After a long time waiting it is finally there, the new Hong Nor X3-Sabre !

When you study the pictures you will notice that everything is new and there is almost nothing left from the X2 design. TEAM TWF8 received the X3 as an 80% prebuild chassis. The first kits has shown up wrold wide (12-11-21011)

We at TEAM TWF8 will show you soon all the differences between the old and the new car because much has changed even though not visible.

This car will be lighter for sure, Most bolts are 3mm or smaller, except the bolts for the diff housings they are still 4 mm.

How much the car netto weights will be published later, with al other weights that are important.
We will use the TechWorkx Balance Station for that

When you take a look at the front side, you will see that left and right arms are not the same anymore. With the designs and geometry of to days car it is almost impossible to make left and right the same.

The only disadvantage is when breaking an arm two time the same side..

Let's hope the arms are as strong as we are used from HN.

Hong Nor did a great job by developing this car and it looks like they have made a car that has the best of all cars. Some of you will recognize different designs.

The front shock tower is connected with four 3mm bolts maybe it seems weak but the test will show if this is enough when the car is used during races.

The servo saver is designed that it is not possible that sand and dust can come between the moving parts, when driving at artificial grass with coarse sand. The old designed servosaver always had a lot of wear between the plastic parts.

With this new servosaver wear from sand and dust is past time.

New is the front upper arm, it only exists from one link which makes the design simpler.

The steering parts are very different from the old design, they are very easy to disassemble, if the screws will hold after screwing in and out several times in the plastic can only be told in the future when the car has been used several races,

Of course this is something that counts for the whole car.

The steering rod has a hockey stick design so we do hope, that using other wheels than HN will not result in a lot of wear at the rod as it had at the X2.

Shock positions at the lower arms are so designed that the shocks can be lay down more, this is necessary when you take a look at the tower were shock positions are more inclined.

Nice detail, the length of al the axes are etched onto them.

In this picture seen from the rear you can see that the bulk head is much narrower than before.
This is all made possible by the much smaller diffs.

We will go deeper in this new design when we make the total review. There are new planetarium and spiral bevel gears.
The new rear and front plates have a new bush design, no need any more for expensive plate sets, just replace the plastic bush with an other degree and set-up change is done.

Not so very good to be seen in the picture ( We are sure we will have better pics in the total review) but the X3 has now CVD drive shafts! When some wear is seen just changes the pins from the cvd. They also run very smooth compared with universals.

The outer arm shafts are kept in place by two screws, very easy to disassemble.

Something else we noticed was the collar of the plastics, it was a little darker. We think the plastic is a little stiffer than the old plastic.

We will ask the Hong Nor factory if they have changed anything to the plastic moulding.

The thing that impressed me most was the middle diff and the brakes, so simple and so effective.

Notice the bolts from the brake pads: no thread where they touch the pads.

I always used the screws from my old MP 7.5 Kyosho now finally at the X3.

The rear breakdisk is smaller than the front, so the engine can be moved more inwards the chassis.

The drive train gearing is the same as from the X1. We have counted all the tooth of the gears, and we are back to the basic X1 transmission. 48T for main gear,13t for bevel gear, 43T for crown gear and 13T for the clutchbell.

I do not know how many other brand cars come with wheels, tires and a nice exhaust pipe and manifold, like this very good EFRA approved 2080. But HN has done a great job by putting these parts in the kit. I hope you have enjoyed the pictures! Of course this is just the first impression and we are building the car at the moment.
When we have build the car we will make a nice review from the performance.

I hope, when you buy this car, it's all you want!