I read a number of reviews and articles about this car on the Internet and apparently there was a good deal of disappointment that Revell did not produce the car as four wheel drive (4WD). After all, it is a Quattro! So, in conjunction with the N-Digital conversion I decided to also convert the car to 4WD. As if I had any idea of what I might be doing.
Below is everything required for the N-Digital/4WD conversion.
- Removed the magnet.
- Lubricated the guide post, front and rear axle bushings, motor bushings and gears.
- Loosened the body mounting screws about one full turn to allow ample body float which really helps with this car's high center-of-gravity.
- Installed the Hobby Slot Racing (HSR) suspension guide with Ninco ProRace braids.
- Installed a N-Digital decoder chip that is set up for quick swapping.
The photo below shows the HSR guide with Ninco ProRace braids in place. This has become my "go-to" tuning trick for other than Ninco cars running without magnet on Ninco/N-Digital track that have a guide post holder that is too narrow for the Ninco guides. As an off-road car it also seems appropriate to replace the "fixed" stock guide with one that is able provide at least some semblance of "drop arm" effect.
I happened to have on hand two spare 4WD pulleys from the PowerSlot Hummer H1. These are made for a 2.5 mm axle but it really doesn't matter because the long hubs of the Quattro's wheels leave no room to put a pulley on the axle outside of the bushing, where it needs to be (see photo below).
As I said previously, I did not test the car in 2WD mode. I ran the car periodically for a few months and just had silly fun with it. After the car sat for a while, the rubber band eventually dried out and broke. So I ran it in 2WD mode because I was too lazy to find another rubber band of the correct size and cross section profile. While running in 2WD mode I just had the feeling that the car was not handling as well as it did before. So, I installed another rubber band reestablishing 4WD mode and the lap times were reduced by about two tenths of a second on average. At least on my track, the 4WD set up yields better performance. Of course it could also be my driving...
In summary:
Apart from the cost of two spare PowerSlot Hummer 4WD pulleys, there was no additional expense. Incidentally, the PowerSlot pulleys are dimensionally very close the to pulleys from Ninco -- in the Ninco #80206 4WD kit -- so the parts required for this conversion are generally available.
If you really wanted this car to be a "break neck" competitive rally car, I believe that replacing the wheels and running gear with race grade components would be necessary. I converted the car to N-Digital and 4WD without regard to what performance might be because I felt that it would be fun to do (without getting myself into too much trouble) and it would yield a car that would be amusing, if not fun to drive. From my standpoint, I was right on both counts. If you are an N-Digital user and a chance comes along to get one of these cars, don't hesitate.
by Michael Ashton
