Kyosho Sand Master

[GregM 1109]

No worries. Let us know how the oil damper conversion kit works out for you.

[alfagta 126]

No worries. Let us know how the oil damper conversion kit works out for you.

will do, I was planning on doing a short guide with pics on the conversion , the shocks use the old cartridge system as popularized by kyosho/losi and mardave so it may be a hit or miss affair , all the best for now

[gasman01 6]

Hi just to let you know that my young'un has thrashed his sandmaster since christmas and so far everything has worked just fine, I had to replace the front oil dampers with some slightly shorter ones as the camber was totally out, the front wheels sit squat on the floor now so it corners a lot better, we are heading over to north wales on friday for four days so I am looking forward to some quality time in the dunes with our buggies.......not told my missus yet, will post some pics if I get any good ones.

[alfagta 126]

been giving the sandmaster a hard time in the dirt today, i found that all the ball cups are a bit sloppy so i used the old trick of putting a bit of poly bag over the ball studs and popping the cups back on, slop gone until i get new ball studs and cups with Ti tie rods ,

my biggest gripe with this car(apart from the un-damped dampers) is that the esc goes straight into reverse if you have been at neutral for over 1second , i might put one of my hobbywing systems in it soon. , apart from that its great fun and super tough,

[alfagta 126]

hi all,

so the damper seal set finally arrived ,i did consider getting all the O'rings and making a cartridge cap but these shocks have solid 4mm shafts and getting all three sizes of O'ring was proving to be more costly than just buying the kit from Kyosho , sadly i had to get them from japan , you would think that UK sellers of the car would have this simple but essential part in stock! huge thanks to Banzai Hobby for getting them here so quickly!

left to right , slotted seal cartridge cap , seal cartridge damper body seal , top cap seal, shaft 'O'ring x 2 , O'ring spacer.

cartridge assembled with thick O'ring on black top cap, Kyosho recommends filling the shock with oil from the bottom which i did but the pack or rebound was way too much so i still had to loosen the top cap to bleed them off a bit ,

on the subject of oil, the kit springs have a massive difference front to rear but the pistons are the same f2r , so i went for 35wt front and a whopping 120wt rear and may even go up to 150wt at the rear ,

i can confirm that they are quite nice dampers once the kit is fitted , not enough travel for grass unless its very short but on dirt and gravel they are fine , i also want to keep this car as stock as i can as it has a certain charm and never fails to make me smile ,

i have added a li-po alarm and will be adding the light kit too but thats as far as i will take it ,

thanks for reading this,

all the best

[GregM 1109]

@alfagta: Many thanks for the description and pics.

When the last remains of snow went away eventually, it was time to get the Sand Master out again.

This time, I had the Kyosho roof lights fitted. They looked good, even in sunlight they are a nice accessory for scale realism. They are also acting as a perfect rollbar: When the car accidentally lands on the roof, the metal bar will take the impact and just tilt forward or rearward thanks to the adjustable mount. This protects the roofs and spot lights from being damaged.

I'm now fine with the body panels and plastic mount clips. I had another rollover on grass where the large front panel fell off - after putting it back in place, it struck me that a rigid fixed mount could have led to broken panels.

On very, very short grass and loose gravel on tarmac, the Sandmaster shines. Especially on the latter surface, as I was able to do some fun drifting. Bypassing people and kids liked to watch these drift manoeuvres. I still think the stock motor is fast enough for my taste.

[alfagta 126]

hi GregM,

totally agree , although i did fit two screws and nylocs to each panel as they were starting to pop off a bit to readily ,

i have run into an issue when running on gravel , small stones get into the motor and cause the motor to get very hot and have taken off half the fan blades , never had this issue before even with my M-chassis cars on the same gravel patch running an almost identical 21t fan type motor , not sure what to do with it as it is just so much fun on gravel, with the dampers oil filled it holds a drift effortlessly, Kyosho pedigree shows even at this low price , i have taped the motor holes up for now but cant run it more than 5 minutes before the motor gets too hot , i am thinking that a mild brushless system may have to be employed , perhaps a 15.5 speed passion motor with 35a HW esc i have laying about , will give it a go next weekend and report back .

best for now

[GregM 1109]

You could also try a regular fanless Mabuchi/Johnson silvercan (coupled with a larger pinion for equal top speed) or use a foam dust cover for brushed motors. I think there should be enough space around the motor to mount such a foam cover.

