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Type ❯❯ 4WD BuggyPrice ❯❯ $540 (price varies with dealer)Requires ❯❯ 2-channel radio ❯❯ Throttle & brake servos ❯❯ Fuel ❯❯ .21 engine ❯❯ Exhaust system ❯❯ Starter box ❯❯ Receiver pack ❯❯ Glow starterteamassociated.comQ

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TEAM ASSOCIATED RC8The A-Team is ready for total world dominance

For years, Associated has offered vehicles for nearly every racing class with oneglaring exception: 4WD buggies. All that changed this year when it debuted theinstant-World Champion B44 electric buggy and the all-new RC8 1⁄8-scale nitrobuggy, reviewed here for the first time. As we revealed in the June issue’s “Secretsof the RC8,” the RC8 is full of new thinking and innovations that belie its seeminglyconventional layout. But how does it work on the track? With a freshly minted, factory-built RC8 buggy on my workbench, and ready for my electronics andengine, we finally find out.

POWERFUL PUNCHDon’t be alarmed if the RC8’s clutch slips dur-ing the first lap or two; once the clutch shoesand clutch bell scuff up and the springs relax,you’ll have the gift of grab. The clutch stickswell to give the RC8 plenty of grunt, so myPro-Line Crime Fighters could get the full ben-efit of the Novarossi powerplant I installed. Ihad to ease up on the throttle coming out ofthe turns because I was running into the backof cars in front of me and hitting them hard.The clutch really shone on the large kickerjump at the end of the straight. There’s a setof four rollers just before it, and if you didn’t

get through it, you couldn’t line up quicklyenough to put the power down to clear thebig kicker. I made plenty of mistakes throughthat roller section and had to attack the kickerwith little runup often through the day. Theclutch kicked in quickly and positively, and Iwas surprised to see the RC8 make it to theother side. I kicked back on the throttle overthe smaller jumps, as the RC8 was over-shooting them with ease.

SUPER STEERINGIt only took a few seconds to see that thisbuggy has all the steering you could want. In

fact, the RC8 has the most steering that I’ve ever felt in an 1⁄8-scale buggy. It took me awhile to get used to the impressive steering,and I found myself cutting the corners way totightly when off power. The RC8 likes to bedriven hard into the corners and carries lots ofspeed in the turns. A slight on-power push willhappen no matter which buggy you drive. Onplenty of track sections I didn’t even try toslow the RC8 down before entering a turn,and it carved them up with ease. I actuallydialed out some steering to numb the car up abit so I could drive it. It’s a little too precise formy driving style right now; I’ll dial in more as Iget wheel time.

RC MADNESS ❯❯ ENFIELD, CT ❯❯ RCMADNESS.COMTEST SPOT

BEHIND THEWHEEL

DRIVE TIME

WORDS KEVIN HETMANSKI PHOTOS HOPE McCALL

1/8 SCALE | NITRO | ARR

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SUSPENSION SORTINGThe RC8’s suspension is setup for good all-around performance, but as with any race car,you’ll need to make a few setup changes toget the most out of your machine. Once I wasused to the track layout, I saw that the rearend was getting kicked around over some ofthe smaller jumps and bumps, which made ithard to setup for the obstacles afterwards. Imoved in the bottom of the rear shocks tosoften up the rear a bit, and that made a bigdifference. The RC8 barrel-rolled a few timeswhen entering a turn off a jump, and most ofthe time, the buggy ended up on the tires. Ifixed it by installing the lighter swaybars in thefront and rear. Jumping the RC8 is a pleasure;it flies through the air perfectly. You could

almost hear classical music playing as it flew15 feet in the air off the kicker. The unique sus-pension geometry was very effective in soakingup jump landings, and midair corrections wereeasily made to downside jump faces.

