The Schumacher team is still hot off its Euro win, and while they have every right to be, they decided, “what the heck; to commemorate our win we’ll release an updated car to win at your local track.” The European Champion Special Edition car is based on the car that Mr. Teemu Leino used for victory. Since the Mi2 has not undergone any major changes for some time now, the EC edition is the perfect answer to the calling of the masses—touring car masses, of course. The real question is, does the EC have the right amount of tweaks and adjustments to put it up to the level of the current touring car hierarchy?

Kit Features
Suspension: The euro edition Mi2 sports a lot of new features in the suspension department. First off, the EC uses carbon arms, along with updated front and rear shock towers. The arms sit nice and snug in the new purple anodized alloy pivot blocks, a much appreciated upgrade from the previously used plastic pieces. The new towers feature new mounting holes for both the shocks, as well as updated and optimized camber link positions. To further update the suspension, the riser plates used in the original Mi2 have been removed, improving the roll center settings. Camber and toe are now adjusted via purple titanium turnbuckles over the previous steel units. To almost fully revamp the suspension division, the EC features a redesigned shock unit. The new bodies have an all aluminum body and bottom seal cap, and improved caps and collars. One very minor complaint that I have with the shocks is that there is no O-ring to prevent the collar from adjusting at its own will. The new shocks also use stiffer purple and red springs, and there is no rear swaybar.
Drivetrain. While the overall drivetrain of the EC Mi2 has not strayed from its original mid-motor, two-belt design, it has received some hidden and some not-so-hidden refinements. The removal of the riser plates contributes to the drivetrain now sitting a whole 2mm lower than on the original Mi2. Lowering the entire center of gravity 2mm is a very key improvement for the simple reason that the lower the CG, the more likely the car will be a better performer. Carried over from the original Mi2 are the full set of ball bearings that the whole drivetrain rolls on, along with the pre-built (thank you, Schumacher!) front and rear ball diffs. Not carried over are the new higher efficiency thin black belts, along with the new low-friction purple CV-style axles. And for that optimized and perfect gearing, the EC includes a new 89-tooth spur gear.

Steering. The steering on the EC Mi2 is pretty much carried over from the previous version. It uses your more than common dual bellcrank setup, with adjustable Ackerman settings, a total of three. Every steering piece rolls freely on a total of four ball bearings to ensure the smoothest steering possible. A spring-loaded servo saver is also fitted to the car, as are the full set of purple anodized titanium turnbuckles that connects the toe links as well as the steering tie-rod.

Chassis. The Euro spec Mission features a revised 2.5mm lower and upper deck. Along with the upgrade in material, both chassis have been redesigned. The lower chassis has received some minor tweaks such as leaving in some material that was not present in the original Mi2. The upper deck also receives a thickness upgrade in conjunction with a slight redesign, making for a much more rigid and solid car overall. Again, as the riser plates have been discarded, the whole drivetrain now sits 2mm lower on the chassis. The mounting of the upper deck has also been improved; flat head screws that sit nicely in purple anodized cone washers now secure it. The theory behind this is that the car will not tweak as badly, as the washers allow for a little give and settling in. While the use of just screws does not allow for the upper deck to be resettled back to its original position, which is where you get chassis tweak from. But that is not all that is new on the Euro edition; the EC eliminated the funky rear body mount piece found on the previous Mi2, and replaced it with much more conventional body posts that are mounted to the rear shock tower.

Performance Testing
Once I had accomplished the task of fitting all of the electronics in the car, which can be a real task at times, I was able to pack my stuff, load my car, and head down to…where? Nowhere but SoCal Raceway in Fountain Valley, California, of course, home of many of California’s fastest drivers. After getting everything out in my pit, I had to do all the usual setup stuff, such as droop, ride height, camber, sauce the tires, getting the appropriate gearing, all of that good stuff.

Once I had the car charged and ready to rock, I hit the track with the car in stock form, with the exceptions of the above mentioned changes. I knew that this was the foam spec car, but I was still curious to see just how the car would perform on SoCal’s very high-traction asphalt track. After a few laps, I knew that I definitely had the correct gearing, as the brushless Novak 4.5R would silently spool up and rocket to the end of the straight, and yes, all of this with zero motor maintenance. With the gearing out of the way, I had to come in for a pit stop to make some changes to the car. The car did not have much steering for the very technical layout, and after the sauce on the tires started to wear off, rear traction started to become an issue. So, the box setup may not have been the ideal setup for SoCal, but I was eager to change that. After a few trial and error trips to and from the track to my pit, I had the car working a lot better than that first run. I laid the front and rear shock all the way down on the towers, and made a droop adjustment. With these changes, I was able to actually carry speed in the turns, and not understeer to the other lane. Unfortunately, the track shop did not have a front one-way differential or optional rear toe blocks available for this car, which I am nearly certain would have transformed this car into a much more capable car on these types of higher-bite tracks. While I am lucky enough to live in Southern California, the downside to that is there are no carpet tracks within a healthy five hour plus drive. I think to feel the full potential of the foam spec Mi2, I would bet that you would need to drive it on a carpet track with foams, not an asphalt track with rubber tires. But don’t let that discourage you; this car still has a lot of improvements over the previous Mi2 car, and with a few tweaks and parts, you can have a very versatile car for both types of surfaces.
While I had been on my streak of bringing test cars back in one piece and not mangled and broken, I am sad to report that that streak came to an end on this recent test day. The car was still in one piece, but I managed to snap an axle pin, thus making the car into a three-wheel drive monster. I’m assuming that the 4.5R provided so much power that it sheared the pin in two. After a trip to the front counter, and a five- minute fix, I was back in action, and managed to maintain my break-free streak the rest of the day. Adjustment-wise, the EC is there. But while it is nice to have more adjustments than hours in a day, sometimes it is a relief to know that you have just enough adjustments as needed, which is exactly what this car has. The EC Mi2 has every adjustment that you will look for to adjust at the track, allowing this car to be adjusted like many of the other cars currently on the market. Working on the revised Mi2 is fairly simple and straightforward, with all components reasonably out in the open.

What Would We Change?
For starters, if you are running on carpet, I would imagine that this car’s out of the box setup would work much better than on a asphalt track, and the need for change would be minimal. But, for asphalt running, I would certainly change out the rear toe blocks, to either a two or three degrees total rear toe-in. Secondly, I really think that this car could benefit substantially with a front one-way differential, to give it that turn-in speed that high-bite asphalt tracks demand. With that said and done, the last thing on my wish list/to change list would be to add an O-ring of some sort to the shock bodies. While I did not experience them adjusting themselves during my testing, I could see them adjusting in a crash or on a really rough surface, adjusting your tweak and ride height.

Test Set-Up
Test track: SoCal Raceway, Fountain Valley, California
Track condition: Prepared asphalt

Race Setup We Used: After realizing that SoCal isn’t much of the foam carpet track, I had to make a few tweaks to get it more than driveable. So after running it in box stock form, I brought the car back into the pits. Once there, I changed both the front and rear shock tower positions. I lowered both to the inside holes, and I adjusted the droop. After making these changes, the car magically gained steering, as well as handling—just what the car was lacking in the beginning. However, the one thing that I was unable to change were the rear toe blocks, which I would have liked to change to get some more rear traction.

The Final Call
Highs: Improved shocks, upper deck and towers, carpet ready.
Lows: Steering needs attention, and you may not find replacement parts at your local shop.
The Final Call: If on-road is your forte, a carpet track is near, and you can find parts support, this is your calling.