M05 - THE DRIVE

Well, it's been a long time coming, but we're finally confident enough of our findings to post our first full review of the M05

Check out what Tim has to say about the most anticipated new M Chassis arrival for 10 years.

We here at rc-mini have been holding off on the M05 report. We didn’t want to rush in to report how good or bad the new chassis is. We’ve done some private testing and some race testing at a variety of tracks. Added a few tweaks here and there and now feel it’s the right time to pass judgement on the M05.

When the M05 was first announced I was excited. Would it be a complete redesign? A 4WD carbon chassis? A front or rear wheel drive carbon chassis? There were many directions in which Tamiya could have taken it. When I saw the first CAD model renderings though I was sadly disappointed. The servo was in the back, and the front shocks were laid down slightly. Tamiya had 10 years to update the M03 and that’s the best they could come up with? Still, it is hard to improve on perfection.

When the M05 was released I held off on buying one. I wasn’t convinced it would be any better than the M03, in fact it looked more like an M02.5. I had already owned a Chevron Models carbon fibre rear steering servo conversion for the M03, and it made the car handle worse, the steering became vague, and having the servo in the back made the M03 handle funny … surely this would be the same for the M05?

The M05 pro was released and Tony P and Tony G rushed out and bought them. The first M05 I drove was Tony P’s … it was awful, it seemed to have way too much steering and the rear end had no grip. This was built as per instructions. Normally an M03 brand new out of the box handles great, but the M05 … how could Tamiya have got it so wrong?

Reading some of the forums didn’t help either, a lot of the guys were saying how fantastic the M05 was, it was much easier to drive, a whole second a lap faster … come on? Same motor, same drive train, same gear ratio, same suspension components, a whole second faster? And there I am driving Tony P’s M05 and it was a whole second a lap slower, and crap to drive as well … what was going on?

I thought perhaps Tony P had missed something in the instructions while building. So I decided I would buy my own M05 and take my time to build it. Maybe Tony P had missed something? After all, he did build it in 5 minutes.

All the pro kits were sold out by that time so I got one of the first M05 mini cooper racing kits. What, no bearings? No matter, luckily I had enough bearings kicking around. I also ordered the M05 blue alloy knuckles and rear uprights.

I spent a good 4 hours building the M05, I installed a new TA03 ball diff, and new universals, I was confident that this M05 was going to be as dialed as it could be. I'd put in the time and built it as good as could be. Sadly, I was wrong.

That night I tested the M05 at Radical Hobbies on their indoor carpet track. The standard M03 setup for me there is M-Grips all round. On the M05 this didn’t work. There was way too much steering. I tried dialing in some exponential, but this never works for me as it makes the steering feel vague. Instead I tried dialing out the steering with different tyres. I installed some S-Grips up front with M-Grips on the rear, this made the car slightly more driveable but the steering was still weird. It felt like the car would pull wildly to one side under acceleration. I had a look at the steering – there is so much slop in that bellcrank system, I tried installing a few shims, this took out the slop, but checking the steering servo showed that a turn to the right and the servo would centre, a turn to the left and it would not centre, maybe this was the cause of the weird steering? My best lap with the M05 that night was 9.5 seconds, the M03 – 9.2 seconds. My best ever lap there with an M03 is 9.0 seconds.

Before the next race meeting at Keilor I changed the servo 3 times. No matter which servo I used the steering would not re-centre, even if I slackened off all the screws in the bellcrank steering setup, it still made no difference. I decided to just try and drive around the problem.

I made some subtle tweaks to the M05 to try and make it handle. I installed 25 grams of lead in the front bumper, narrowed the front track by 4mm, instead of using the standard 6mm wheel hexes I used the 4mm wheel hexes. This tends to make the M03 more stable and less prone to traction rolls so I figured it would do the same for the M05.

In practice at Keilor I could not get the M05 to lap consistently on my standard tyre setup of Spice 36 front and Spice 28 rear. It was very strange, one lap would be great, the next lap the car would have more steering mid corner, or the rear would lose grip and spin out, this would change from lap to lap and corner to corner, it was frustrating. How could a car be so inconsistent?

