I know I know some of you are probably
in shock right now you probably said to yourself am I seeing things is that
really a sedan he's going to review yes it is we finally got an on-road car in
here we get so much off-road stuff this is a nice break in the action and
something cool to definitely check out my friends over at RC Mart they hooked
me up with this Express Execute XM 1s sedan here and this was a fun little
build and I can't wait to go drive it but first I have to tell you about all
of the details of this this is a pretty inexpensive kit I know a lot of people
out there you know have been asking for budget-minded kits in the kit by itself
no electronics no body no wheels those tires is 99.99 right now and I think you
know when it's not on sale I don't know if it ever goes off sale but it's like
130 bucks so you know if you grab this thing right now for a hundred bucks I
think it's a pretty good deal let me start off with the body this is actually
a Ride Subaru BRZ body it actually comes painted it came painted white I had to
go and put the decals on it cut out the wheel wells and such but you know they
have a bunch of different bodies for these type of vehicles over at RC Mart
this is a m size 110 scale sedan so it's a bit smaller than your average sedan
you know it's a mini basically as kind of a to me a mini sized vehicle but
basically this is a full-blown 110 scale sedan under the hood here I mean every
all the inner workings the design of it basically is taken from the larger 110
scale racing platform and put into this platform here so if you have a favorite
M series body that you want to put on a racing style platform you could you
don't go and pick this one up all right let me pull the body off so I can start
to talk to you about some of the racing features inside again this is a full
build up kit so it comes in this tiny little box right over here and you have
to build it you know following the instructions the instructions were
really really good I didn't really find any issues putting it together other
than the one little hiccup I'll talk to you about in a little bit but here it is
here's the chassis nice small m size chassis and as you can see it's got a
racing layout you know and it's starting off with the front like I always do got
the new standard sedan foam bumper up front from bumper mounting system and
then behind that is when we start to get into
the the real race performance type stuff even in this you know budget kit the the
lower bulkhead on this is a one-piece bulkhead which is is kind of important
as far as you know getting the car set up properly and the reason for that is
you know you don't want any chassis tweaking and chassis tweak is is when
things aren't assemble properly the chassis can you twist a little bit and
that causes erratic handling so this kind of helps eliminate that the
one-piece lower bulkhead setup and then of course it's got a composite top CAPTA
to secure the differentials we have a fiberglass FRP front shock tower here
multiple positions on the shock tower and mounted to the shock tower are these
composite bodied shocks they do have an aluminum cap and aluminum spring collar
and aluminum lower cap but they are a composite body but they build up really
nice the bladder inside feels really smooth kind of your standard it's a
dance I'll shocks set up and it's going to work really well on the other end of
the shock it links up to the lower arm it's a pretty firm lower arm as you
would expect from a racing sedan it's not completely stiff it's not any
composite still play like a nylon plastic so there's a little bit of flex
but you know for this size of the vehicle and especially for what I'm
gonna do just kind of messing around you know at the track with it you know I'm
not looking for a high performance arm so this is gonna work out just fine
but what's really nice is you do have an adjustable 'ti so the you know you could
adjust the the spacing of the arm you can move it forward or back with some
with some shims in there you know as you'd expect from a regular sedan
adjustable camber links up top you know your usual seat carriers and steering
knuckles the steering knuckle does have a separate steering arm on it so you
could go and swap that out if necessary the tie rods for the toe are also
adjustable so again you know adjustable everywhere on this now up front we do
have a spool and in the rear we've got a gear differential you can adjust the cam
of the front spool holder and of course in the manual it tells you you know
where to put it stock you know for a new setup but you know as things start to
where you may have to adjust the belt tension on this it does have a tensioner
in the center but you could also adjust the position of the front spool on here
and same with the rear gear differential you could adjust that as well so I got
the front end pretty much all wrapped up already
the steering let's get into the steering on this no I have it set up as a
floating steering rack it's a dual bellcrank steering setup really simple
with a center point mount for the servo link to the servo arm or you could go
and fix it to the lower chassis as well so you have that option I went with the
floating option just get more off the lower deck of this and then the servo
mount itself is actually the newer style setup where it's a floating servo mount
where it just melts right in the center of the chassis so again there's no
tweaking issues no difference in the Flex of the chassis because the servo is
mounted on two sides it's just meant that right in the center with this plate
that spans over the top to really secure the servo so there's no flex in there
you know a nice modern steering system on here now let me talk about the
chassis while I'm in the center section so this again is a FRP chassis not a
carbon fiber but it is fiberglass reinforced plastic and same with the
upper deck same material really nicely machine to actually countersunk on the
bottom and we've even got a little notch here actually for the motors so it sits
low without touching the chassis and causing problems there so it's again all
Racing's set up in this let me move a little farther back to the motor mount
so it's got a Lumina motor mount on there red anodized with offset mounting
system you know really maximizes the space and use of the space in here lumen
Center post just to help stiffen things up and then the battery is mounted over
here and it's mounted in a similar fashion to other touring car style
batteries you have to use strapping tape to strap it down it does have some
braces here to prevent it from sliding back and forth and some little posts and
on the inside here so it doesn't slam into the gears or anything like that or
the belt system alright now moving even farther back
we've got these Center pulley setup with the spur gear that sits on an aluminum
lay shaft so it's nice and lightweight for better acceleration and then we've
got the short belt that goes back to the rear gear differential and they do go
ahead and give you to fill up that gear differential it is a heavy weight oil oh
and what I forgot to tell you guys about was the drive shaft so we've got C V
style drive shafts front and rear on this which is really nice especially on
a car at a hundred bucks to see that rather than a dog bones
