QUADIFYRC.COM
  • RC Cars
  • Car of the Month
  • Quad Reviews
  • COUPONS AND DISCOUNTS
  • About & Contact

QUADIFYRC RC Car Review and Upgrade Guides

mjx hYPER gO 14301 14302 1/14 Brushless On road Basher/Drifter Review: My Car of the year 2023

10/6/2023

Comments

 
The ​MJX HYPER GO 14301 (and 14302) are brushless 1/14 scale on road cars that are equipped for grip style bashing and drifting. They are not only well featured but well built making for a solid driving experience with a lot of thought having gone into the build. In this review I'll look at the car in close detail and of course offer a full review of the driving performance.
Picture
MJX are a brand that are quietly going about building a solid body of work in the budget RC car scene. I've reviewed the MJX HYPER GO H16E here which is a very durable small scale brushed monster truck that outperformed my expectations. They have also made a brushless version of this truck, the MJX 16208 which I've driven but haven't reviewed. It is my belief that MJX have even been contracted to make the WLToys 124008. It is my appreciation of these cars that piqued my interest for the 14301 as reviewed here and the 14302 by association. These are an onroad version based around the same car but with shorter arms, a discrete gyro and altered bodywork which makes them a solid onroad basher. First, lets look at what is included in the box.
What's in the box?
I've been used to reviewing RC cars that have the bare minimum included in the box recently so I quote enjoyed opening the MJX Hyper Go 14301 to see that there were plenty of extras:
Picture
There is of course the car with transmitter that I'll go into much more detail below but also:
  • Treaded tyres and wheels for grip driving
  • Deep treaded tyres and wheels for light offroading
  • Plastic smooth tyres and wheels for drift driving
  • Spare battery (I ordered the 2-battery set)
  • USB charger for car battery
  • Wheel nut tool
  • + screwdriver
  • powered fan and connector to attach to ESC (if you wish)
A Closer Look at the Car
The car itself is well specced with well thought out components and some good technology so I'm looking forward to showing you this in more detail in this section.
Powertrain
The MJX Hyper Go 14301 onroad basher uses a brushless 2845 3700kv motor. For a small car this is a decent sized motor and the mid-low kV will keep this torquey and efficient. The motor includes a fan and heatsink that although I think is unnecessary, should ensure a long life. There is also potential headspace to run this on 3s but I can't say if the ESC is capable. Speaking of the ESC, it is an unbranded 45a unit. There is no fan on the heatsink but one is included in the kit if you wish to fit it. I like the use of inset banana plugs for the motor to keep the install tidy.
Picture
Tidy integrated motor heatsink and fan
Picture
Unbranded 45a ESC is a discrete unit. A fan is included
The battery included is a 2s Li Ion unit. Being Li-Ion the capacity is decent for the size (2000mah) but the c rating is only 15C meaning than maximum continuous discharge rate is around 30A. This is probably well suited to the motor (and gearing) choice which will offer good acceleration and efficiency and a greater top speed that can be unlocked with a Lipo battery and taller gear if that is your thing.
Picture
Li Ion battery is based on 18650 cells
Picture
Nice attention to detail here with a new generation AMASS t-plug connector and balance plug shroud
Overall a tidy little powertrain and I'll cover the actual speed and acceleration more in the performance review section of this write-up.
Driveline
​The driveline is metal throughout - pinion gear, spur gear, nice chunky 4wd propshaft and diffs which run a full set (4) of spider gears. All gears including pinion and gear are full shrouded. There is no noticeable bind in any of the gears and the full driveline feels smooth. Further out it's nice to see MJX are still using oversized driveshafts on front and rear and better yet; they use CVDs on front and rear. As well as giving marginally better efficiency these mean no more lost dogbone driveshafts. Being so thick they are unlikely to bend in a crash either. Out at the hub they run a regular 12mm hex as well so you have plenty of wheel options available.
Picture
All-metal gearing
Picture
Seriously chunky CVD driveshafts in the front
Picture
CVDs in the rear too!
Picture
Standard 12mm wheel hexes
Suspension
Equal length aluminium bodied oil-filled shock absorbers are used front and rear. The have adjustable spring collars to change ride height. There is no droop screws no drop screw options, nor are there any options to change the mounting point on either the shock tower not the suspension arm. I would call the dampening medium and shocks are well filled with out. Springs are soft and so suspension is effective on this car. There are no anti-roll bars nor any mounting points to fit.
Picture
Aluminium coil over oil shocks with collar are equal length front and rear
Picture
Double wishbone suspension front and rear
​In general weight balance is well split with just over 50% bias toward the rear, which on a car like this is perfect. Suspension arms are double wishbone front and rear with not option for camber adjustment. Camber is fairly neutral on the rear but there is a lot of positive camber on the front.
Picture
Very little negative rear camber is ideal
Picture
A bit too much negative front camber for my liking
Steering
Steering is powered by a 3 wired servo which is quite fast as you can see in the video below. What I love most about this steering setup thought is that not only is a steering gyro is included to help you with counter steer (drifting assistance) but this is a full adjustable discrete unit which can be used on other cars. Check it out in action and with images below:
Picture
Steering servo is likely a 17g unit which is common on this car size.
Picture
Check out the awesome discrete gyro! This can be used on any car
​So far as the rest of the steering setup is concerned it is fairly straightforward with a typical rack-style setup that allows a typical modern Ackerman angle. There are brass bushings present and little play or bind in the system. It is unfortunately the although the tierods look adjustable they are in fact not. It's disappointing therefore that there is a reasonable amount of toe-out stock as you can see below.
Picture
I thought these grey steering tierods were adjustable but they aren't
Picture
Too much toe out on front for my liking
Chassis
I really like the chassis of this car - it is super rigid without being overweight. The bottom plate of the chassis is aluminium and presents as flat and smooth on the underside. There is only a small amount of castor angle at the front. Instead of am upper plate there is a single upper torsion bar made of anodised aluminium, no doubt inspired by the Arrma Infraction / Felony. They have done a nice job of integrating this with the various mounts which makes for a clean, strong, light build that is open and easy to work on.