For the first race I decided to use my M03 anti-traction roll tyre setup. Tamiya S-grips up front and Powers 32 on the rear. This gives you less steering and more rear end grip.

It was starting to feel more like my M03, but there was still the weird corner thing happening. Some laps it would just spin out or suddenly have more turn in, the car was still inconsistent. My best run was 15 laps with a best lap time of 25.00.

For comparison I ran my M03 in the last round – track record with 16 laps and a best lap time of 24.687.

There is nothing like racing to improve the speed of your car, and the next race meeting at Bendigo would hopefully do just that. I ran the M05 in morning practice and the steering was still inconsistent, so I decided to change the rear upright settings and camber link. The M05 pro instructions tell you to use the lower hole with a spacer in the camber link. I switched to the same as my M03 setup, which is upper hole with no spacer. This seemed to help. With the S-Grips and 32 tyre combo it felt almost as good as the M03. Bendigo has quite a long straight and having the extra top speed of the S-Grips made it feel like I was flying. After the first race I was feeling confident, would I have cracked the coveted 20 lapper?

I was shocked when I checked the time sheets. Only18 laps, and my fastest lap was 19.3 seconds, my fastest time with the M03 at the recent Vic titles was an 18.0. What was going on? Well speed is a relative thing, and although I was flying past people on the straight, they were making up their speed due to my lack of turning speed in the corners.

I pushed a bit harder in the next run, determined to go faster. I managed to get down to a 19.1 second lap, but no 20 lapper, still only 18 laps. The M05 had seemed to have ditched its weird corner inconsistency problem though.

During the lunchtime break I tried the spice 36/28 combo, this would give me less top end but more corner speed. It seemed to work but the corner inconsistency came back, some corners I had no rear grip, then the next lap fine, other corners I had too much steering then the next lap fine. I decided to go with this setup for the first final anyway.

Not the best idea, the inconsistency seemed to show up every 3 or 4 laps. I couldn’t make any sense out of it. My lap times were still on 19.1 and I could only manage an 18 lapper.

In the next final I switched to the M03. Ahh … it’s like sinking back into your favourite arse groove in the sofa, it just feels “right”.

This run would provide a good comparison anyway, my lap times were down to an 18.6, and I got a 19 lapper. Not as fast as the Vic titles, but not bad.

Well I’d tried Radical indoor, Keilor outdoor and Bendigo outdoor, surely that is enough testing to announce my verdict on the M05? No. The M03 has had 10 years of racing to get to the setup it is now at. In that time we have seen Sport tuned motor speeds increase, changed from X-pattern control tyres to open tyres, Nicd batteries, to the superior GP 3300 zebra cells, to the superior (voltage wise) yet inferior 4600 nimh cells to the lightweight Lipo battery and finally to the torquey and fast Hobbywing Brushless setup. With each of these changes a setup change was made to make the M03 as fun to drive as it always was before. How could I cram 10 years worth of setup into 3 meetings and a few test sessions for the M05? I couldn’t, so I pressed on with some more testing.

I hadn’t raced at Templestowe for a while, so I went there for my next round of testing. It was here that I finally found peace with the M05. I broke out the Orion lap counter and the M03 to lay down some solid laps. It felt fast. I reeled off the laps: 22.83, 22.59, 22.58, 22.43, 22.70, 22.94, 22.47, 22.54, 22.81,22.78, 22.54, 22.61, 22.32, 23.08, 22.63. 15 laps with an average of 22.65 and a best of 22.32. (Yes, I know Andy Cooke dips into the 21.5 range and lower, but he is Cookie and I am not).

