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...
Kit contents |
The main manual is a glossy covered marvel - a supplemental sheet is included with the latest tips and manual ammendments. |
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.
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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. |
With both front and rear diffs completed it's time to assemble the gearboxes casings around them. Front and rear gearboxes are, just like the differentials themselves, identical. The pinion gear is actually one half of the CVD coupling - a really simplified approach which should mean there's less to go wrong here. The grub screw that holds the CVD is mischeviously already hidden inside the part it's destined for - and so it caused some moments of panic when it wasn't in this stage's screw bag. The pinion rides on two large ball races which side over from either end - the rear one effectively captures the CVD pin ensuring reliability - it simply can't fall apart! A nice touch as I've had problems in this area before on an 8th buggy. And whilst were on the subject - although it isn't mentioned in the manual, a quick check of the official Xray forum shows a 'tip' suggesting the removal of the rubber seal on the bearing facing into the gearbox - since in some extreme cases this seal has dislodged and caused problems. I'm told this was only a problem on early cars but I wasn't sure which catagory my car was in so I removed the seal anyway.
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The shock towers on the 808 follow a recent trend toward carbon fibre in this area - a vast weight saving from the ultra thick alloy items usually seen on 8th scale buggies. Strong enough? well the carbon used is 3.5mm thick on the rear and a massive 4mm up front - and looks very high quality to boot. If you break one of these then you probably deserved it. Xray recommend you prepare the edges of the carbon shock towers - it's a time consuming task but it makes handling the towers a lot nicer when the sharp edges are removed.
The rear suspension is next, and is assembled onto the gearbox to form a single unit - which will be added to the chassis when fully assembled, and should make maintenance & cleaning easier. With the front gearbox put to one side, it's time to assemble the rear suspension first. This is all added to the gearbox with chunky plastic pivot blocks screwing onto the gearbox with some self tapping phillips screws - I'm not sure why these aren't hex-head machine screws to be honest as screwing phillips head screws into hard plastic isn't so much fun, plus it means you need more tools cluttering your pit table.
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The CVD drive shafts are again made from hudy spring steel and go together nicely - in fact, these don't even use a grub screw since it's all held in place by the large diameter inner bearing covering the CVD pin. The axle is hollow so should save a little unsprung weight. A smaller diameter bearing pushes into the outside of the hub carrier followed by the alloy hex wheel adaptor, which is pinned in place and a grubscrew threads through the hollow axle to keep the pin secure. More shims are added on the outer hinge pins either side of the assembled hub carriers for more wheelbase adjustment. |
The large inner bearing captures the CVD pins |
Hub components |
The wheel hex is secured with a pin - which is held in place by a grub screw through the hollow axle. |
To complete the rear suspension the top camber links need assembling. These are relatively small diameter Hudy spring steel items - but should take all the abuse you can throw at them. The adjustment area is off-set to one side and this is supposed to be put to the outside of the car in every instance to allow easier adjustment. This does mean one side of the car will need adjusting in a different direction to the other - no big deal though. | |
The manual suggest creating the rear links with a gap of 46mm between the rod ends - but I found it to be closer to 36mm. It turned out to be a misprint in the manual that is rectified on the supplimental instruction sheet - as with any kit, it's always wise to check all the paperwork first - even the mighty Xray aren't perfect! |
To finish the rear end off for now, a chunky wing mount needs assembling. This comes in 6 parts and is made from a tough plastic.
The bracing 'tubes' between the two main halves aren't keyed so need holding with the supplied spanner whist tightening which is just a little fiddly. The tops of the wing mount are adjustable, with various holes to move the wing up or down, fore or aft. | |||||||
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The front suspension assembles in a similar way to that on the rear. The front most hinge pin block gains a thin steel brace which is pressed into the plastic pivot-block before assembling onto the gearbox - this should help deal with any heavy frontal impacts.