I'll also mention here that the front and rear suspension arms have a particularly robust mounting system with aluminium hinge pin mounts front and rear. These combined with the short arms mean I'd be very surprised I'd ever see a broken suspension arm mount, certainly not at the chassis anyway.
Picture
Not that I'll be speed running this guy but nice smooth run for the air under the chassis
Picture
The single aluminium torsion bar in place of an upper deck tidies this build a lot
Picture
Mounting for the upper torsion bar means it will be effective
Picture
Nice strong suspension hinge pin mounts. I wouldn't be expecting to pop these out.
Body
The Body is pre painted and comes with a few details already on but mercifully there is a whole sheet which you can choose to add more from (I chose none). The body itself has some mice touches like the moulded rails on the roof which will stop the body getting all scratched up when you inevitable filp over. Mounting is really solids and I like the way the front foamed bumper intergrates with the body and the way the rear diffuser/bumper integrates as well - it should hold up to some tough bashing.
Picture
Picture
Something I wasn't expecting with this car was an underbody dust cover, something we usually only see on the larger full-bodied offroad RC cars to keep the mess away from the electronics. At first I was wondering what the point was but then remembered the mess on my SG1602 drifter (reviewed here) due to the hard plastic drift wheels being ground into a fine dust. A welcome addition when you think about it
Picture
Underbody cover is a nice touch and fits well
Lighting
Like a number of modern RC cars this has a full lighting setip controlled by throttle input and also a dedicated channel on the remote. Rather than go into too much detail on the function, check out the videos below:
Picture
Wiring for the lighting is clean as with other aspects of this car
Wheels and Tyres
The MJX Hyper Go 14301 and 14302 comes with 3 different sets of wheels and tyres that are all approximated 55mm in diameter. Onroad grip tyres come pre-installed and are probably my favourite. They are a medium compound and are pre-glued with stiff foam inners. They have an aggressive on road tread pattern. I will tell you now that they grip VERY well but more on that in the handling section of the review below.

The second set of wheels and tyres are hard plastic drift tyres. Traction is designed to be low on these  and are good for easy 4wd drift driving on smooth surfaces.