GREAT BRAKESAcceleration and speed are great, but abuggy is nothing without effective brakes. Iwas excited by the RC8’s system as soon as I saw it on the chassis. You can’t go wrongwith a combination of a fiber materialwrapped around a chunk of metal. Thosebrake discs are grippy, and it doesn’t takemuch throw of the servo arm to lock them up.I like to run a little more rear brake than frontbrake to help the car pivot through the turns,

and brake bias is very easy to adjust thanksto the large-diameter adjusters, and havingboth linkages on top of the center diff plateshelps to give you better access to both link-ages. The brakes grabbed well with no signsof fading during my day of testing.

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UNDER THE HOOD

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A buggy such as the RC8 deserves a powerful mill; that’s why I went with a Novarossi Plus 21-5K engine. According to FusionMotorsports’ Jim Hottinger, distributor of Novarossi, the Plus was designed to run on less than 25% nitro, which lowers the engine’soperating cost (20% nitro is cheaper than 30%). You can purchase a standard or turbo-head engine configuration, which will give twodifferent power bands. Inside, you’ll find a “micro cast” piston that, according to Novarossi, maintains better compression at highertemperatures. The piston rides inside a 5-port sleeve, and the carb sucks air and fuel through an 8mm venturi. Novarossi includes 7.5,7, 6.5 and 6mm inserts to fine-tune the engine’s power. A two-piece head design with vented fins increase the head’s surface area andshaves a few grams. The piston and sleeve fit at top dead center is very tight until the engine is broken in, so make sure your starterbox has a good charge on it!

NOVAROSSI PLUS 21-5K

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The body comes trimmed andmounted, but you have topaint it. I sent mine to ZegersRC Graffixx for a ParmaFaskolor paint job.

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CHASSISLightweight 3mm aluminum main chassis withradiused sides. Carbon-fiber servo tray withsealed receiver box. Front and rear chassisbraces.

SUSPENSIONType Lower H-arm with turnbuckle upper link Inboard camber-link positions F/R 1/3Outboard camber-link positions F/R 2/2Upper shock positions F/R 3/3Lower shock positions F/R 2/2

SHOCKSThreaded aluminum body with knurled adjuster;bladder volume compensation; 4mm shock shaftswith nutted pistons.

STEERINGType Dual bellcrankServo saver Adjustable cam-typeTie rods Steel turnbuckleAckerman settings (inboard/outboard) 3/1

DRIVETRAINType Full-time, shaft-driven 4WD Transmission 3-diffDifferentials Bevel gear with spiral-cut steel

ring and pinion and sealed plastic housing;hardened steel outdrives

Spur gear Hardened steelBrake Front and rear disc with aluminum inserts

and steel calipers; adjustable biasDriveshafts CV axlesBearings Rubber sealedGear ratios Primary 2.75; internal 4.3; final 11.8

ENGINE & ACCESSORIESEngine Not includedExhaust system Not includedEngine mount One-piece, finned aluminumFuel tank 125cc with sintered filter

BODY, WHEELS & TIRESBody Clear, trimmed and mountedWing Injection-molded plasticWheels One-piece plastic dish, 17mm hexTires & inserts Not included

ELECTRONICS Not included

SPECIFICATIONSTEAM ASSOCIATED RC8teamassociated.comScale 1/8Price $540

Laydown shocksThe RC8’s shocks are mounted on small risers that move their pivot points to just above the arm,which cants the tops of the shocks inward. This “laydown” position performs like a conventionalshock configuration, but lowers the RC8’s center of gravity and allows the use of smaller, lighterand more flex-resistant shock towers. Instead of thick aluminum slabs, lightweight carbon-fibertowers secure the shocks with no loss of strength or rigidity. A ll you lose is weight.

Perfect steeringgeometryTeam Associated gives youthe option of mounting yoursteering servo on vertically orhorizontally. Laying the servodown lowers the car’s centerof gravity (can you really tell?),but standing it up makes forperfect steering-linkage align-ment between the servo armand the bellcrank. The servosare mounted on a carbon-fiber plate, and the servomounts double as standoffs and supports the plate. Aroomy radio box makes it easy to install the rest of the radiogear. You can easily fit a standard-size receiver and receiverpack, and there’s enough room to fit a flat or a hump-typepack; the choice is up to you.