The front steering blocks on the 808 are huge and the spring steel CVD's assemble into these just as they did on the rear. The steering block pivots inside the 10degree castor block on some spring steel inserts which make things very free but very sturdy. These castor blocks themselves also pivot on the suspension arms using similar steel inserts that push into the ends of the front suspension arms to allow the chunky M4 screws to secure the block in place and pivot freely. |
With the front suspension in a similar state to the rear, it's time to add the two assembled ends of the car onto the main chassis. The chassis is 3mm hard coated 7075 T6 alloy and features many recessed areas to both lower the centre of gravity and save weight. |
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no, the chassis isn't a vivid gold - I'm just a bad photographer that turns things to gold by accident! Actually - it's a good job it looks gold here, since the actual colour is similar to the review page background, and then you'd not see it! - a bit like this text huh! |
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The centre differential housing is a multi-part plastic affair which needs assembling around the diff before it can be installed. The 808 uses single vented steel brake rotor either side of the centre diff - with steel plates supporting some Ferodo fibre pads, which themselves need gluing to the steel plates.
Following the instructions carefully so you get the pads on the correct side of the plates, it's just a case of using some CA glue and centreing the pads correctly. I did an OK job of this - but still the screws wouldn't easily / smoothly move through the plate & pad, so I used a body reamer to gently ream out any excess pad that slightly covered the hole in the steel backing plate. With this done, a pair of pads is screwed to the two top halves of the centre gearbox. A plastic top plate secures the front and rear tops of the centre gearbox, along with the brake cams that push the pads onto the rotating disks. |
Lining up the pads 100% perfectly when gluing is hard, but even when it looked perfect the screw wouldn't slide through easily so I reamed the hole very slightly for smooth braking action. | The pads mount onto two plastic top halves to the centre mount. Setting the pad spacing by using one of the disks. |
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Above: large plastic dirt shields attach to either side of the main chassis |
I didn't have the engine that was going to be used in the 808 - in fact, it hadn't even been ordered by the time I'd got to this point so I went and borrowed a stand-in engine and pipe for this part of the build until the 'proper' items could be acquired. The 808 comes with its own flywheel and clutch - and these need putting on the engine first which was a little daunting for me since I've never done it before, but take your time and it's easy. The clutch is a three shoe type and the shoes themselves are aluminium, labled '1.71' - whilst the springs are described as 'hard' which should give a fairly aggressive take off. The 16T clutch bell uses 5x12x4mm 'oversized' bearings for long life. |
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The 808 requires an elongated side-by-side receiver battery. I didn't have one of these, only the 'hump' style packs - which I assumed was the most common style. |
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Just 6 screws secure the radio plate to the main chassis, making removal relatively quick and easy. The receiver box comes out with three further screws.
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With the seals in place - a plastic rod guide inserts into the shock body - followed by the felt shim and bottom cap. | A diaphram helps with volume compensation and seals the top cap. The top cap itself has a hole to help bleed excess air & oil - finally being sealed when tightened fully. |
The manual provides tips on bleeding the shocks for different rebound rates - a really useful set of tips. |
The bodyshell included with the 808 is arguably one of the nicest looking 8th buggy shells around - the sweeping lines extend from the front wings right the way back to the rear of the shell, where a little 'kick' gives some minute aerodynamic effect no doubt. I'm no fan of regular run-of-the-mill 8th body shells - I'd even go as far as to say most are fat and as ugly as sin - but this is much better than that, dare I say it's almost 'sexy' The 808 comes with a fairly stylish 8th buggy wing - lets face it, they don't vary much. Thankfully after experiencing the joys of measuring (badly) and having to drill wings supplied with 8th buggies, Xray have done the decent thing here and pre-drilled the holes for mounting. |
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Xray supply window masks and a full sticker set of the shell. I'd not normally use the window masks and try to create something a little unique - but I'd also spend 2-3 evenings painting a body for a review, and in this case I did it in an evening. The main colours are all Faskolor - the ever-so-small chrome lines are spazstix paint. The final body was 'backed up' with faskoat to protect it - brushed on. |
The 808 has to be one of, if not THE best kit I've ever built. In terms of quality and ease of build the 808 is a testament to the obsession with quality Xray have shown since bursting onto the scene. You'll be hard pressed to find fault with the build or quality of components - the manual is first class and the supplied 'Hudy off road set-up book' is a nice little inclusion, useful to all levels of racer. There's not too much left to say about the build - it almost falls together! There's no wheels or tyres included in the kit - pretty much expected for a racer like this of course, but it's worth nothing for those who want a buggy like this to start out. |
XRAY 808 summary - oOple racer Dave Grunill
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after having raced both the xray xb8 and xb8tq models for a long time i was intrigued to see how much better could the new xray 808 be. The previous xb8 models were renowned for their durability and build quality, but what could the new 808 bring to the table? ......Read on. First thing you notice [with this kit] is how light it is.. Much lighter than the older x8b and xb8-ec models, yet [the 808] still feels like its built like a tank, solid, no slop and very sexy ,the carbon shock towers would be nothing new to 10th scale racers but could they really work in 1/8th offroad wihout breaking... We [8th scale racers] have some incredible jumps (and crashes!) in 1/8th and alloy has always been THE choice when it comes to racing, surely the carbon would break wouldnt it? (Jimmy: If anyone will test that - Dave is the one!)
