DL-drifting Yokomo DIB

Even though i wanted to make a build review for my fellow Russian mates, at some point I simply got bored of photographing every bolt and package, like most of them want it to see. The main idea of the hobby is to have fun, so I put my camera aside, and finished the build, having proper fun.

First impression of the chassis was rather neutral or even negative. It has so much more parts than my ARD! For example, motor cage has 6-7 parts and 12 bolts to hold them together, not mentioning motor plate and bolts to mount everything to the deck. ARD in this case, has 3 parts (including bulkheads) and 2 bolts to hold them together. So simple and effective.

Great quality of Aluminium ,bolts, tools, is out of the question. Yokomo sets high standard here. And no missing parts, like ARD :-)

Another story, is the 1,8 CS kit. Somehow, belt is really overtightened. Maybe it is because of additional belt tensioner, but  it has very little tensioning effect at the moment. Strange. 

Yokomo dampers is a piece of art. Mostly I have to give it up for O-rings which have almost negative friction. As a result I have the softest suspension I ever experienced.

The gear Ratio range is not very impressive, due to small motor travel ability.  I should have bought more Spur gears.

I had a lot of hope for Lower caster blocks. The results were impressive. Almost no play in the assembly itself, but And as I predicted, they are not stiff enough. So I might need tension rods, like I have on my ARD.
Suspension arms have a bit of a play too.

Team suzuki shafts just shocked me. Out of the bag, they were simply jamming in the middle of the rotation. There were no grease inside. After I re-assembled them 3 times, with grease, they finally stopped jamming, but still had problems, which only went away after a few laps around the track. Now they work perfectly with a very nice angle.

The 2 red awesome brothers.

For initial tests, I used almost same setup as my ARD, and surprisingly, I had almost the same feel, like I was driving ARD again. 

I hate to admit, but fro me, ARD is a better chassis now. Maybe I got used to it, and eliminated all the little mistakes it had, but both chassis have outstanding performance, both cost around the same, both have their own advantages and disadvantages. So the only thing I can compare for now, before huge stress and performance tests, is the simplicity of the structure, where DIB looses my points( I hope that after tests and Japan, I will love it more.