Shortening the shocks and lowering the shock towers by 6mm

 So when  I came back to this hobby in 2026, I realized that after 2020, a new type of swept forward touring car body shell was invented that complements the ultra modern super short shocks cars. These new cars have very short shocks and springs and the towers are very very low, hence they could fit these modern bodies.

I bought a Blitz RS5 modern body and sure enough especially at the front, this body is a problem on the Alcyon. the Sloping front hood cannot go down as low as it is supposed to be because it hits the top of shock mounts . 

So I designed my own short towers, I lowered the front and rears down by 6mm. 

 

I also had to use short rod ends to shorten the overall length of the shocks. I use Tamiya parts for the front and 3 Racing for the rear. the front shocks are now end to end 62.1mm, and rear shocks 65.5mm. The rear shocks I use 3racing ball cups.

 

It is a success, but while the body clears the shocks now, the front anti roll bar linkage is a problem, if i go any much lower than 5mm, it touches the linkages, but anyway this is already an improvement.

 

So now its time to re setup the suspension and go for test run in a few weeks time.

 

 Kawada Catalog 2003 and 2002.

 

The Ultimate on super high traction outdoors track

 Ran my Ultimate yesterday at SACC track for the very first time. Was amazed at the level of grip available. The car was stuck to the surface. It felt locked on, and understeered . Not very badly but it was obvious I had trouble matching the corner speed of my friend Sakura Cero Ultra.

Hargberg himself said that older touring cars were made for low grip, and  modern cars made for high grip.  So should I give up on this car. Not yet. I am going to try a rear roll center adjustment. Right now the rear roll center is very very low. So I plan to change the rear anti roll bar from soft 1.4mm to medium 1.6mm. That should add a bit more steering. 

I also tried a more aggressive cornering technique and the car felt faster.  I think I know why I drove too mildly . Because I have driven on low traction tracks for too long, I was afraid of making sudden changes in direction, on low grip surfaces that could mean a spin out. But high traction that is not so. You make a direction change and it goes there, without spin out. And that is where those drivers that are used to high traction excel. By the last pack, I realized this and changed my driving style accordingly and I did feel faster.

 But its not like I had a smooth sailing day, with no mechanical issues.The wooden barriers were killer. I broke two 3D printed bumpers, and bent one rear 32mm aluminium camber link, from clipping the apex and flying into the barriers. But given all that knocks, the car was pretty tough, no broken arms, knuckles, c hubs or shock towers. 

There were instances where the car felt wonky  and wouldn't track straight. Turned out the rear shocks came loose from the rear tower. This seems to happen because of the huge amount of grip on the tyres which transfers a lot of force to the suspension, causing the shock mounting screws to come loose. Then I also had a problem on the straights with any small corrections the back end rolls and darts left and right. Turns out, it was the tyre sidewalls unglued. Glued the sidewalls and problem cured.

 

Next was modern body vs old school body. I tried the Blitz RS5 again . It does feel fast, but the rear end is just a tad loose. For maximum cornering prowess, modern bodies are the way to go. However there is a trade off. It cannot sit low as it is designed to as the front end hits the shock tower. So you cannot really use its full potential. I designed my own 6mm lower shock towers. I need to use shorter rod ends on the shocks to bring the overall length down by 6mm. Then the Modern Blitz RS5 body could be used to its full potential. hopefully the towers will arrive by 13th June.

On the other hand, the 2016 Blitz GSF II  , I could slam it low and no interference with the shock towers. So I am able to use the full potential. I couldn't really feel a difference , perhaps it had a tad less steering, but overall it felt really good. lots of steering and locked on rear. It is a compromise I can live with. I will be sticking to the GSF II and changing setup only. 

 

 

 

Latest Upgrades and updates for the Alcyon II in 2026.

 I got two aliexpress 2.5mm carbon chassis made up with differing flex levels. Right now I have the "stiffer" one installed. Weight if the chassis is 51g. Notice the very large holes under the diffs and the joining of the slots under the motor and the battery. This is to both lighten the chassis and allow more flex since it is rather thick.

Next, new graphite rear knuckle extenders. This is to raise the camber links above the rear tyre, to lower the roll center. In other words I can use the original plastic rear knuckle which holds the wheel bearings much better than the Alcyon II Ultimate's rear alloy knuckle.

 

Notice the low roll center.

The hollow 1.5mm pins are weak, so i strengthen them by using a fine pin tack and adding a little 2 part epoxy inside . Push the pin in all the way, then dremel of the excess length. The pins are now very strong and do not collapse anymore.

 New surpass Hobby V3  13.5T motor. it is an old tech motor but its very cheap and lightweight. My old turnigy motor weighed 173g. This new Motor weighs 154g. That is a 19g weight savings.

 

New front belt tensioner that is placed above the 3racing plastic floating servo mount. it is 3D printed. the purpose is to raise the front belt above the battery, while at the same time making sure the belt does not touch the steering arm. It failed a few times, i reprinted making it stronger and stronger and it now holds up.

 Front belt is currently from sakura zero, S3M 519. it is a little tight when new but when after a few packs will stretch and be perfect. This belt length is also same as TRF417 so i bought a few low friction front belts.

 Previously I used S3M 177 belts for the rear, but after the belt stretch even my 3d printed tensioner couldnt take up all the slack, so I now use S3M 174, from TRF416. The tension is a little tight when new but will be perfect after a few runs. No need tensioner at all.

