The installation of the chassis is just about straight forward, the holes are all perfectly aligned and everything goes on without any troubles at all. Once on it really cleans up the look of the car, you can see the pivot blocks properly (and change things like shims more easily).
The battery posts screw down to the chassis and the kit battery strap fits perfectly over them. Because of the differing heights of the posts / cells on this chassis I found I had to flip the battery strap upside down, this really fits well and forces the cells into the slots without being too tight as to be hard to pin them down. You can add some foam to the battery strap for added pressure on the cells but I found the standard strap upside down works really well.
As there are no curved sides to this chassis, there is no easy way for me to velcro the shell on which is my normal method.
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I have seen people fix an L shaped strip along the top edges of their chassis which can be used to stop dirt ingress and hold the shell on with velcro, you only have to look at cars like the new Yokomo 4wd of Paul Bradby to see what I mean.
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| Paul Bradbys Yokomo 4wd. |
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For the review I decided to install all 4 body posts from the zx5, these need to be attached with more care and attention than on the composite kit chassis.
To gain the proper body post height I used a nut and plastic washer, with all 4 body posts attached and the holes drilled in the shell, the shell really is held down well (without any pins as I'm lazy).
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| Body mount, lifted up with a nut and washer. |
The actual gap between the shell and flat chassis is virtually non existent providing you don't have messy wiring pushing against the shell. I still had velcro on my shell which caused it to bend slightly (see photo left)
I would be more than happy to run the car in poor conditions since there really is minimal chance of debris entering at the sides..
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Jonathan at Atomic Carbon mentioned the car would be stiff with the Atomic chassis and top deck combo, and he was of course right. The car feels stiffer than the Bj4x4 in this setup. He also mentioned that on very slippery surfaces it would be possible to remove the alloy bracing tubes and tune the flex of the car to suit conditions.
Assembled all back together, and with the other zx5 carbon fibre parts that Atomic produce, the car looks superb, it's just so clean and neat. |
I took the car to a winter indoor club meeting at Batley Buggy Club, the track was a mix of carpet and polished floor (fairly high grip and very low grip respectively). I decided to keep the bracing tubes on the car and keep it as stiff as possible and I'm glad I did, along with other suspension changes the car was awesome. Prior to getting this chassis I had been running the cells at the back so the change to this chassis was moving the cells much further forward than I had tried before, and it definitely worked. The cell position felt really balanced on the high grip carpet & very low grip polished floor.
The car felt more responsive, maybe that's part suspension tweaks and part added stiffness, but it felt like it went just where I wanted it to go. |
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| The car ready for action, with full carbon fibre kit from Atomic. |
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I finished 2nd in all my heats behind craig collinson every time, being that craig is a vastly better driver than myself I was more than happy with that, craig was also running the ZX5 with Atomic top deck and towers. I was really looking forward to the Finals but sadly electrical problems stopped me on the line and the day was cut short.
I like the moulded composite chassis on the ZX5, It even looks nice (ok, I'm weird), so I didn't think I'd like a carbon fibre chassis as much as I do, I thought there would be a desperate need for an under tray (which I hate the look of) but there isn't, because of a combination of quality shell moulding on kyoshos part and exact measurements on Atomics part there is barely any gap around the chassis..
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| I put the carbon chassis through its paces in the worst conditions, internals were OK. |
A Chassis like this isn't going to suddenly make you a winner but I personally do like the extra rigidity and tuning options you get with this chassis, the cell position, though not adjustable, seemed bang on and a a definate improvement to what I had been running. And ofcourse the chassis gives your car a trick look which stands out from all the ZX-5's out there now.
I'll be running the 4wd Nationals with this chassis on the ZX5 so I'll update this page later in the year.
www.atomic-carbon.co.uk
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