top half), but I have done this plenty of times with other cars in the past. I am however pleased with this while using a brand new car that is very different to anything I’ve ever run before. The speed of the car through the turns is very rewarding; as I learn just where to push the car it should get better still. I had expected the Pred to be fast, but also to be hard work, this has not been the case. I found it as easy as the XX4’s that I’ve been running for years.

Bring on the next race!

Jimmy: Thanks to Stu for his time and dedication on the review. I didn't get chance to race the car myself - but took it round the York Regional track after racing had finished and I have to say the car was superb - easily one of the best cars on that track and despite using Stus 'Stick' transmitter (I use a wheel) I managed to put in some nice laps with the occasional hard crash due to the different radio (!, !) but the car laughed it off.

Nathan Ralls is the latest Team Xtreme driver - making the A final at his very first meeting with the X11.

Team Xtreme sound to have big plans - rolling out a succession of sponsorship deals over the course of the year and finally capturing that all important A-Final talent in the form of Nathan Ralls, who instantly put the X11 into the next National A final.
Nathan along with the rest of the Xtreme team have put some serious development work into the car - and the 'Big Bore' shock absorbers are just the first in a line of planned development work on the Predator. Since taking over the Predator from TTech, Xtreme have done a great job promoting and supporting the car - and I'm sure with Nathan now at the head of the team things will only get better for the small guys from England.