All good things must come to an End...

 I guess I can't start this post without explaining my situation. As a human being, we are trapped within the capitalist financial system. I am currently nearing 51. In Malaysia we have our retirement fund called Kwsp. 2026 has been a very eventful year, from the controversial US president starting a war with Iran, and me breaking my left foot toe a few days into the new year. My wife kept pestering me to check my Kwsp money and I finally did in June.

I also just found out that I could keep the money in Kwsp itself and just withdraw the dividends for the previous year. That way it could act like a perpetual pension fund that will never deplete till end of your life or 100 years of age.

I asked my wife and brother if they knew that and they didn't know. My brother as well as I were excited and we promptly tried to put as much money as we can scrounge at this time into that fund. We only have a little less than 5 years left to grow that fund.

My wife on the other hand didn't think much about escaping the rat race, because.. well she loves her job. Me and my brother... We hate our jobs. We only work because we have too. I would rather spend my free time with my family, dogs and my rc cars.

My situation now is while I am not poor, I am also not rich. My funds are limited. In order to have free time once I reach 55, I need to sacrifice my disposable income now till 2031.

So that means cutting down on rc spending as much as possible. No new car kits. It's not that difficult in that sense as there is one more thing required besides money in this hobby, and that is TIME.

My job requires me to sacrifice a lot of my time. 9am to 7pm Monday to Friday. 10am to 4pm on Saturdays.

Have to work on public holidays too. It's not easy to get a job in Malaysia that pays what I have now, besides the finish line is kinda near so best not to disturb it.

Of course if I win 1st prize in Toto 4D jackpot or toto 6/50, I can retire immediately and still build my retirement fund till I reach 55. But thus far, no luck. I have been trying since April this year. I am not greedy. I only need RM1 million. That would buy me 5 years of my salary and 5 years of topping up my Kwsp. After which I could access the Kwsp once I deplete the lottery winnings. I could spend a lot more time on RC cars right away instead of spending my waking hours for a greedy CEO  ... I wish...

Anyway what is all this coming to? Well a friend of mine wanted to help me so he is giving away his 2022 sakura cero Ultra V1 to me. So this could be the last year that I actively use the Kawada Alcyon II. 

I don't know if I would jive with the car, but I am willing to give it a try. 

I will probably keep the Kawada as it is, so I can take for a spin anytime in the future. 

On this note, yeah 2026 is a year of upheavals, revivals and excitement. 

So here is hoping for more good news for this year. HINT.. TOTO 1st prize please pleaee pretty please 😁. 

30th August test Run

 So I was at SACC on Sunday the 30th. I had to test the car "alone" since my buddies couldnt make it. I used a spool for the first time. I ran 12 packs throughout the day. The good , I reshimmed my V3 motor days earlier, and the motor is now noticably faster. Runtimes is also longer. It is still overheating though.

 

Problems? Yes, for one, i have to keep trimming the steering, and I had no idea why. Until I went home and took a very close look. 

1. the right front knuckle lost a lower kingpin screw, because the knuckle thread has gotten weak. Removed the old knuckle tossed it and replaced with new one.

2. One of the rear wheel had a lot of slop, I looked closely then I found out why, the knuckle has a crack along the hingepin hole, causing it to expand as it is forced. No big deal, toss the old one replace with new. 

3. The rear hingepin holder was moving left and right by 0.2 to 0.3mm. I had a suspicion that the 1st aliexpress chassis I bought had the rear bulkhead countersunk screws about 0.2mm further apart causing the gap. So i removed that chassis and installed another chassis i bought from a different aliexpress supplier . This new chassis made the hingepin holder real tight and couldnt move around. So i guess the car wondering the track is because the rear toe in was shifting left and right . Now I solved that problem for good. 

 

4. I bought a new Surpass V7 motor from aliexpress and still waiting for it to come, its faster and more efficient, and very much lighter at 142g.

Overall the car perfomed quite well, i was able to catch up to some of the modern cars, even with these problems. The net round the car should be even better when everything is fixed and aligned correctly.  

 

Saturday August 15th 3 car bashing.

