I had learnt my lesson with 2nd hand stuff. When it comes to cars its better to build it yourself as it gives a sense of accomplishment and completion that you can call your own. It also gives you a good grounding knowledge of the car that your going to be racing and working on.
From here on in, with these blogs, where possible I'm going to try and do a write up/review of the kits. I have built. As well as trying to add more race results and reviews.
I have found the build quality of a car can often be seen as a mark of quality of the car itself. And to me building the car is one of the best bits! Its great to just sit and focus on what your doing and piece the bits together and watch as your efforts are rewarded by the kit pieces slowly taking shape until you have something functional.
The build for the Dex210 for the most part went ok.
The manual that came with the kit was shockingly bad, how that passed QA I have no idea. There are steps missing as well as things like the lengths of the turn-buckles being incorrect. There is an updated manual on-line now at the Durango website but its still missing the step to add the rear bumper in MM4 configuration. and a few other massive errors where the incorrect part number is listed.
After having built the Losi 22 which came supplied with all the extra bits such as 2 sets of wheels, a bottle of shock oil, the gear and diff greases and thread lock. I was disappointed to see that the 210 kit had none of these except the grease. Even the manual seems to suggest that at least some thread lock should be supplied. But there's nothing in the box. and some model shops sell a tiny bottle of red thread lock for £1.99 which leads me to believe this may have been in the kit originally and then pulled for some reason.
The rest of the car is excellent, big bore shocks as standard and with the original shell on in the press pictures it looked sleek, stylish and quick!
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| That looks fantastic. |
RM3 and RM4 and MM3 and MM4
These different settings are related to the amount of internal gears within the gear box which are supposed to help with different grip levels on different surfaces. In the UK the standard is the MM4
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| The Dex210 in MM4 config with the different lexan cowls for the alternative layouts. |
The Kit also comes as standard with an alloy chassis with plastic side pods that give a load of space for electrics to be installed, in either rear or mid motor layout.
There are several tuning options on the 210 with inserts that can be added to different parts of the car to modify the rear toe, caster and in-line/trailing axle alignments. These are very helpful options and for serious racers I'm sure they make a world of difference. But to me I felt as though there was a standard setup and once I had that there was no need to change these options. But I am hardly a pro and my driving abilities leave much to be desired.
With my 210 built and ready, I went back to racing indoors in the hall.
I'd sadly missed the BRCA regional series but it was good to get back to racing again with a car that felt like it was mine.
For the most part in-doors the car handled well, it felt a lot more comfortable to drive than the Losi 22 and had the added advantage of others at the club having one to be able to help me with setups and such.
The Dex210 has a few parts that need to be replaced straight out the box, The ball diff needs ceramic diff balls(something that I already favoured from the Losi 22, so I had them on order to be added during the build) the pads for the slipper clutch as supplied in the kit are known to be horrendous, fortunately I had researched this fact and had Team Associated pads ready for the build as well.
The big bore shocks in the kit are supplied with plastic shock bottoms(prone to leaking) and plastic shock collars, Some people have suggested that these work lose over time, not something I have experienced but then again I replaced mine as quickly as possible.
The Dex210 is a very popular 2wd buggy and as such has several after market 3rd party parts available. The Tresrey parts are all red anodised alloy and look fantastic when fitted to the car.
My results over the course of the winter were all very hit and miss. in some races I did quite well and was able to hold my own. But mostly I got beaten. The time that I went best was when I had brand new tired on the car, it seems to me that indoors the Dex210 needs new tired every 3-4 weeks in order to maintain performance levels.
Over time I upgraded the car with additional parts to try and improve the performance and the aesthetic appeal, Carbon front shock tower, Plastic +8mm chassis and several red blingy bits and a pro painted shell.
In the summer of 2013 I entered into the BRCA regional series in both 2wd and 4wd(more on that later)
The first round of the series didn't go very well at all.