Spiral-cut ring and pinionsThe RC8 uses three gear diffs to get thepower to the ground. They’re prettymuch standard stuff; bevel-gearinternals with six gears, O-ringsand gasket seals to keep thesilicone fluid inside. Spiral-cutring and pinion gears on thefront and rear diffs are the uniquefeature. Spiral-cut gears provide amuch smoother and stronger drive, and allow for avery compact ring gear while maintaing ample surfaearea for the teeth. The A-Team didn’t stop at thegears; they made the RC8’s drivetrain extra durable byadding captured CV pins, rubber seals around the rearuniversal joints and Nylock axle nuts.

The ring and pinion gears arespiral-cut for stronger andsmoother operation.

The hub carriers are open on one side, whichallows you to easily remove the hubs, and thewheel nuts have nylon inserts to keep them inplace during operation.

I installed Associated’snew XP servos. The RC8’ssteering link is assembledfor you.

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TEAM ASSOCIATED RC8 RCCA: How momentous wasthe decision to offer the RC8 asa preassembled car rather thanas a kit?

Kurt: It was pretty big, and we gotthe whole company involved bygetting as much input as we could.We asked around the office, “Howmany cars do you have that youwant to race, but they’re still sittingin the box?” The folks who workhere are enthusiasts, but people arebusier these days, and this kind ofthing happens. It could also be thatwe get RC’d out. We might be theextreme case, and in other places,everyone is very excited to get theirvehicle and put it together so theycan run it. We had a long talk about

the pros and the cons, and in theend, we felt that if we did it right—in the way that Richard [Saxton]and I would build a kit—we’d havean end product that’s better builtfor 99 out of 100 people who would otherwise build it themselves.

RCCA: How much of a high-quality factory-assembly jobcomes from the pats simplybeing designed well? I’m surethe assembly line guys don’thave time to hand-fit parts.

Kurt: A lot of detail is put into thecar to make sure the suspensionrides smoothly. One of the com-mon things when you screw thedroop screws into the arms is thatit makes the plastic swell out, andthat can bind the suspension.When we build the cars, we actu-ally put the droop screw in thearms and run a reamer through thehingepin holes to make sure thecustomer gets a premium build.That’s just one example, but inmany places the car goes togetherwell. One problem we find whenusing soft materials is that they aremore likely to warp, and it’s hardto get everything to fit perfectly.That’s one example where we gothe extra mile. The gearbox andeverything are an awesome fit.Every bug had been worked out ofit with the Thunder Tiger Programand ST-1. We spent a lot of timegetting the case and other thingsaligned, and the gears are alignedproperly. The car is really nice outof the box, and when you run it afew times, it gets even better.

RCCA: The RC8’s unusualshock geometry and graphiteshock towers set it apart fromother buggies. Was there anyconcern over not doing whateveryone knows and accepts,or is the philosophy to do whatyou know will work better andthen educate the buyer?

Kurt: We kind of went halfway onthat. As far as the shock geometryand the towers, it was obvious wehad to go with what we thoughtwould be better. We actually slightlychanged the shape of the front car-bon tower from our original design,and things have been pretty muchbullet-proof, but we’re still going tooffer a 5mm CNC aluminum tower inthe catalog for the guy who has tohave aluminum.

RCCA: It seems that a lot ofthe RC8’s features could havebeen born out of a “what bugsus about 1⁄8-scale buggies”

Kurt is a Senior Engineer in charge of off-road research and development at TeamAssociated. His first project at TeamAssociated was the B4 and he also had hishand in the T4, GT2, RC8, and B44. 18 yearsof racing have given him the knowledge nec-essary to come up with designs for all ofthose great vehicles. We sat down with Kurtto get the low down on the RC8.

BEHIND THE DESIGN WITH KURT WENGER

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Easy-to-install clutchFor many, installing a clutch is the last thing they want todo because the spring has to be installed onto the pinwith the clutch shoe, and somehow you have to get thespring to clear the clutch nut. That’s not the case here.The RC8 has three aluminum clutch shoes, and they arecut similar to the ones used in the gas truck. The springsare installed over the clutch shoes and are very easy toclip onto the clutch nut. This makes adjustment andclutch maintenance easy.