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The electrics were a trouble free install, the large radio box has lots of room for the 5cell reciever pack - which retains its positioning from the xb8 models, right next to engine to keep the weight central. The little spektrum reciever I used looks almost lost in there and to fill the space I made a small foam block with a cutout in it to hold the reciever snug.. You could quite easily fit the largest of recievers in there,and if you should choose to, a lipo will also fit with a regulator in there.
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Any previous Xray owners may notice the center driveshafts now run at an angle (compared to the xb8 models) because the engine has been moved to a more central chassis position, again keeping the heavy weight down the middle of the chassis, this wont cause any problems and the drivetrain is super free-running.
The new design xray clutchbell now uses larger rear bearings for prolonged bearing life in this high-stress area. The supplied clutchshoes are the xray aluminium 0.71 shoes which give a good bite on the clutch with no slippage, ideal on high grip tracks where low down punch is preffered,the clutchbell is a 16 tooth one, normally you'd use a 13-14t one but the internal ratio of the 808 allows this and the final ratio is similair to what you would expect from the old xb8.
The front end of the 808 has changed quite dramatically compared to the xb8 models, the front knuckles and castor blocks take on a different shape and are much lighter as are the bearings which utilize smaller balls for less unsprung weight and greater accelleration. Both the front and rear driveshafts now use captive pins which are held in by the bearing so no pesky grubscrews to strip should you need to clean them making maintenance much easier.
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The rear of the 808 is pretty traditional, again using smaller bearings and a carbon shocktower - apart from that its pretty straightforward with no surprises. The differentials however stray from the norm a little, they use a small plastic bushing that goes around the smaller diff bearings, this allows xray to use smaller & lighter bearings - These can however be replaced with 'normal style' larger bearings by leaving the plastic bushing off, this will give slightly longer life at the expense of performance, for the average club driver this might be a good idea.
Xray has always been renowned for having one of the most adjustable cars available..Sometimes a lttle too adjustable and it was sometimes far too easy for the average racer to get lost in all this. Xray have chosen to narrow down some of the options to make this more user friendly.
This does not mean that the car is 'dumbed' down though, Xray have worked hard on the settings and found a good setting on the options that you may normally get lost on (lower front kickup,antisquat and toe in) and have them now set as standard taking the hard work out of getting a good setup. Naturally however option parts are being released for those that like to tinker with these settings.
The hingepin holders are now made from a tough composite material (as opposed to the xb8 aluminium ones) which again saves weight and have already proven to be very durable, again xray aluminium option parts are being released for those that like their 'bling bling'
Ok, so how does it perform? To answer that we decided to make the 808's first race meeting a tough one.. So we went to Dave Cromptons track at pendle, North West England. This has dirt, tarmac and some decent jumps - and usually water and mud when it rains, which it did later in the day!
The engine fitted was my trusty ops speedster which i knew ran well, so i could concentrate more on the car and give it 100% commitment.