 

 I also added newly designed front and rear shock towers. That has a bit more upper link mounting positions .

I ground the original Alcyon II plastic C hub and remove the "nub" that places the camber link horizontally.  It is now vertically placed over the kingpin. So 3 degree caster C hub but vertical camber links. The ground off C hub is still stiff and strong. 

 

 

 New 3D printed bumper and new slim body post and notice the upper bumper brace to prevent bumper from bending.

 

So now, the ride height is 6mm front and rear, front less droop than rear, springs are 295g/mm front, rear 240g/mm rear, arb medium both F/R. the roll centers are a little bit higher than what is with the Alcyon II ultimate's suspension knuckles and hubs, but still lower than the stock Alcyon II pieces.Will be testing the car soon. From the last test with the Alcyon II ultimate pieces , the car rolled a lot and was easy to drive with lots of steering. It should be rolling less that before yet still have a lot of steering with this setup.

Weight with Rush tyres is now 1330g RTR with Blitz RS5 0.5mm body. With Volante tyres the weight will go down by 25g. The Blitz GSF II 0.7mm is about 8g heavier only.

 

 

Update : 24th May 2026.  Tested the car at Kota Raja klang. traction low, temp typical tropical heat.

Tyres well used Rush 36X VR3 with about 10 runs already. Car was very easy to drive. With enough steering. However when i went against three other guys with modern 4wd touring cars, it was apparent I had not enough steering. I could catch up with 1 car but not the other 2. It was obvious they rotated into corners better. But then again it might just be tyres that are too old. I am not planning on drastically  changing setup. One problem was the front end of the body was scraping on the surface. So I need to trim the front edge of the body. I also added more steering lock but it still understeered. Next round I plan to use my New Volante tyres and lower ride height from 6mm to 5.5mm

The car setup itself felt good so I am not going to change it. But from what I recall with higher roll center, it reacted much quicker with high roll center. Just do not place the roll center too high or will lose rear grip. 

 

Back to Touring cars in 2026 and discovering flaws and fixes.

 Running the Alcyon II in 2026 with boosted 13.5T, many flaws of the car become apparent .

I encountered some durability issues and my proposed fixes.

1. I got my brother to machine slots into 3racing D3  17T too pulleys, so I could change the ratio from 2.3125 to 2.176. The pulleys are now 17-37. The original Kawada serrated spring pins are weak. They shear off after 3 packs, losing drive of the top pulleys. The fix for now is replacing the serrated 1.5mm lock pins with slotted spring pins. The pins are very cheap and should be stronger. I also bought 1.5mmx10 dowel pins to try if the slotted spring pins are not strong enough.

2. The ride height keeps dropping after every run, especially at the rear. I traced the problem to the kawada Sigma shocks. These are great shocks, I love them as they are easy to rebuild and easy to get zero rebound. However, there is a major weakness. Kawada uses a very thing o ring to prevent the collars from turning loose. It does a very bad job at this. After hard cornering, the springs push against the collars and spins it upwards, causing a lower ride height. The fix is simple . Install new O rings, and after setting, insert shock clips to take up the space above. I left a very small gap to ensure that it doesn't push on the collars, but this fix is very effective, I find the ride height no longer drops.

3. Since I am experimenting with a lot of different suspension pieces  and c hubs and knuckles,I just noticed my bumpsteer on the front is less than optimum. There is too much change in toe during compression. I have some solutions in mind and will test them out.

I will upload photos soon.  

 

 

 

Lost information about the alcyon

 I stumbled upon a french guy's site by accident. He found some really unheard off information about  japanese hop up company name KAI.

They had made parts for the SV-10 Alcyon and they are very unique, I have never seen these parts before.

Here is the link :

 https://www.overrc.com/news/news2013/kai_models/kai_models.html

How long has been it since my last post, jeez a little over a decade !

 My god, the last post was in late 2014. So what happened ? I gave up the alcyon II and bought a used VBC wildfire D06. Ran it a few times. Very even flex characteristics, lighweight , handled really well. But I got tired of touring and moved on to vintage buggies. 

Last year got myself an Airwolf 470 size RC helicopter. 

I met up an old friend of mine  who now has a 19year old son getting into RC touring. 

He was showing me his 7700mah lipo and I was shocked how light it was. Back in 2015 a 7700mah lipo would have been 300+ grams. 

Suddenly the gears start grinding in my head, hmm..my Kawada.

A month later I went looking for my Kawada. It was in a state of dissaray. Some parts were missing. It was setup for countersteer drift. So i decide to put it back to how it was in 2014-2015.  Bad news is the layshaft i got in there is for drift ratios, so I need to create a new layshaft. The TRF 417 gear diffs are also in bad shape and no longer available , so after some investigation found that TRF420 gear diffs can fit also. took note of parts i need like 32mm turnbuckles, some special length M3 screws, 3mm, 4mm and 5mm beairng shims, diff oil, shock oil, ordered them .

Spent  the last sunday building up cleaning  and putting back the suspension together in the Alcyon II ultimate guise. Found all my 44mm CVDs, cleaned them and regreased., shimmed the wheel bearings. Also needed new alloy 6mm thick hexes. as the 5mm ones seem too near the rear 0 offset wheels to rub slightly on the vertical part of the rear knuckle.  It took me the hole day and didnt get much done. It will take me a few weeks more . But little by little I am determined to get it back working. 

This time when I retire it again. It will retired as is it. with all parts intact. It deserves respect as it was a very important part of my life. Stay tuned.