FTX Blaze

Written in August 2006 by Cris Oxley

The Blaze was released way back in October 2005, and since that time it has elevated its status from ‘Half-8 wannabe’ to a serious race winning micro RC that strikes fear into RC18 owners everywhere. This was proved by none other than Olly Jefferies at April’s UK Micro Challenge as he drove his FTX Blaze to win the Brushed Off Road Class in a race that will stay in the hearts and minds of all who were there that day.



The Blaze was greeted with a somewhat mixed interest. Personally I am a very big fan of FTX micros. My old (sorely missed) Roxster was my first taste of micro racing and proved to be near unbeatable at my local track. Although the Roxster did prove to be expensive to hop up, the result after the hop ups were fitted was amazing.



Would the Blaze follow suit? Only time and A LOT of racing would tell!

The Blaze has been released in 2 versions to suit all situations. The ARTR version comes complete with a motor but no other electrics, allowing you to choice batteries and radio gear to suit your requirements.
A RTR version of the Blaze is also available however for those who love the simplicity of charging up and bashing away!

Out of the box my RTR Blaze had the same feeling that the Roxster had before it. The main thing you will notice is the chassis. The buggy itself is very light, yet the plastic tub chassis is so reassuringly strong and flex’s in very minute amounts along all axes.
The overall look of the Blaze is very similar to the 1/8th scale Rally cross buggies that would have no doubt seen in the likes of Radio Race Car International magazine.

The Blaze comes as standard with a full array of adjustments available to you. From the adjustable front castor (20’-22’) that allows you to fine tune your corner entry steering and corner exit stability to the front and rear camber, wheelbase (adjustable via the rear hubs), rear camber link holes and shock mounting positions. Enough adjustments to ensure that all who use the Blaze will be able to set the buggy up to suit their driving style under all conditions!



The first part of this review took place in darker_’s back garden. We had built a small off road track there and the Blaze looked and felt at home in its muddy environment. The standard FTX Blaze motor was more than powerful enough for this track, and offered lots of bottom end grunt to power the buggy out of each winding hairpin corner.
Over the jumps the Blaze jumped very smoothly, with a hint of ‘nose up’ as it glided over to the landing ramp and slid around the next left-hander towards the start/finish straight.

The next part of this test was to turn the muddy Blaze into a carpet racer for the Summer Championship at my local club, GERCC.

There are a few inherent issues with the Blaze that DO need rectifying…

Firstly the standard plastic front steering knuckles are terribly weak and need replacing with the FTX alloy hop-up knuckles.
Next the standard plastic drive shafts do have a habit of snapping at their thinnest point along the shaft. There are a few fixes for this problem though. One idea is to remove the metal pin from the drive shaft, drop a tiny amount of CA into the hole and replace the pin, then CA the thin part of the drive shaft and immediately cover that area in heat shrink
The other idea is to make a ‘hybrid’ shaft from half an RC18T plastic drive shaft mated to half a Blaze shaft that is then epoxy'd and covered in brass sheeting.
The other option is to replace these with the FTX alloy drive shafts, although there is an issue with the ease at which these also bend and snap. I’ve heard through the grapevine, however, that CML are releasing steel CVD’s for the Blaze in the near future.

The standard mini pin tires offer such high grip levels on carpet that for my first race at the local club I had to do a bit of trimming! 2 outer rows of spikes were removed, and a layer of CA was built up along the sidewall to reduce side bit and eliminate grip roll into the tight, fast entry, off power corners.

Running with the harder green springs on the front shocks (with 40wt oil), kit yellow springs on the rear (with 35wt oil) and everything else on the buggy as standard the first outing with the Blaze was a resounding success! Beating the opposition by a clear 4 laps.



9 months after first opening the box that my Blaze came in, I'm still a HUGE fan of the Blaze, and in fact FTX in general.
Since replacing the plastic steering knuckles with the alloy hop ups the only things I have broken on the buggy are CVD’s and front wishbones. The steel CVD’s are ‘rumored’ to be arriving soon so that will be one more issue cured.

Update – December 2006

As a further update to the review I thought id add my opinions of this buggy from over a years competitive racing.

Breakages (The only things I have broken in 12 months use are:)

Standard drive shafts - Now use FTX steel CVD's
Atomic CVD's - See above
Standard front steering knuckles - Now use FTX alloy front steering knuckles
Front bumper - replaced with standard part
Front wishbones - May consider boiling them to increase flex
Standard front shock towers - Going to run 2 towers up front
Carbon front shock towers - See above
Motor mount - replaced with Yeah Racing alloy version, noticeably stronger threads
Front shock shafts - Don’t use the gold shafts, replace with standard silver ones
Rear shock shafts - See above
Rear wishbones - Break at outside point by hinge pin, will boil as per fronts


Setups

I’ve seen quite a fair few variations on setups over the year. I started off with a totally Blaze running an AON brushless and dominated with that, then I started playing about and it all went wrong!