 I finally got a chance to retest my Alcyon II. Is it as good as modern cars ? Short answer, no. There were instances when It was very competitive againstmy friends X4 '26 and a Cero Zero. They were surprised by it, especially when track temps were at it's peak. I was cornering real tight and able to out corner my friends cars, not consistently though. I still am not braking consistently enough sometimes over shooting the apexes. But as the day wore on and surface temps incresed by a few celcius , I suddenly felt the car was no longer competitive, it was not able to hold corner speed anymore and the rear end started losing some grip causing lost time. So this is the complaints most TC drivers have about  changing track conditions affecting performance.As the day wore on, their cars improved while mine deteriorated. The difference is apparent when I could no longer catch up. I suspect the higher temps were lowering gear diff oil viscosity causing inconsistent handling.

So I have a plan. Yes my car is very old, but there were a few things I have not tried yet.

1. I bought a TRF420 spool with steel outdrives. I am curious how a spool will feel like vs the 500k front gear diff. The spool is a little lighter and It should also pull the car ahead on initial acceleration, I feel with the gear diff I am losing about half a second to 1 second of outright corner rip. That is basically the biggest thing I don't have on my car vs theirs. 

2. I also planning on leaning in the shocks a bit. All modern cars have the shocks leaning in a lot. 

3. The way I brake isn't good. I brake while turning, and this causes the car to suddenly straighten out while turning, which loses corner speed. I need to brake only when car is straight.

4. I now plan to use same shock oil on front and rear instead of harder oil in front.  It should balance out well with the spool.

5. The rear gear diff felt too light. When I opened up the rear diff it was apparent why. The oil has turned black and there wasn't much of it left. Two things were happening, the oil was leaking out from the side seals, and the remaining oil was breaking down and overheating causing it to turn black. I bought some special harder tamiya Blue O rings and they will come together with the spool. I will also up the rear diff oil from 3000 to 5000. 

It is a rather exciting time, learning more and more about setup , so many combinations to try. Lets see if I can improve the Alcyon II even further.  

 

 

The Alcyon II Ultimate Prototype -October 2001

 From Japanese magazine R C Magazine, October 2001.

Kawada was working on moving the weight forward. As both the Alcyon and Alcyon II are quite rear heavy cars. The Alcyon being like 55:45, and Alcyon II 53:47, For comparison, I managed to get my alcyon II to be 52:48 without moving the servo forward.

So they made a protoype with saddle packs shifted way far forward, servo flipped and shifted very close to the steering links, esc is very close to the motor and pushed far inwards as possiblie while still not touching belt.

  Notice also the laid down shocks and very low roll centers, but raised rear upper links to bring up the rear roll center so that it wont be too low. It shouldn't be too low in the rear or the car will understeer badly.

 

the final product was different though, it maintained the servo , battery and esc placement, but was only made for side by side packs, and  the front C hubs were lowered and had the camber link go over the kingpin instead of using C Hub Sx-58 like in the pic.

The rear hub also got its own alloy piece that goes above the rear tyre.

Which makes me wanna make my own version that moves the battery even further forward, but I am a bit lazy to do that now. maybe when I retire..Lol..
 

 

Finally found the SV-10 Alcyon II Conversion kit, very Elusive

 No I did not buy it, I saw it on mercari. I thought it came in a Optima Mid LWB kind of conversion box, but it actually came in a plastic bag and label clipped.

Here are the pics :

Part Number SX-100

 

If you look at the instructions closely, two things are not included, one is the SX-57 front knuckles, and rear Alloy bulkhead. So the conversion works right away on the EX and Limited versions only.

       

March 1998 RC Magazine Japan Kawada SV-10 Alcyon pre production review

 I know I have been talking about the Alcyon II a lot, and not the car that started it all, the 1st Alcyon .

It was a prototype in 1997 and was finally slated for release in April 1998.

Here is a magazine article  in Original Japanese and translated.

 

Take note it was just called SV-10 at this time, no Alcyon 

 

Youtube Channel Quiet RC has a Kawada SV-10 Alcyon box/car in his collection

 I was watching this youtube Channel Quiet RC and notice the Alcyon box in his shelf.

I went back a year and I still saw it there. He had it for sometime. What a coincidence.

 

 

 

 Here is the video link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67F4nfYzE-g&t=2s