XRAY M18T

Written in October 2005 by Cris Oxley

XRAY announced to the world, nearly a year ago to the day that they were working on a contender to the RC18T's 4WD stadium truck crown, but with a twist. The M18T, they said, could also be converted into a monster truck with only a few additional items that would need purchasing.

Just over 11 months later, after all the numerous delays and design changes (allegedly), XRAY finally released the M18T to a highly anxious micro RC scene.

XRAY have always had a reputation with all of their RC kits, be it touring cars, rally cross buggies or the micro RC scene, of high quality kits using high quality parts. The M18T certainly follows that trend. The composite material used to make the M18T chassis alone is as hard as a room filled with VERY hard things. There is MINIMAL chassis flex in any axis, which compared to some of the micro RC chassis I’ve had the pleasure of playing with, is warmly welcomed.

The M18T's box contains all the parts, placed in numbered bags that relate to the sections within the highly detailed M18T instruction book. The instructions themselves are concise and clear, however if you are not fluent at building model kits I would advise you to take your time and double check you are using the correct size and length screws for the job.

The kit I received from Mirage came with pre-built ball diffs. There was no sign of any lubrication what so ever so I duly stripped the diffs down to give them the 'once over'.
I can’t understand XRAY's decision to include pre-built ball diffs that don’t come to the end user with any kind of lubrication whatsoever. As I took the first diff apart the thrust balls dropped onto the carpet, which as we all know, gives hours of fun and anticipation at finding the tiny little things.

After scanning the carpet like an SAS soldier in search of tracking clues I managed to find the balls and get the diffs built up and lubed ready in readiness of the abuse they will no doubt take at my unforgiving hands. The diffs themselves are ball raced internally which certainly is a nice feature only normally associated with larger scale RC's. The diffs also come with XRAY's own diff out drive covers, which cleverly locate into the diff housings, retaining them in place.

The upper and lower wishbones utilize a plastic pillow ball system, which unfortunately offers no adjustment for front or rear camber whatsoever. I have also heard of people getting dust and dirt worked into the pillow balls, which effectively acts as a grinding agent. You may wish to buy some 10th scale foam dust covers to place on top of the pillow balls before you screw them down into the diff housings just to be on the safe side?

The M18T's spur gear locates onto the rear diff pinion gear shaft by means of a flat spot on the shaft. The spur gear material is noticeably weak and the inside of my spur gear only lasted a mere 9 minutes before it had rounded the spur gears flat spot and was spinning freely. XRAY are aware of this problem and are to introduce hardened spur gears for the M18T. This isn’t a problem that effects every M18T out there. Out of all the M18T owners I'm aware of, only 4 (including myself) have had this problem. Every new truck has its share of issues, as have all the trucks released before the M18T. the fun is overcoming them

The composite drive shafts are the huge let down of the M18T in my opinion. A fiddly, pointless set up involving a ball and two drive shafts that interlock into each other. The reason I hate this set up is that any resistance on either of the drive shaft halve will unclip the other drive shaft away from the ball therefore leaving that side of the truck in need of a minor strip down to repair it. Its ok once, twice maybe, but I’ve had to strip down the corners of this truck to fix this about 15 times since I originally built it. Trying to get the wheels located onto the weird axles is also a hit and miss affair with these drive shafts the way they are. As soon as XRAY release proper, CVD’s/CVD's for the truck the better.

Regarding the 'weird' axles. XRAY have used a flat spot on the rather chunky axles to locate the wheels. Its been widely condemned by the micro RC public due to the fact that we can only use XRAY wheels rather than having a choice from the current crop of available wheels.





The steering assembly is, however, something I will be praising up. From the two metal 'C' rings that act as the servo saver, to the steering swivel link mounted into the underside of the chassis top deck, there is an air of class and quality about the set up. The steering knuckles have additional composite tubes screwed into them to act as a steering end point stop, stopping you from turning the steering knuckles so much that you lock the steering knuckles into the wishbones. Very clever indeed.

The shock bodies have had the O-rings preinstalled for you, all you need do is choose whether to run the shocks with the two 'half crescent' pistons, or four 'half crescent' pistons. I chose the two 'half crescents' as I’m looking to race this on carpet this year. The shocks go together very nicely and feel very smooth and free in their strokes.



The last part of the build is just fitting your wheels to the truck, bolting down the M18T's included front and rear anti-roll bars and the electrics you have chosen. In this case I used the excellent XRAY Power Pack that came with the M18T kit.

It had been quite sometime since id used a micro stadium truck, but the M18T's first run brought back memories of many a fun filled hour at the local golf course. The Power Pack kit motor isn’t as fast as a higher revving Speed 300 motor, but it certainly isn’t to be written off. Using the 11tooth pinion that the manual recommends the motor will send the M18T off into the distance with the pin tires scrabbling in vain for any grip they can manage to give you. On my local carpet track the performance certainly wasn’t shabby at all and I see no reason why I would want to change the motor until such a time as the brushes die out.



The ESC that comes with the Power Pack is a tiny thing, very tiny indeed actually which is perfect for the likes of a truck such as this. The only gripe I have with this ESC is that it does not have a way to disable the reverse. If it did, I would honestly use this ESC in every micro I own, its that good at what it does!

Due to the twin 'C' rings in the XRAY's clever servo saver the steering is super responsive. No sign of slop, no sign of centering issues, and after a few nasty clouts of the barriers at the local track my servo is still in tiptop condition. I huge thumbs up for the XRAY servo saver.

Overall this truck has HUGE potential. Nearly everyone who has seen this truck in the flesh has had nothing but praise for the looks and feel of it. Hopefully in a month or so XRAY will inundate us with options and hop-ups, springs and alloy bits etc.



Mirage are retailing the M18T with Power Pack at a measly £140. For what you get; the composite chassis, the excellent Power Pack (which includes an 1100mAh 7.2v cell pack), the brilliant servo saver, the neatly designed steering assembly and the overall quality of the XRAY kit you can not turn your nose up at that price. Even the £85 retail price of the M18T with no electrics or radio gear is a steal.



I highly recommend the M18T. Yes it has a few issues, but don’t all micro rc's? Think long term. think what the M18T will be doing this time next year, think of how much more there is to the M18T, think of how responsive it’ll be to your every input on the transmitter, and think where XRAY and the M18T can take the micro RC scene in the future.