All it takes is a glance to see the RC8’s clutch is mucheasier to assemble than traditional designs.

Front and rear heatsink brakesThe RC8 uses two fiber disc brakes to slow the bigbuggy down, and they feature an aluminum skeletoninside that dissipates heat while using them to preventthe discs from warping from excessive heat. Knurled col-lars on the servo end of the linkages allow you to easilytwist the linkage to adjust front and rear brake bias. Bothlinkages are found on top of the center diff plate for easyaccess, and small “fingers” on the brake linkage bushingskeep the linkages from over-extending while on the throt-tle and binding the brakes. The center diff mount is splitdown the middle, so you can remove the center diff with-out messing up your brake settings.

These brakes are dialed! The discs are fiber units withan aluminum struture inside to help dissipate heat.

TEAM ASSOCIATED RC8

conversation. Was that part of theprocess?

Kurt: You have the guys who designthe cars, and you go out and build thecars and design them and use them;being enthusiasts, we use the productand then say, “I don’t like this … I likethat … this is a pain in the butt towork on … yadda, yadda, yadda.” Sojust for me, it becomes second nature.Using the product, we just start topick stuff apart. We are really critical.

RCCA: What’s your favorite fea-ture? I’m all about those lockingaxle nuts.

Kurt: Golly jeepers; my number-onepeev was it’s so hard to keep a buggyrunning without having the CVD pin fly

out. For me, that was my personalnemesis. And so we have captured pinson all of the universal joints. It was oneof my biggest headaches, and my otherheadache was trying to work on theother buggy clutches. It’s OK to put ittogether, but when the time comes totake it apart, it’s a pain. The spring isburied down halfway across the shoeand is hard to get to. We came up witha much simpler design and used it onthe TC3 and GT2. Thunder Tiger sawthat and made an S3 clutch that usedthe springs in the same way. Then itsort of evolved; we did a little moretesting and found the correct shoeweight and the right size and got every-thing right for the aluminum clutch towork properly. Part of that was insertingthe Teflon shim under the shoe so itwon’t hang up on the flywheel. So thework we did on the clutch makes it a lotless of a nightmare. Anyway, those aremy fave two. My favorite aestheticdesign on the car is the wing and itsmount. I think that system is really cool.

RCCA: How much refinement comesfrom team-driver testing? Is a newcar typically 85% there, and TheTeam’s input and setup brings it to100%? Or is it a smaller margin?

Kurt: The only thing we did when theRC8 went to the race team was to tellthem, “here are the adjustments wecan use.” Our plan was just to usethat time to develop our basic setup,and to do the best with the car asdesigned. Getting more cars out there

and running them and pushing themto the max, you’ll soon discover ifthere is any durability problem, and sowe did that. A lot of it was finding theright springs, shock oil and pistons.There came a time when we hit thestop button and said, “this is going tobe our setup.” We’ve tried a bunch ofthings since then, and the setups areon the website. There are just so many adjustments and things to try. Themold is already made, so you’re like,this is what we’ve got to work with.

RCCA: There are so many adjust-ments on a race car that it’s easy tobe bewildered by the staggeringarray of changes you can make. Itmust be 10 times harder for youguys during the design process: youcan put 100 holes anywhere you

want. How hard is it just to zero inon those initial settings before youstart shooting the parts in plastic?

Kurt: We took what we had learned,and before we made a mold of any-thing, we made a whole complete car.Prototype, I mean. We kind of hodge-podged some parts and basically builta whole car. And then we said, this iswhat we want: let’s run it and test itinto the ground, and test as manysetups as we can, and compare themwith whichever car out there that wethink is the best. We then went fromthere. So that kind of thing was doneway before we started the tooling.

RCCA: Is there anything else you’dlike to add?