[alfagta 126]

that might be a good call mate, silver can and a 29t or 30t , i might even try the 27t pinion with a 25 turn chrome can that i have , the foam covers are very difficult to find in the UK , by the time i pay the unreal postage from the EU mainland or the USA i could buy a new sealed BL motor from hobbyking, will have a another search around .

[Percymon 2184]

that might be a good call mate, silver can and a 29t or 30t , i might even try the 27t pinion with a 25 turn chrome can that i have , the foam covers are very difficult to find in the UK , by the time i pay the unreal postage from the EU mainland or the USA i could buy a new sealed BL motor from hobbyking, will have a another search around .

Buy a metal tea strainer or sieve from the kitchen area of your local home store/supermarket, cut out the wire mesh portion and form around the motor (be carfeul not to touch/short motor contacts/resistors. Will allow ample air flow but keep out any debris >2mm diameter

[alfagta 126]

Buy a metal tea strainer or sieve from the kitchen area of your local home store/supermarket, cut out the wire mesh portion and form around the motor (be carfeul not to touch/short motor contacts/resistors. Will allow ample air flow but keep out any debris >2mm diameter

damned fine idea percymon, i am just about to order some stainless steel mesh to protect the very fragile pressed carbon dome tweeters on my some of my speakers , with a bit of shrink wrap on the terminals i should be able to form a shroud .

thanks muchly

[Doomed 98]

Transformed my Sand Master to a Nexxt...

[PaPeRo 30]

Man that is very cool looking...love those fat donuts. Now you just gave me an idea...gotta get one and use it for onroad.

[Biscuit 0]

_{I made some alloy bead locks for mine as my brushless set up kept pulling the tires out of the plastic ones, I am also using a CSM Gyro on the steering would like to post a pic on here but I never can for some reason}

[alfagta 126]

_{I made some alloy bead locks for mine as my brushless set up kept pulling the tires out of the plastic ones, I am also using a CSM Gyro on the steering would like to post a pic on here but I never can for some reason}

use a hosting site such as photobucket , click on the direct link tab by the pic then select the image icon at the top of the reply box and paste the link to it , or use the 'more reply options' at the bottom of the reply box ,then at the bottom of the new box select 'attach files' and select files from you drive, should be good to go ,

[PaPeRo 30]

Try http://www.tinypic.com/ it's free

[BULLFROG 3]

Hello all

here's my Sand Master, tried to go retro with the colours, give it that Javelin feel, i hope you all enjoy

[Biscuit 0]

That looks very nice, looks like you are running the same motor and esc as me, great motors and esc, and so cheap :-)I need a new set of rear axles as worn mine out, every where out of stock.

[alfagta 126]

they have drive shafts in stock at Banzai hobby , http://banzaihobby.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18_67_432_673&products_id=13620 ,

[Biscuit 0]

Hi thanks, but its not the shafts its the drive cups, they are very soft.

[alfagta 126]

they have all parts , a whole diff is about $9 , watch the shipping from them though, its a bit higher than from china or hong kong.

[GregM 1109]

@Doomed: Your NeXXt just begs for a light kit. I guess you've got the NeXXt light buckets installed, too?

@Bullfrog: Orange combined with the white frame looks great.

After having some fun with my Sandmaster in the last remains of winter snow, I've disassembled the car afterwards, cleaned all parts and started a complete rebuild. I found the modified driveshafts to be comically bent, and the cups are showing first signs of wear. The shafts will be replaced with new ones. This time, they'll stay unmodified, but this means I'll have to shorten the rear shocks to the stock suspension setting.

To retain the desired ground clearance, I'll try bigger wheels this time. Truggy wheels aren't what I have in mind, but I think there might be some realistic looking 1/10th scale short course buggy wheels available, aren't there? The tires I'm using at the moment are 87mm in diameter. As I use the smallest pinion on the Sandmaster, I think I could try using tires up to 110mm (although I would prefer 100mm). If necessary, I also have a 27T Pinnacle Brilliant rebuildable brushed motor with lots of torque at hand.