The third set of wheels and tyres are similar to the first with the same rims, glue and foam but have a more aggressive tread pattern and much hard tyre compound. At first I thought these would be better for light off-roading but have since found the off a sweet spot of grip between the grip tyres and plastic drift tyres on road for what is an amazing drift experience with this car - more below in the review.
Picture
Good tread pattern, medium compound rubber and stiff inner foam make these a good grip tyre
Picture
Offroad tread tyres are very hard. I'm not in a rush to try these. Update I did and they are a dream drift tyre on this car
Picture
Drift tyres have that typical hard plastic for low friction. Like extremely low friction
Review
Top Speed and Acceleration
​Acceleration is very strong in this car, I think they have done a really good job matching the gear ratio with the torquey 2845 3700kV motor. This means that the 15c battery should cope ok too. Top speed is really good too - I measured 40km/h on my SKYRC GSM020. It's not an absolute rocket but I think it is well matched for the car and the strong acceleration makes it feel really fast. Overall I think they have nailed the spec of the motor and gear ratio to get an amazing balance of top speed and acceleration. This balance is shown in the efficiency too, I had around 10-16 minutes run time depending on how I was driving.
Picture
Handling - Grip
For me the handling of an on-road car is make or break territory for me. Let me give you 2 examples. The WL Toys 104072 is an awesome looking 1/10 scale truck in the same style as this one with a full brushless setup but it just didn't handle well with too much weight bias up front (see my review here). Even after I changed the weight distribution and suspension settings quite drastically I still couldn't get it to handle well - it just wasn't fun to drive and so it sits gathering dust. Sticking with WL toys, the tiny 284010 I reviewed recently has (against all odds) excellent handling and it makes it a blast to drive. It also means that when you convert it to a drift setup that balance is already there and so drift remains predictable.

Before I digress too much, the MJX Hyper Go 14301 sits firmly in the good handling camp. As you can see from the videos below the tyres obviously offer excellent grip but more importantly the suspension is allowed to perform well because it is setup well, as is the centre of gravity and weight split front and rear. Yes, you can get traction roll on asphalt but this is more a function of the extreme tyre grip than handling issues. Since this is an onroad "basher" the suspension springs are nice and soft while the dampening is in the medium band for weight. This means you are not relegated to race track only surfaces, it can handle transitions well too. If you did want to reduce traction roll you would probably want to look at stiffer springs and a slightly lower ride height but honestly I really like the stock settings. This is not a bad thing because other than changing springs and dampening you are stock with stock settings due to lack of adjustability.

One thing that is adjustable however is the gyro. Since there was so much grip in the location below I turned the gyro right down but when you are in lower grip situations (drift wheels being the extreme) the more gyro will generally widen your turn circle but make drifting easier.
In summary this handling setup is perfect for street bashing out of the box and lack of adjustability is a good thing to keep you focussed on driving.
Picture
Look how hard these tyres are working, sign of a good setup
Handling - Drift
Often people can get carried away when using drift wheels and gyros as a way of hiding a poor handling car but this is not the case here. Good handling on grip tyres is usually a strong precursor for good handling with drift. The included discrete gyro is very good and can even be used on other models if you wish. Turning up the gain will increase the amount of countersteer intervention and vice versa. My recommendation is to play with the setting on new surfaces and see how it works and get a feel for what works for you. 

In general 4wd drift cars with gyros are a nice ease place to start but if you find yourself getting really in to it you'll find yourself becoming limited but the lack of steering lock (which is a feature of 4wd cars) and lack of suspension settings. If fun and useability rather than competition is your goal though, the MJX Hyper Go 14301 and 14302 are excellent options.

