Prolog
The Year 2022

Last year Mayako headed to it’s first ever EFRA European Championships with high hopes. But even though winning was the goal, it still seemed like a long shot. However, that is exactly what happened, with a spectacular main final showing from David Ronnefalk, with only one mistake in 45minutes of racing, cartwheeling landing on his wheels while in the lead. In the end a victory with a clear margin to second place.

The Mayako MX8 had been developed and designed by Joseph Quagraine over the past 4 years, with secret testing taking place throughout 2019 and 2020. The design and development work was finalised during the onset of Covid-19. The requirements from Mayako were challenging, but building on the last 10 years of experience with the JQRacing cars, Joseph was able to create exactly what was needed. The MX8 was released for the 2022 season.

Mayako wanted to enter the market with a car that was familiar, yet new. A comfortable safe choice for racers, yet innovative and forward thinking. A car that could immediately win, yet had room to improve over the years. It sounds like an oxymoron, but upon closer inspection you can see that it was indeed possible, and was in fact achieved.

When you first look at the Mayako, you can see many cars in it. You may think “Kyosho”, “JQRacing”, “Serpent”, or “HB Racing” for example.

But when you look closer you can see that not only is it not the same as any one of those, but it has both unique features, as well as a very well thought out tuning window. The most obvious new features are the lack of droop tabs on the front, with droop being adjusted on the hub.

This helps to reduce drag on jumps and bumps, as well as eliminates the chance of dirt getting stuck between the arm and chassis. Adjustable diff heights is a major benefit, since it significantly affects handling, and is something drivers change depending on traction levels and surface type.

The ability to adjust between an aggressive KPI0 front end, and a more neutral KPI1 type front end, upper links or upper arms, and weight forward or weight back are all features not seen on other cars, but immensly valuable in racing.

As for the tuning window, with so many adjustments, it is important to keep it as simple as possible. The car drives well with a base setup which has almost every setting in the middle, and you can’t adjust anything outside of the car’s working range. You can confidently make changes at the track, knowing that the car will remain good, just feel slightly different.

Over the coming months, Mayako will be releasing extensive information built up over the past year, regarding all the setup paramenters, and how they are being used. But for now, lets take a look at the European Championship winning Mayako MX8 of David.

Track Pics
DR MAYAKO MX8

The Euros track in Barcelos Portugal has a special glued surface. It starts off like velcro, with incredible grip, but as rubber gets laid down, the grip actually goes down, due to the fact that the oil from the exhaust gases covers the racing line, creating a greasy surface. It's still high grip, but the car's are able to slide a bit, making for a much easier time for the drivers.

BE FASTER
LIGHT WEIGHT

The main points of David's winning MX8 are the lightened F8 stock length chassis, titanium screws and carbon sideguards for light weight. The engine and diff are moved back, and weights are added either side at the rear of the chassis. Upper arms are used on the front for added stability and precision, also for consistency in the long mains as they are stiffer. Links are still used on the rear for lighter weight and to make the rear more forgiving. The 2.0 Wing Of David is used for stability.

stable and predictable
v-shape chassis

The Mayako MX8 chassis is visible wide, with a V-shape increasing in width towards the rear. You can clearly see where the chassis and the sidegaurds have hit the track surface. This is a conscious design choice. The wide chassis helps to keep the car within the “working range” of the geometry, and makes the handling more stable and predictable. It calms the car, and gives the driver more time to react to changes.

The components are actually not much wider placed than on other brands, even though at a first glance you may think so.

Racing car design is a balance between stable and fast, you want to make a car easy and predictable so it inspires confidence in the driver, and eliminates mistakes under pressure, but you also want to make sure the car is fast and nimble enough.

You can also see that David ran plastic arm braces on the front, allowing for some more initial flex, and calmness, but bracing with the upper arm. On the rear he ran the carbon brace, for more rigidity, which helps with consistency and corner speed.

wide side pods
carbon sideguard

Here you can clearly see how the front sideguard has been hitting the track surface, actually wearing through. On the rear you can see how the corner of the chassis has been hitting the track. You could think of it like a catamaran, with it's wide side pods giving it stability on rough seas.