For the M05 I again ran the S-Grip/32 combo. I know this makes the car slower in the corners, but it also gets rid of the inconsistency, plus Templestowe has a long straight so the S-Grips should help. The M05 felt more like an M03 to drive than ever before. The laps were: 23.35, 23.43, 23.19, 22.88, 22.64, 23.02, 23.13, 23.00, 22.25, 23.55, 22.71, 22.82, 22.59, 22.47, 22.65. 15 laps with an average of 22.91 and a best of 22.25. Wow! The M05 was quicker for a single lap, this is true, but had this of been a 15 lap race the M03 would have won it by nearly 4 seconds. But this is the first time my M05 has actually shown pace that can match the M03 and now I was happy. After the timed testing I switched tyres on the M05 and tried the Spice 36/28 combo and to my surprise they actually worked! There were no weird corner inconsistencies, it just felt like driving my favourite M03. I wish I had of timed it now.

This got me thinking, I needed to go back to Keilor to test again and see what was happening. I invited Tony G along as he hasn’t driven a mini in months, he’s been too busy painting very horn body shells.

He had only driven his own M05 once at Radical, and said it was pretty awful. He drove my M05 (and cut some fine laps I might add) and had this to say, “If I didn’t know better I’d swear this was an M03, it feels great to drive, just needs a little more steering”.

The timing with the S-Grip/32 combo shows the laps: 27.82, 27.36, 26.98, 27.93, 27.69, 29.28 (with a roll), 26.69, 27.08, 26.76, 26.49, 27.27. 11 laps with an average of 27.39 and a best of 26.49.

Then I switched to the Spice 36/28 combo, this felt almost exactly like my M03. Tony G commented “it now has enough steering, it feels perfect – just like an M03”.

The lap times show that the Spice tyre combo is far better than the ultra stable S-grip/32 combo.

Lap times: 26.18, 26.20, 26.07, 25.97, 25.66, 25.75, 26.68, 26.20, 26.58, 26.42, 25.91. 11 laps with an average of 26.14 and a best lap of 25.66.

For comparison I ran my M03 with Spice 36/28 tyre combo.

Lap times: 25.81, 26.42, 26.07, 26.16, 26.39, 26.40, 25.61, 26.16, 26.22, 26.17, 26.19. 11 laps with an average of 26.14 and a best of 25.61. Nearly identical numbers to the M05.

This leads me to my conclusion. My M05 setup has not changed since the Bendigo race meeting, yet the car has been getting better and better with no changes being made. I now believe the M05 needs to be broken in. The M05 handles weird at first, but after an hour or 2 of driving they wear in and start to work. I can’t explain why, because an M03 works great right out of the box. I plan to test this theory on Tony G and Tony P’s M05 by running them a lot more to see if the same thing happens.

Look at it this way, even out of the box an M03 has a whole heap of inbuilt slop. Take that slop out (as many people have done) and the car turns into a pig. The M05 is a lot tighter out of the box (lots of new mouldings etc) and maybe, just maybe, it NEEDS some of that good old M03 slop before it starts to work properly?

So is the M05 a better chassis? Well, you have all the facts above you so I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions.

Bear in mind though, the circumstances that we test under. We run SWB (mainly) with Hobbywing brushless systems, and we run outdoor on asphalt tracks. And that's how I tested the M05. On carpet the situation might well be different. As for the wheelbase, well we still stand by what we've always said there - yes you've can tell a small difference in the way the car feels, but the ultimate lap times are not impacted in any way between the different wheelbases. You just run what you prefer.

For me I think neither is better. They are just different. They both have good points and bad points. The M05 is new, so for some people it automatically “must be better”, for me having to run a car in for 1 to 2 hours is not ideal. If I have a big race meeting on I can build up a new M03 safe in the knowledge that it will work great … but the M05, who’s to say if it will take an hour or 2 hours to break in. I’d rather spend my time practicing my driving than struggling with an inconsistent chassis.

The M05 is only just at the beginning of its life, so perhaps it will be the better chassis in a year or 2. If I was to advise a beginner to intermediate driver, I’d say buy the M03, it’s better value for money and is just as fast as an M05. For the faster more experienced drivers, perhaps you need an M03 AND an M05 so you can make up your own mind.