I had foolishly been out the night before so was tired and feeling the effects of too many beers. My driving through the heats was terrible, and in the final heat I pulled off due to a nasty sounding grinding. As a result of this technical hitch I didn't run in the final.
In the second round I ran a bit better, with no broken bits but with one heat of did not finish due to a rear shock collapse, I did however manage a 2nd place in the final which in hindsight I'm quite pleased with, but at the time I wasn't too impressed as I feel I could have won it.
At the next round I have no results but, I didn't run the Dex210 in this round as I had swapped to a different 2wd car.
Overall the Durango Dex210 is a good car, but I felt it was time for a change, I probably should have kept it for the remainder of the regional series, but I'm impatient and felt that my results would improve with a different car. Much like the top Durango team drivers my car was far from standard by the time I parted with it. and perhaps this is part of my issue with the car. I had converted the car to mount the rear shocks to the back of the wishbones and shock tower, something that was seen on Jorn Neuman's car at the EoS and it does make the car handle a hell of a lot better.
Based on the recent price drops on the Durango kits it would appear that they are gearing up for a massive relaunch of their products and with the worlds coming up in 2013 I'm definitely expecting a V2 of the Dex210 to come along soon.
For the most part in-doors the car handled well, it felt a lot more comfortable to drive than the Losi 22 and had the added advantage of others at the club having one to be able to help me with setups and such.
The Dex210 has a few parts that need to be replaced straight out the box, The ball diff needs ceramic diff balls(something that I already favoured from the Losi 22, so I had them on order to be added during the build) the pads for the slipper clutch as supplied in the kit are known to be horrendous, fortunately I had researched this fact and had Team Associated pads ready for the build as well.
The big bore shocks in the kit are supplied with plastic shock bottoms(prone to leaking) and plastic shock collars, Some people have suggested that these work lose over time, not something I have experienced but then again I replaced mine as quickly as possible.
The Dex210 is a very popular 2wd buggy and as such has several after market 3rd party parts available. The Tresrey parts are all red anodised alloy and look fantastic when fitted to the car.
My results over the course of the winter were all very hit and miss. in some races I did quite well and was able to hold my own. But mostly I got beaten. The time that I went best was when I had brand new tired on the car, it seems to me that indoors the Dex210 needs new tired every 3-4 weeks in order to maintain performance levels.
Over time I upgraded the car with additional parts to try and improve the performance and the aesthetic appeal, Carbon front shock tower, Plastic +8mm chassis and several red blingy bits and a pro painted shell.
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| My Durango Dex210 with pro painted shell |
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| The Plastic(Dimec20 Chassis option |
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| Several red and gold blingy bits |
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| More red bling and carbon front shock tower. |
The first round of the series didn't go very well at all.
I had foolishly been out the night before so was tired and feeling the effects of too many beers. My driving through the heats was terrible, and in the final heat I pulled off due to a nasty sounding grinding. As a result of this technical hitch I didn't run in the final.
In the second round I ran a bit better, with no broken bits but with one heat of did not finish due to a rear shock collapse, I did however manage a 2nd place in the final which in hindsight I'm quite pleased with, but at the time I wasn't too impressed as I feel I could have won it.
At the next round I have no results but, I didn't run the Dex210 in this round as I had swapped to a different 2wd car.
Overall the Durango Dex210 is a good car, but I felt it was time for a change, I probably should have kept it for the remainder of the regional series, but I'm impatient and felt that my results would improve with a different car. Much like the top Durango team drivers my car was far from standard by the time I parted with it. and perhaps this is part of my issue with the car. I had converted the car to mount the rear shocks to the back of the wishbones and shock tower, something that was seen on Jorn Neuman's car at the EoS and it does make the car handle a hell of a lot better.
Based on the recent price drops on the Durango kits it would appear that they are gearing up for a massive relaunch of their products and with the worlds coming up in 2013 I'm definitely expecting a V2 of the Dex210 to come along soon.
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