A sweet addition to your Sprint 2
This article was originally published in RC Driver’s February 2016 issue.
By Paul Onorato
The Sprint 2 chassis from HPI Racing is a very capable car right out of the box. It is equipped with a belt driven 4WD drivetrain, oil-filled shocks, quality plastic composite parts and numerous tuning adjustments.
Nevertheless it can be made even better with some aftermarket hop-up parts. The Sprint 2 is available as your standard touring car or as a sideways-sliding, super fun drifter. Here I take a stock Sprint 2 Drift and boost its looks, durability and overall performance with two conversion kits from Yeah Racin the Aluminum Essential and the Aluminum Endurance kits. In case you are unfamiliar with Yeah Racing, they have been around since 2002 making quality hop up parts. Along with the option parts they now offer LiPo batteries, brushless motor systems and LED light kits.
Yeah Racing makes a slew of CNC machined aluminum parts to upgrade most of the parts found on the HPI Spring 2 chassis. You have the option of individually selecting the specific parts from the list of hop ups that YR offers or you can pick from two conversion kits that they have lumped together. The two kits include nearly all of the parts YR manufactures except for the aluminum tie rod set and aluminum spur gear support plate.
In each kit, the parts are all individually packed in plastic bags which keeps them organized and protected from damage. Once I had the two conversion kits unpacked, I was very impressed by the quality and appearance of all the parts.
They are beautifully machined with incredibly smooth surfaces and flawlessly anodized a cool-looking burnt orange that closely resembles the orange colored parts found on the stock HPI Sprint 2. YR gets extra points for the uniformity of the orange anodizing where all the parts are the exact same shade of orange. This is not always the case when you see aluminum hop up parts from other aftermarket outfits.
Front lower suspension arms
Rear lower suspension arms
Bearing C-hubs
Front steering knuckles
Rear hubs
Bolzen motor mount
Steel universal joint shafts
Ball bearing steering set
Includes all the required hardware
Aluminum Endurance Conversion Kit for HPI Sprint 2 Item no. SPT2-S02OR, $89.90
Front damper stay
Rear damper stay
Ball bearing hub
Battery posts
Front/rear bulkheads
Belt tensioner w/ aluminum wheel
Includes all the required hardware
In order to swap all the Yeah Racing parts for the stock HPI components, a complete teardown of the chassis is necessary. Plan out the steps before you dive in because some parts stay intact and it will help keep you organized. YR supplies instruction pages for each section of the chassis to assist you with the assembly, but I found the schematics to be too small which makes them a bit difficult to follow. Plus, the instruction pages are not numbered in any sequential order and that is where planning ahead will help, especially if you are adding both conversion kits.
During assembly, I found absolutely no issues with installing all the parts onto the Sprint 2. Each and every one of the machined aluminum parts fit perfectly and required no hand fitting. There was nothing missing from the kits either, right down to the last screw. It is clear that Yeah Racing did its homework to have precision like this. Typically you will experience issues when adding parts from a different manufacturer, not with these hop ups. Something to keep in mind during assembly is to use some thread lock since there are so many screws going into aluminum.
Once the Sprint 2 is fully assembled with both Yeah Racing conversion kits, you end up with a very sweet looking car. On the suspension arms, bulkheads and shock towers, you will find YR engraved to highlight the aftermarket parts you used. A very nice added touch is the use of diamond cuts on the bulkheads and shock towers. This finishing step during machining gives a cool outline of natural aluminum color that breaks up all the orange and emphasizes the shape of the component. Now that it is complete, I kind of wish YR offered some other orange hop ups for the center of the chassis to make the finished product more homogenous. It is also a welcome touch where the shock towers offer added mounting positions for the shocks and upper camber links to give even more tuning options.
Behind the wheel, the newly converted HPI Sprint 2 Drift performed perfectly with all the new Yeah Racing parts. I did notice that after a couple of battery packs, a couple of screws loosened which revealed the hardware where I forgot to add thread lock. Other than that, I am completely happy with the final result.
LINKS
HPI Racing, hpiracing.com, 949-753-1099
Yeah Racing, Available from: rcMart.com