An alternative solution would be using regular sized drive cups and diff outdrives. This would allow the use of regular (slim) driveshafts and more extreme rear suspension angles, without binding issues. If this is possible, the 1260 bearings in the rear may need to be replaced with 1250 bearings to accomodate 5mm axles versus the Sandmaster's 6mm axles.

Review of the Kyosho NeXXt:

http://www.bigsquidr...d-buggy-review/

This review is in line with most of my initial thoughts about the Sandmaster.

[GregM 1109]

Today I came around making the rear lights.

First thing to do was to get another Absima light bar. This time, I just cut the far left and right lights off, so the center light pair retained together on their mutual bar. The bar itself was shortened to fit between the rear struts of the Sandmaster.

Second was to cut a piece of 1mm thick aluminium sheet that will act as a brace. The sheet was bent to a U shape and holes were drilled to mount it between the struts with M3 screws and nyloc nuts. The light bar will then be mounted upside down on the aluminium brace with zip ties.

To make everything look more in line with the general look of the Sandmaster, I painted the light bar and the brace black. Only the light mesh remains chromed.

Then I had to see how the LEDs will be connected to the receiver. The receiver has an output of 5.5V, while my two red LEDs run at 2.25V / 20mA. I decided to wire them in series (2.25V + 2.25V = 4.5V) and add a 47 Ohm resistor in series (5.5V - 4.5V = 1V. 1V / 20mA = 50 Ohm) to protect the LEDs. So I soldered a cable with all the components and a 2-pin receiver battery connector and powered the lights up in caution. It worked at the first try, phew!

As soon as the paint has been dried and everything is mounted up, I will share pictures.

[GregM 1109]

As promised, here are the lights and some other modifications!

The 2.5mm screw to mount the steering knuckle into the c-hubs has been replaced with a simple 3mm Tamiya screw pin. This stops the front wheels from being so sloppy. It is short enough to clear even touring car wheels. Funny enough, Kyosho's original solution was to use a 3mm pin and a small screw to secure it, but made it worse by using the 2.5mm screw, as you can see from the correction sheet in the manual.

Speaking of wheels, these have been replaced with Tamiya High Lift tires on Tamiya Mitsubishi Lancer wheels and Tamiya DN-01 front tire foam inserts. This raises the car to get 20mm of ground clearance at the lowest point under the gearbox, even with the stock friction dampers. Hummer/CC-01 Unimog rimswould have been looking good, too, but unfortunately they aren't available at the moment.

Kyosho's front light bar. The cage is made of metal and will withstand rollovers. It pivots to save it from being accidentally ripped off from the roof.

The custom made rear lights. Heat shrink tube covers the rather rough cuts of the plastic light bar ends. The aluminium brace is able to pivot on unfortunate landings, this should save the plastic lights from impacts.

As you can see, I went back from the aluminium oil dampers to the stock plastic friction dampers. These will be converted to oil dampers with Kyosho's damper conversion kit. All damper lengths are now back to stock lengths, but even this will not save the dogbones from getting jammed in the cups. Kyosho's engineers totally failed when they designed the rear end of the Sandmaster EZ, as not even the stock setting will give a bind-free drivetrain. I'm shocked!

I've got to admit that while using new unmodified dogbones, I'm still using the modified chassis. But this shouldn't affect the rear end anymore when using the stock shocks. When I will build the oil shocks, I will have to limit the length of the rear shocks with some internal spacers.

Would every owner of a Sandmaster please try to raise their car and pull the throttle to check if the rear end jitters, caused by binding dogbone driveshafts?

[alfagta 126]

thanks for the updates GregM, nice kingpin mod, will give it a go,

i still dont have any issues with my drive shafts , no binding at all , they do run close to the cup edges but there is still about 0.5mm clear of the chamfered edges of the cups at full droop and full compression and they are always well engaged with the cups and its all pretty smooth considering the cost of the car ,

last ten runs have been done with a 10.5t x-car motor and 60a x-car esc and it has been hammered, after adding the polythene bag to all the ball studs and adding two screws and nuts to the annoying body panels the car has been flawless ,