so yeah we got them up front and then in the rear it's a little bit different
they have a blade style into the drive shaft on the dog bone and is a a nylon
blade that sits in the out drive of the year differential it's just a nice
smooth system for the drive shaft work in the only thing is this is this is
where my building problem came about was the blade on here that nylon blade is
pretty hard and so when I went to go and install this when I was first building
up the kit I broke one and I actually had to go back to our cmart and order
one I didn't go through the regular RC mark channel like I usually do to talk
to them I went off on my own ordered it through our c Mart on eBay and it took
about two weeks to get it so this you know was kind of sitting on the
workbench for a couple weeks while I waited for it to arrive just want to let
you guys know when you are you know assembling this and putting that blade
in there go ahead and boil that blade before you go and install it onto the
drive shaft and what they'll do is they'll soften it up I took it right out
of the boiling water with some some pliers and once you get it out of the
water you could pretty much handle it you know just of course be careful
because it is boiling water but it was then soft enough for me to get it up and
over the axe and snap it on to the the dog boat and so that was the only hiccup
during building that I wanted to tell you guys about all right now onto the
rear of the vehicle again an FRP rear Tower we've got the same shocks as the
front a real nice setup they worked so well saint bulkhead assembly and then
nice firm rear arms out to a standard style hub and you know we've got ball
bearings in there and ball bearings of course throughout the entire drivetrain
on this and everything works you know nice and smooth just as you expect from
a performance sedan let me see what else I missed here oh we also have sway bars
both front and rear as standard equipment so that's really nice to see
you know same style of pivot block setup in the rear as well they're they're
shims to move the arms around and there's actually droop screws in the
arms as well so you could adjust the droop of the vehicle alright so that
pretty much makes up the oh the basis of the kit now you are going to have to
supply the electronics I went with a Tekin low-profile servo the Tekin gen 2
RS spec speed controller and then a Teagan gen 3 redline 17
point-five turn stock motor you know I'm not gonna go crazy with this thing with
a mod motor but this should be right plenty of power and then I'm gonna drive
this thing with a spectrum radio system and I do have a maximum shorty lipo to
go in here as well finally the other thing that you're
going to have to supply when you're building up this kit is the tires RC
market has you covered there that's where I got these tires they're the 30 X
compound so I'm just gonna go run it you know on carpet and as well hopefully
kind of just show you both and just with the same set of tires again I'm just
going out to have fun with this yeah it's a racing style a setup you know but
for a hundred bucks it could also provide a lot of touring car style fun
again especially if you want to go and put your own you know favorite M style
body on something and just head go have fun with it this is a pretty cool option
for you out there alright that just leaves going out and
testing this I am gonna head up to RC madness I haven't been there in a while
awesome place to go out and test on row vehicles as well as a bunch of other
vehicles but that's going to be the perfect place to go run this let's go
see how it does so I spent the day over at RC Magnuson
Enfield Connecticut on their outdoor touring car track their indoor track
carpet track was set up for ovals so and there was some old guys over there
practicing didn't want to disturb them so I went outside to the asphalt track
and I had a great time out there with the XM 1's I was just there by myself so
I did the best I could as far as getting you guys some video footage of the car
running and you know overall it was just a lot of fun to get back behind the
wheel of a touring car it's been a long time since I've driven a touring car on
a track I should say I've obviously tested a few in parking lots here and
there but as far as a track worthy car such as this that was the first time
I've been out you know between the lanes in a long time and this car handles
really really well yeah again I was this out there for fun as far as being a
touring car pro that I am NOT I enjoy driving them I've even raced her in cars
a number of times but my specialty is really off-road but overall this thing
is is really quick I got to say that off the bat it was probably a little under
geared for that outdoor track I was thinking I was going to run more on the
indoor track could probably go up a few teeth on it the motor definitely had a
lot more in it the car is very stable that's what I really liked about it you
know it really just went in the direction that I put it you know moving
out to steering the car has plenty of steering the Tekin servo in here is just
a brute but as far as how the car reacts I was really able to power through the
sweeping corners with it they cut back really nicely through the tighter
sections of the course it was a little loose in the rear and you know I'm kind
of thinking that it's because the track was unused for a little bit covered in
pollen the inside of this car is just covered in pollen so that silty kind of
pollen dirt was all over the track and so I think that's why the rear was a
little loose I mean maybe I could have gone with a just a little bit softer of
a tire and I think it would have actually hooked the car up really
well I did put some tire additive on there to try to make it stick a little
bit more which it did work okay but you know what it did really well
with all things considering handling wise and just really nimble for me to
get around the track I mean yes it did have a stock motor in there but just
really easy to get around the track and again have fun with that's really what I
was aiming for and showing you guys this you know aid you know 100 a holler kick
car basically go out there and you know just have a lot of fun and if you have
mini touring car racing in your area I mean I think this is a great deal that
you can get into racing with you know figure out if it's for you and then you
know go from there Express has a lot under their line of cars you know you if
you grow out of this there's definitely other stuff to go into and you can
probably even take some parts off of this and use it for some of their other
sedans but you know this as is is a great deal it is a lot of fun it really
makes me want to hit the track some more for some more running with it you know
no durability issues to report and you can see the front of this body is pretty
beat-up and I even hit a cement wall with it and the tweak didn't go ahead
still seem to drive just fine didn't show any exhibits of something getting
you know bent or shifted or anything like that so it is a solid car it is a
lot of fun so if you're looking to hit the track with a race where the machine
or head out to a big parking lot for just a lot of fun definitely head over
to RC Mart see what they have under the Express line