Kurt: Yes, I’d also like to give creditto senior engineer TorranceDeGuzman and Richard Saxton fortheir input into the design of the RC8.

RCCA: You got it Kurt, it’s in there.

BEHIND THE DESIGN WITH KURT WENGER

BEFORE WE MADE A MOLD OF ANYTHING, WE MADE APROTOTYPE ... AND THEN WE SAID, THIS IS WHAT WEWANT: LET’S RUN IT AND TEST IT INTO THE GROUND

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Rating the Team Associated RC8When Team Associated comes out with a new high-end race-anything, it’s expected to be good—and theRC8 delivers. This buggy has impressed me in allareas; it looks great, it comes assembled, and it eatsup the track. You can expect to see the RC8 at thetop of the podium at lots of races. I think the factory-built RC8 will get racers on the track quicker (and witha better-built car, in some cases) and may even con-vert a few racing veterans to let The Team do thebuilding so they can do more racing.

SWITCH MOUNTINGWhen mounting your switch,make sure that its ‘on’ posi-tion faces the front of thebuggy. That way, there’s nochance of the switch shut-ting off if you have a hard,head-on hit.

PROPER RIM PREPSince there’s only a small lipon the RC8’s rims, payclose attention to surfaceprep before you glue thetires in place. Scuff up therims’ mating surfaces andthe tires with a small pieceof sandpaper, and cleanthem with motor spray.You’ll remove any residue or

imperfections from the sur-faces and have a betterbond between the tires andthe rims.

BEND THE BODY CLIPSThe small body clips thathold on the radio box’s lidare difficult to removebecause they’re hard reachand grip. Remove the clips,and bend the round endslightly to raise them off thebox surface. This will enableyou to grip them better andremove them more easily.

CAPTURE THE NUTSSome of the RC8’s parts aremolded to hold locknuts in

place while you install thescrews, so there’s no needfor you to use pliers or a nutdriver to hold them. But thenuts slide out easily whenthe screw isn’t there to holdthem. Go through the buggybefore you work on it, andplace a dab of silicone onthe edge of the nuts to prevent them from slidingout. The silicone is flexibleenough to allow you toremove the nuts later if you must.

TEAM ASSOCIATED RC8

Since the RC8 Factory Built comes assembled, there isn’t much to tellyou about putting it together. Team Associated leaves the engine, ser-vos and tires out of the mix, so you can choose what is best for youand the track you run on. Here are a few tips to make your RC8 a little

more reliable and easier to work on.

❯❯ Factory assembled❯❯ Tons of steering❯❯ Captured universal pins

❯❯ Hard to see fuel level in dark plastic fuel tank

❯❯ Lock nuts are hard to install on some parts

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Intermediate and Expertracers

BESTFOR

❯❯ 5mm aluminum shock towers—item no. 89094 (front). 89085 (rear)

❯❯ Aluminum chassis brace—89238 (front), 89239 (rear)

❯❯ Molded skidplate—89237❯❯ Aluminum top deck—89236❯❯ Non-stick 3-chamber muffler, black—89175❯❯ Polished 3-chamber muffler—89177

FACTORY OPTIONS

YOU’LL NEED | WE USEDRadio system Futaba 3PK

Distributedby Great Planes greatplanes.comfutaba.com

Steering servo Team Associated DS1015 teamassociated.com

Throttle servo Team Associated DS1313 teamassociated.com

Engine Novarossi Plus 21-5K Distributed by Fusion Motorsports fusionmotorsports.com

Header & pipe Associated Factory Team teamassociated.com

Starter box Associated Factory Team teamassociated.com

Receiver pack Reedy 1100mAh teamassociated.com

Fuel Byron 30% byronorginals.com

Glow starter Associated Factory Team teamassociated.com

Tires Pro-Line Crime Fighter pro-line.com

Tire glue Pro-Line Premium Blend CA pro-line.com

Custom paint Zegers RC Graffixx zegersrcgraffixx.com

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ON THE BENCH

Here’s what you get when you open thebox. Put your engine, pipe and electronicsin, and you’re ready to hit the dirt.

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