The first practice I was a little nervous as we had no spares, and with a track with jumps this is always a concern so I drove quite slowly to get a feel for the car.
everything went smoothly, the car felt good and I soon settled into a consistent rythym. 9 minutes later just as the tank was getting low I had no steering to the right so we stopped the engine and went back to the pitting area. It turned out a rather large stone had jammed in the steering link and stopped the servo moving... phew, I thought I'd broken a servo but the practice was good because the tank was empty and no crashes..I had a big smile on my face haha.
So now the fun begins - time to race and I'm nervous.. What if i break it, what if it falls apart (legitimate concern - I built it! - jimmy),what if its slow around the track compared to the other buggies. Now is the time to find out just how good/ordinary the buggy is - or how slow I am!
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I left the kit setup on for the first run and drove quite steadily, trying not to crash for fear of breaking something and having to go home early. The car went well and was very easy to drive, very neutral in handling with a nice chassis balance although it felt a little bit 'springy'. Straight away I felt at home with the 808 and was soon forgetting I had no spares and started to drive the car a little harder. I crashed over the triple jump (which is very tricky to get right in 1 jump) - the car rolled end over end for what seemed like an eternity, landed back on its wheels and i carried on... But there was something not right with the front end, it looked very low but i carried on and finished the race winning my heat. Upon inspection after marshalling I saw that the plastic balljoint on the bottom of the shock rod had broken and this let the car ride very low at the front. Admittedly it was my silly crash that did it, it could have broken on any car I suppose, so onto race 2.
The Start of round two and down comes the rain - and when it rains at Pendle the track gets very muddy, with standing water so I was reluctant to go out with a brand new car but thats what it's made for - so on we go! |
We changed the shock setup on the back to 1.4 pistons to help with the landing from the jumps and fitted grey springs all round which are a little softer than the kit silver ones and decided to push a little harder this time.
The car was much better this time, the grey springs suited the car better for me and this was also confirmed by another xray 808 driver on the day, the car was even more easy to drive now and I could push the car harder even in the muddy conditions,the car ran faultless even tho it was getting lower and lower to the ground as the race went on as more mud made it heavier and heavier. This didnt stop me taking the win though and after 2 rounds of qualifying I was in 2nd place overall. I was shocked as this was higher than I had ever finished before with the older xb8. A lot of people agreed how good the car looked on the track.
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The 3rd and final round of qualifying I decided not to go out and race as there was now standing water and big pudles on the track and I didnt want to ruin a new car and risking the engine and all my electrics so I cleaned the car instead. I found another broken plastic balljoint under all the mud - this time on the front camber link and it must have broke at the same time as the front shock one, but because it only had a hairline split in it you didnt see it under the mud.
After speaking to some of the team drivers later on the xray forums, it seems that the front droop screws were not in far enough and on the crash the shock took the force of the crash and thats what broke the part.. Touch wood in even more testing and some very fast heavy crashes no more have broke.
So after 3 rounds of qualifying I ended up 4th in the A final which I was very pleased with to say that the car had not been driven until we got there that morning!
Is it a good club car as well as a racer?
compared to the old xb8 the 808 is more nimble, it accelerates faster, turns faster and corners like its on rails, the back end does not break loose like on the xb8 which means you can drive it harder and be more in control..Ah and did I mention it jumps like a kangaroo!!
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The car is tough as old boots is all I can say,we have done some extensive 'crash testing' trying to break something, I gave up first!
We had some initial doubts about the front carbon shock tower but it hasnt broke, we have landed upside down on astroturf many times and bounced across the ground and still no breakages or anything came undone, its easily as strong as anything out there with build quality second to none.
For the club racer the car should enable them to drive more consistently as the car is hugely forgiving, with consistency comes speed, this can only help the average racer.. I keep getting asked if I've bought some new thumbs from somewhere - the car is that good. so to sum up..go buy one now,you wont regret it!!
And finally a big thankyou to Team Xray driver Kevin Brunsden of apex models.
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