King Motor X2 review

[Revolauncher]

I owned a Losi 5ive T for 3+ years and enjoyed it very much. The platform was well conceived and held up well to the abuse of my driving. The truck was well maintained, but in need of an overhaul. The $500 needed to get back to new condition did not appeal to me. A friend was interested in the truck so a trade was made. He was thrilled to get a 5ive cheap, and I was thrilled to flip 3- 1/8 scale models on ebay to fund the replacement, a King Motors X2 clone. I wanted to see how this compared to my previous experience of owning the Losi. I've run it for over a month now and feel I can begin to comment on the durability and value to hassle ratio this model presents.
Pics. of it new outta' the box:






Initial assembly quality control is 80% of the Losi level. Case in point, the center diff. in the last pic. shows all of the thin oil leaking out. After a quick removal and inspection the oil appears shock oil thin, after swapping with 30K diff. oil it appears all is well. The front and rear diffs. also showed signs of leakage. Also the top nut on the shock piston and shaft like to back off, as both the nyloc insert in the nut does not grip the threads well and they were not torqued properly. After removing and threadlocking the thread and re-installing the oil after drying they have held up. I had one blow apart during a tumble, tearing an o ring. A swaybar setscrew also went missing....

Plus:
Price vs. performance, runs circles around RTR Losi
29cc engine with pipe offers good bottom end power
Blue, black, and clear bodied versions offer variety in the looks dept.
quality materials used
Handles well, shocks well calibrated, great spring rates.
Included hop ups are actually hop ups....
Included radio is simple and effective.
Good Rx battery is 4800mah
Front light buckets are "real" -easy to add LED kit.
Clear manual.
Minus:
Pipe is extremely loud
Diffs. all need rebuilding
Truck should really be re-assembled from scratch before running
Decal sheet sucks bubbles and wrinkles at edges, argh.
Cheap tools are a hazard to use. Flakey chrome slivers, rounded fasteners, and an allen key broke!
The recoil had a chunk of aluminum from the starter pawl stuck under it, creating a grinding feel that wouldn't allow the engine to start the first time. Bummer. Had to spring the whole mess apart to diagnose it, sigh.
Sum up:
For under a grand you get a veteran level of performance out of a veteran experience level of hassle to get the truck race worthy, IMO. If purchasing as a first RC model, I would look elsewhere. This truck drives great and will hang wheel to wheel with anything out there. It puts a smile on my face and has been worth the wrenching time I was putting in early on.

 

[Revolauncher]

The materials quality is dead ringer in my book. I see no difference in material feel, weight, or performance from the RTR Losi 5ive. Even the rumored cheap "cast" chassis has machined marks on it and similar flex and weight characteristics. Dirty pics. -note the installed upgrades at this point. Included alloy clutch carrier, chassis braces, sway bar holders, steering top plate and rear cage body posts. I also opted to try mounting some cvd boots from the KM 5B and they are working well with greased inners.:

 

[Revolauncher]

The alloy parts are well machined, exception being the clutch carrier. The plunge depth at the bearing is too shallow to allow the bearing full recess. I had to shim 1.mm between the clutch bell and pinion groove to avoid pinching the bearing when fully tightened. The steering top plate and rear body post is a very nice pair of parts with excellent tolerances. I only tightened the servo saver a couple turns and it handles much more crisply now. The Radio link brand TX and Rx have good range and are comfortable and lightweight using only 4 aa's. I had to mess with endpoint adjustment and dual rate to get the servos setup better out of the box.

 

[Revolauncher]

The white on the body panels is overspray film protector as I ordered the clear version, I plan on a redbull factory silver and blue paint scheme. It is currently masked and awaiting some silver metallic paint....The lexan does not have the same finish quality to it as Losi, but is uniform in thickness, and material weight. I can't comment on durability as I have not run it in the cold yet and want to shoot some paint first.

 

[Revolauncher]

KM uses metal shielded bearings instead of rubber sealed ones like Losi does. They have very little slop and the truck does not show much drag on the drivetrain at all. The rod ends plastic feels stiffer than Losi but fit well with no slop yet. Pivot balls are all hard anodized aluminum.

 

[Magnum500sw]

good review

 

[Casper7]

I see you have put a tie wrap on your drive shaft boot, why is that, I have not had any issues with my x2 is it something I need to look at?

 

[Revolauncher]

It is just something I am trying out. All of the other boots hold on, but the angle of that one makes it prone to sliding off. I am trying greased boots to prolong the life of the diff. outputs and dog bone ends. It was a problem on my 5ive and figure I would do this to fix it on this model before it wears out.

 

[Magnum500sw]

so how is this holding up ?

 

[Revolauncher]

No breakage yet. The bearings are good quality. I can't see any difference between Losi quality and this KM with the same amount of runtime on them....

 

[Casper7]

No breakage yet. The bearings are good quality. I can't see any difference between Losi quality and this KM with the same amount of runtime on them....

That is good, I have run a gallon through mine and no sign on wear on the drive shafts. Diffs holding up nicely also.

 

[inkjet21]

1 gallon thru mine

I have 1 gallon thru my x2 . I did tear it down and loc-tight all metal before I ran it and so far the only thing that came loose is the carb and that's one thing I did not check before running it. the body is holding up well to my flips and rolls. my boarder collie however did bit 3 holes in the rear corner when he caught it when I slowed down to much. all in all I am lovin this truck!!!!!

 

[Revolauncher]

Paint, Tamiya Silver rattle can and Faskolor blue opaque-ish. ;-)

 

[Kalop]

Wow... that turned out AWESOME... very nicely done.

 

[rcspeedmart]

Yes that does look very nice.

 

[X2Boss]

Bloody sweet looking truck!!! Good summery of KMX2 couldn't agree more, had never ending coil problerms with mine though but that's it!

 

[Magnum500sw]

very nice . very simple . i like it .

 

[Revolauncher]

Got a spot cleared in my woods for running the smaller scale models, decided to throw this thing on it, gets around all right, needs some more space for sure.

 

[Revolauncher]

A couple of big wrecks, 30 mph cartwheels and a massive lawn dart on the painted body and just some fine scratching and a small wrinkle in a rear fender! This is much improved durability wise over previous examples. I think they got the material bang on. No flaking paint, no chips or cracks, nothing! Nice and flexible, no signs of being brittle....I am looking at adding a 2 speed for more top end, it is not fast, maybe 38mph at wide open throttle. Good acceleration, not blinding by any means though.....

 

[rovanmadlunatic]

Those motors are def set up for bottom end. I think there is a lot of potential. Can you use taller gears to gain some speed. It should have plenty of torque to turn them. Also some time when you are cleaning it or whatever pull the pipe off and make sure your motor isnt free porting at the exhaust like mine does. That is def gonna cost you some power.