I reduced the rear droop so that the wishbones were level with the wheels off the deck, something which you would think would eliminate weight transfer to the front...however I also caused more problems than I solved. Personally I think that because of the lack of weight to the Blaze and he speeds that it was going, the rear end was actually lifting off the ground totally, causing me some hellish problems mid corner.
I also reduced the front droop also, but found that it had an adverse effect on the handling so am now running full down travel on the Blaze.

The extra shock mounting holes in the FTX carbon shock towers are a great tuning tool as you can induce a lower ride height using them. Run 2 towers up front for added strength.

Motors seem to be quite a talking point now, and they are something I'll be testing more and more hopefully.
Brushed setups are simple. 16/45 seems to work everywhere with the standard motor, or 13/45 with a Pro motor. I tried timing my standard motor and didn’t like the results personally so I wont be trying that again!

Recommended Upgrades For Competitive Racing

This is what I personally would advise anyone who asked me, whereas your opinions may differ. This is just my list.

Front FTX alloy steering knuckles - FTX4137
Front FTX graphite lower hinge pin brace - FTX4126
Front FTX graphite upper arm mount - FTX4125
Front FTX turnbuckles - FTX4100
Front FTX steering arms - FTX4102
Front FTX ball raced steering bell cranks - FTX4105
Front FTX green hard springs - FTX4115
Front FTX carbon shock tower - FTX4131 x 2
Front FTX anti roll bar set - FTX4142
Front FTX pro shock set - FTX4147

FTX graphite chassis - FTX4120
FTX graphite diff covers - FTX4121
FTX graphite diff housings - FTX4124
FTX carbon servo hold down - FTX4127
FTX carbon steering drag link - FTX4129
FTX alloy wheel hexes - FTX4139
FTX steel CVDs - Unknown part number

Rear FTX pro shock set - FTX4148
Rear FTX alloy hinge pin balls - FTX4138
Rear FTX carbon shock tower - FTX4132
Rear FTX graphite hubs - FTX4122
Rear FTX green hard springs - FTX4116
Rear FTX turnbuckles - FTX4101
Rear FTX ball diff - Unknown part number

ESC - Novak Micro GT - NE1875

Cells - FTX Voltz IB1400mAh - Unknown part number.

All the graphite options are there solely to reduce wear and slop. Hinge pinholes do not wear, diff cases keep the cross-pins in tight tolerance and the diff houses reduce the slop and keep the diffs in perfect alignment to the shaft.

Another update – December 2007
I’ve owned, and raced, my Blaze for over two years now and am still as impressed with it now as I was when I first started writing this review.

With Round 3 of the BRCA Micro National Series out of the way, the FTX Blaze is leading the Pro-Stock AND Modified Championship with both Steve Davis and myself topping the tables with our Blazes.

CML have released the mightily impressive Pillow Ball Suspension (PBS) kit, which converts the front end of the car to a 'pillow ball' setup, as seen on numerous 1/8th Rally cross cars.
The PBS kit eliminates all of the bump steer that was inherent with the standard arrangement that came with the Blaze kit, and is also a lot stronger.
The only items I’ve broken so far are the top arms, and only due to driver error and hitting walls too hard!

With an influx of hugely talented drivers at the top of the National leader boards (Steve Davis, Wes Myles, Chris Bottle and Stu Harlow to name but a small few) there is a huge amount of great setup advice on the forum.
The most reassuring thing for me is the fact that all of these top drivers are running items that the general public can buy from their local model shops. There are no 'special' team parts, no modified items, and just standard FTX items available to you and I.

I never had any doubts that the FTX Blaze would be the most successful micro racer on a National level, but even now it amazes me just how truly brilliant the Blaze is.

At the recent Micro National in Tamworth, 9 of the Pro-Stock A-final cars were based on the Blaze chassis. The only exception to that was Keith Robertson's amazing RC18T that took 2nd place on the podium!
In Modified, 8 of the A-finalists were based on the Blaze and to my knowledge there has never been a non-CML distributed car in a Pro-Stock A-final!

CML have been behind the micro scene since day 1 and now they are reaping the rewards. You cannot move around a Micro National pit area without seeing an abundance of Blaze's or RC18's.

As far as the current championship table is concerned the top 17 or so drivers in the Pro-Stock league are based on cars distributed by CML, with the current top 11 in Modified based upon cars brought in by CML.

Driver skill and experience may well be the key to winning finals at this years Championship, but one things for sure...

The Blaze chassis will not be beaten!