Kyosho Fazer D2 Drift Spec RTR - Our initial thoughts taking it out of the box are about the incredible details in the body. There are some nice windshield wipers and a pretty cool license plate. The tail lights look very realistic and it appears that the headlights pop up and down. Ken said you can fashion a mini servo in there to get them to pop up and down. There are also side mirrors. We noticed that the widebody fenders are semi gloss black as well as the windshield wipers, which gave it some contrast and made it look more realistic. The wheels are actually pretty realistic looking also. The remote is like none we’ve seen before, but we liked that there are actual dials so you could tell what the settings were. It doesn’t look like any other ready-to-run we’ve seen before.

It does not come with the battery. It does come with Dean’s connectors, which is a good thing. Chances are, you already have a battery with Dean‘s connectors. We suspect it doesn’t come with a battery because it is easier to ship that way. People tend to toss the Ni-Cad battery that the ready-to-runs come with anyway, so it’s kind of a waste. We think it was a good decision to not include it. Just be aware that you’ll need one.

We just put down a new P-tile surface at our local track, so we’ve been using P-tile only Tires. We spoke with our local Kyosho rep and he advised that the tires were not designed for P-tile, but instead they were designed for asphalt. Therefore, swapped the wheels and tires, as these tires were glued. What to choose, what to choose? We have a pretty good selection of Topline wheels. We were thinking some TE-37 or maybe a mesh? Topline makes some nice mini Watanabes, but we didn’t have any mini P-tile tires. We had full size Watanabes in chrome that would look cool, but we felt that it would change the look of the car. It would, however, highlight that we did change the tires for the review . When we spoke to the Kyosho rep, he said that the stock wheel offset is 5. Checking our inventory, we did have some Topline Watanabe’s in chrome with a 5 offset, so we opted to use them with the DS Racing Comp 3 LF-3 tires. The DS Racing Comp 3 LF-3 tires seem to be the standard P-tile tire in the US and what they’re using in the SDC comp series finals. The chrome really dazzled up the Trueno! We had issues with the calipers, as they were causing drag on the wheel so we had to remove them. We feel that with a little work they would not drag. The car drove much better after we fixed this issue.

In the initial drive, the front end was sitting a little too low for our track. It did come with some preload spring spacers for the front dampers, so we put some of the bigger 2 mm spacers in there. This raised up the front a little bit and the weight seemed like it was more balanced. Still, the back felt very loose. The gyro definitely felt like it needed to be turned up for our driving taste. The rear dampers need to be lifted up a little as well to shift some weight off of the back.
We turned the gyro up to about 75% and put it back on the track. The P-tile tires were brand new so that would count for some of the additional slip. We took it off the track and turned the gyro up to about 85%.

After driving a few laps, the tires started to break in and the gyro started to wobble a little bit, so we turned it back down a little. There’s a little bit of understeer when you try to “Manji” it (switch back drift directions), but that’s to be expected from a stock set of dampers.
The receiver has a gyro function built into the throttle that apparently makes it back off of the throttle when you start to slide automatically. We found it annoying at first, as we are experienced drifters, and turned it off. It’s good that it’s an option to turn it off. We later played around with it though. It’s there so that you can turn up the throttle gyro for those that want to go full throttle all the time. It actually drives better because it backs off on the corners rather than spinning out from too much throttle. After a little understanding, we see why they made it that way and think it should actually make learning to drift easier for some people. The built in steering gyro in the receiver also works pretty well.
We moved the motor to the high position to add some weight shift. We wanted to see how much better the car performed with just a few small electronic upgrades. The first mod we did was change the servo to a drift-spec Yokomo SP-02DV2 servo. We added the Yokomo 502 gyro and it was a little better than the stock. It felt a little more responsive and consistent. Interestingly, the wheels also turn a little faster with the Servo/Gyro upgrade.
We also switched to the Sanwa MX-6 radio, and it drove even better as the throttle was easier to control.

In conclusion, it’s a very capable chassis that will run with many others out there. The stock suspension is sufficient and the overall chassis setup slides really well. It has enough factory adjustments to help someone get drifting and learning to tune. With a few electronic upgrades it gets better and better. While the brushed motor and electronic speed control (ESC) are great for starting out, we may try putting in a brushless system in the near future. We really can’t wait to get the lights and kit to add the pop up headlights.