15grams
weight balance

Here you can see the Tworks weights that David added to his car, 15 grams either side at the rear of the car, using the sideguard rear holes. David likes to always have the rear of his car loaded, so he can feel the weight and roll of the car, and then he controls that with his inputs. Most drivers will overdrive a car using a setup like this, but not David, this is his style. Having the rear tyres more heavily loaded, and the car soft in roll helps to enter corners confidently, rotate quickly around corners, but then it is harder to control out of the corner, unless you are perfectly in sync with the wheel and throttle, as David is.

simple and clean
Radiotray

The car build is clean and simple. No special modifications under the lid. You can see the Kyosho air filter that was used, which gives the engine less restricted air flow, and more power. The eagle eyed among you will also spot the smaller centre diff. David used the Mayako front/rear diff, and an old JQRacing 48t main gear. It fits with slight modifications to the diff cup, and a few extra shims. He did this in order to improve the initial acceleration, thanks to the lower weight, on this tight high grip track.

light drive
Aluminium dog bones

David also used centre Aluminium dog bones, for a lighter drive train and snappier acceleration. Here you can also see the rear screw type through hinge pins, which help to make the car bullet proof!

saftey first
Battery Connection

Safety first, the bodyclip acts as a failsafe, making sure the battery does not become unplugged. The extension lead from the receiver is glued to the tab on the throttle servo mount. For the Highest servos David used at the time, he needed to shim them up 1mm to stop them from hitting the chassis.

Front Hub

KPI-1 – Caster 1 front end was used, with David opting to run the low axle height, finding this to be the best feel on the track. At the warm up of the event back to back testing was done with both KPI-0 and KPI-1, with David actually preferring the feel of KPI-0, but proving to be faster each time out with KPI-1. Since that warm up event, David has run KPI-1 every time, due to the faster laptimes, that most likely come from the way the car carries more corner speed with less effort.

Rear Hub

Another detail on the rear end, are the optional 94mm rear universal driveshafts. These are a superb option for bumpy tracks, or tracks with inconsistent grip. The joint is moved far out into the hub, by using a larger 13x19x4mm bearing (same as for CVD), and this reduces the driveshaft bind. The suspension works better in bumps, and you will have more consistent rear grip. On smoother tracks the 91mm stock shaft is usually faster, but when it gets tricky the 94mm is easier, which makes it better.

You also have the even more extreme option, the CVD, which moved the joint even further out, but here the joint also changes, and the feel of the car is more affected, and you lose some of the light, free rolling feeling. This really comes down to a preferance, and your setup needs to be built around your choice of driveshaft, universal or CVD. You can change between 91 or 94, but when you go to CVD more changes need to be made to regain support for the rear end.

Diff Setup

The diff setup was 40k – 80k – 10k. The Mayako tends to be run with higher diff oils than most other brands, and this setting was comfortable and consistent throughout the race. Higher in the front comes with limited returns, and starts making steering inconsistent, this was the highest that was comfortable for the centre, and going any further in the rear would limit rotation in tighter corners too much.

Hingepin-Through

Here you can see that prototype through hinge pins were used on the front, secured with an M4 nut. The steering settings were focused on making the steering smooth initially, and linear through the corner. KPI1 hubs and knuckles were used, for smooth initial steering, paired with Caster 1, to give the car enough steering in tight corners. The ackermann link was in the rear position, which has responsive initial steering, but then tapers off mid corner which actually makes this the preferred setting on high grip.

You have precision in, followed by less steering mid corner. The link was middle length, so bushing hole out on #1 long plate on knuckle. (Same as bushing hole in on #2 short plate). Bumpsteer was adjusted, so that the steering would not increase as you get on power in a corner. This is explained well in the following video.

Through hinge pins were also used on the rear, along with double anti-roll bar collars, to make sure the roll bar doesn't move on a hard sideways landing, as happened at David's first big race, DNC in February earlier that year. David also used a prototype tower, with a link position further in, placing the link in the top hole, for a low roll centre, and an in the track feel.

No servo saver
is used

The lighter weight servo saver eliminator was used, and is always used. Modern metal case servos are up to the task, and have made the servo saver obsolete in racing circles.

Now it is possible to purchase the Limited Edition EC-Edition kit, that comes with the option parts ready in the box!