Team Associated's RC18 series of vehicles is perhaps one of the most, if not the most, versatile Radio Controlled Car Platform out there. It started life as a Stadium truck, then underwent a couple of minor changes so it could be run as a buggy and later on a Monster Truck. The latest addition to the line up is the RC18R.

The RC18R is a rally inspired chassis that is very capable on the road as well as on smooth dirt surfaces with small jumps. In order to achieve this Team Associated re-designed the suspension geometry in order to make the chassis narrower and lower to the ground. It now features shorter A-Arms and dog bones as well as lower shock towers and shorter shocks. To tie the package all together the new car comes with smaller, lower profile wheels and tires as well as a choice of four different body styles.

Even though the car is a great performer out of the box, there is quite a bit of room for improvement, especially if you want to race with your RC18R. As is the case with many new kits, aftermarket companies are quick to jump in and make upgrades to improve the performance and reliability of the car. One of these companies is Atomic. Atomic is known predominantly for its great Mini-Z option parts, but in this case they made some excellent RC18R hop-ups which we were very excited to try on the race track.

The first place to start is with the front drive shafts. Dog bones do a good job of transferring power to the wheels when they are on a straight line, but whenever the front wheels are steering is when things start to go south. The angle creates unwanted friction due to the fact that the joint on the outside is not intented to work at extreme angles. Atomic makes some nice Universal driveshafts that help alleviate this problem. Even though no universals are true constant velocity joints (they would need two joints at the end to be true "CV" joints) they are far more efficient than Dog Bones. On top of that in the event of a collision where your front end turnbuckles might pop off, the driveshaft does not fly out.

Next we installed Atomic's steering crank. The stock steering on the RC18 leaves a lot to be desired and this most certainly reduces some of the unwanted slop on the car. A car that has a tighter steering mechanism will center better and steer much more precisely.

The Associated stock motor mount is made out of cast aluminum. Not only is this weaker than billet, but it is as ugly as it gets. The Atomic RC18 motor mount has more surface area and additional mounting holes to install a cooling fan. The combination of the two will make your motor run considerably cooler. Top that with with the fact that it looks good and you have a winning combination.

We then move to the suspension. Atomic's new Carbon Fiber/Aluminum combination shock towers are much stronger and precise than the stock parts. We combined these with Team Associated's very own Aluminum adjustable shock bodies and ended up with a much stronger and smoother suspension. In the rear end of the car, we installed Atomic's 2 degree toe in pivot block. The pivot block gives the car additional traction in the middle to exit part of corners. The improvements made to the suspension allow for the car to carry more corner speed, which in turn translate into quicker lap times.

Finally, we love to tie our package together with Atomic's SSG battery hold down. The looks of it HAVE to be worth 2 to 3 tenths of a second per lap ;)

Our local club races the Rally cars with unlimited upgrades except for the motor. Because of this, in order to maximize the power of the car we decided to upgrade the electronics. The first place to start is with the battery pack. A high grade battery pack such as the REEDY VMX concept pack will give you much more punch and top speed than the stock counterpart. It is assembled from high grade, voltage enhanced Intellect 1400 mah hour battteries, these are the cells of choice for the majority of racers out there.

Next is the Speed Controller. We selected Team Novak's Spy ESC because of its versatility. It handles power really well and gives you the option of having or not having reverse during racing. We thought this would be necessary since many clubs out there allow reverse, but the majority don't. It also is of better quality than the stock unit.

Spread spektrum technology is here to stay. The ability to run 70 plus cars at the same time without having to worry about frequency conflicts or interference is just incredible. Being that this is a small model, we opted for Spektrum's 3500 micro receiver. This is the top of the line receiver at any scale, and with a footprint of about 1.2 inches x 3/4 inch you would be hard pressed to find one that is smaller.

We took our RC18R to our test facility to test its performance. Our track is a 30x30 RCP track in which we race Mini-Z's, M18's and of course RC18Rs. The RC18s are usually really slippery on the stock tires. As it is a rally-inspired car, it has a lot of body roll and corner speed is not that great.

We set-up the car lower to the ground in an attempt to alleviate some of the body roll issues. We ran 3mm of ride height using Paragon Ground FX on the tires to try to get more grip for the car.

The car ran fairly well coming within 1.5 seconds of the fastest lap from the M18s, which run on foam tires and have far much more grip. Considering the low grip of the stock tires, this was a pretty good result.

Speed wise the car was very good. It was quicker than the other RC18s down the straight and had more punch coming out of the corners. This was of course a result of the higher grade electronics.

Overall, the car is a very capable racer. Given the correct tires this car would easily keep up or even outrun the M18s. The wider stance makes it more stable and allows for it to carry more speed through the corners.

Written by Cristian Tabush
Edited by John Shanklin