The included hard plastic tyres are predictable extremely low in grip and slide all over the place. They are good for learning countersteer and low speed drifting but more of a novelty.
Something that took me completely by surprise was just how good the hard "offroad" style wheels and tyres were for drift. The way these performed made my change my thoughts on the car from 'it's a keeper' to a genuine realisation that this is the best car I've used in 2023 (and 2022). The kinds of control you have over high speed drifts and powerslides is hard to believe. It's the first time I've ever seen a small scale car actually handle like a mini infraction. Check out the video on the below right if you don't believe me, what an absolute blast.
Picture
Tyre shredder
Durability
This car is very tough for 3 key reasons.
  1. It is already based on a very tough offroader that has proven to be highly durable. When you throw in the shorter suspension arms and driveshafts and a body that covers traditionally weaker parts you take away a lot of the main break points.
  2. The integration with the body excellent. Being a full bodied car the shell will take a lot of impacts in many cases but having the bumper and foam support mate well with the front of the body (and the strong plastic diffuser with the rear) means that the typically weak shell is well supported in an impact. Having features like the plastic roof rails also help protect key crash surfaces too.
  3. Electronics are well cooled. Typically on cars this size we see cooling on neither the motor nor ESC. This has both with heatsink and fan for each. Heat is the main enemy of electronics but not here, they are well cooled and efficient so what little heat is generated is quickly drawn away.
  4. Inner body and shrouding protects from dust an dirt. Although onroad driving doesn't usually have al lot of dust associated with it, driftning. The use of a dust cover "body" underneath the main body keeps this pretty much all out and products moving parts, as does the shrouded gears.
All in all a very tough little car. I have heard rumours of weak diffs but I am yet to see this myself. I will report back here if this changes
Comparison to Pinecone SG1602 UDIRC 1/16 drift models
The Pinecone SG1603 (which I reviewed here) and all of the variants both brushed and brushless that they spawned (SG1604, SG1605, SG1606, SG1607, SG1608, SG1609, SG1610) plus the rebranded UDIRC cars 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 were small 1/16 cheap drift cars with a built in gyro which enjoyed huge success. After the launch of the brushed variants more expensive brushless options were release plus a number of questionable aftermarket parts. These cars were always very limited because they were based on bottom of the barrel parts and components but came together in a fun package. The MJX Hyper Go 14301 is also a fun package but is on a completely differently level of quality. You can consider the Hyper Go 14301 as reviewed here as what the Pinecone cars always aspired to be. Probably the easiest way to think of the pinecone cars are as toys whereas the MJX Hyper Go 14301 and 14302 is a genuine hobby-grade vehicle.
Summary
On the whole, MJX have put an excellent car together with the Hyper Go 14301 (and 14302). This street-basher has a very good build quality but more importantly it is built with real purpose as a street basher. The brushless power system has an excellent balance between speed, efficiency and acceleration and is well suited to grip driving and drifting. The 3 sets of wheels and tyres included provide different driving styles with grip and high speed drift being my favourite options (especially the latter). The included discrete gyro is a must have for beginner drifting but perhaps the most important (and overlooked) highlight of this car is the excellent handling. This is not due to it having oil shocks alone but but having these in combination with an excellent weight split and well thought out suspension geometry. This excellent handling makes you want to drive it lots and so it helps then that it is very tough and durable. The only possible downside I can think of given is the lack of adjustability, particularly in the steering tierods but even this can be remedied with cheap aftermarket parts if needed.

Without a word of a lie, this is easily the best car I have reviewed this year. In time it wouldn't be a surprise for me to say that this is the best car I have ever driven, certainly for a bang to buck. This is a car I strongly recommend to own for yourself.
Picture
I ordered the MJX Hyper Go 14301 from Banggood here. As at time of writing it is on flash sale but if that has passed used code BG567053 at the checkout for a discount
Remember buying from any of these links in my review/guide supports my page without any cost to you and is appreciated especially since I don't ask for money via patreon and the like. If you want to get involved in this discussion, feel free to join the QuadifyRC Facebook Group Here or like my Facebook page below ↓ ↓ ↓ ​
Comments

    Categories

    All
    1002s
    104001
    104002
    104009
    104072
    1/10
    124016
    124017
    124018
    124019
    14209
    14210
    14301
    14302
    144001
    144002
    144010
    16886
    16889a Pro
    184016
    284010
    284131
    284161
    4s
    4 Things
    Am-x12
    Anti Roll Bars
    Balance
    Basher
    Battery
    BL3FG
    Brushless
    C24
    Charging
    Cogging
    Crawler
    D22
    D32
    Diatone
    Diatone Q25
    Drift
    Drop In
    Dumborc
    Eachine EAT14
    Eachine EC30
    Eachine EC30B
    EMB-MT
    Ex07
    Ex16
    Flyhal
    Flysky FS-G7P
    Flysky Noble Pro
    FMS
    FPV Car
    Furitek
    Goolrc
    Guide
    Gyro
    HBX
    Hbx 901a
    HS10422
    IFlight M4 AC
    K989
    LC12B1
    LC Racing
    Lipo
    Metal Parts
    Micro
    MJX Hyper Go
    Mod
    Monster Truck
    Multiprotocol
    Mx-07
    Pincone
    Pinion
    Preview
    Program Card
    Project WLCRacing
    Q33
    Racerstar
    Radiolink RC6GS V3
    Radiomaster MT12
    RC Boat
    Receiver
    Review
    Rlaarlo
    ROCHobby
    SCT
    Setup
    Sg 1602
    SG 1603
    SG 1604
    SG Pincone 1002s
    Snt
    Soldering
    Spectre
    Speed Run
    Stance
    Surpass Hobby
    Timing
    Transmitter
    Tuning
    Tyres
    Upgrade
    Vinyl
    Wheels
    WL916
    WLToys
    WL Toys
    WLToys 2428
    Wpl
    X6pm-350
    Y60
    Zd Racing

    RSS Feed

Thanks for visiting QuadifyRC.com Follow us on facebook below to get all the latest updates
  • RC Cars
  • Car of the Month
  • Quad Reviews
  • COUPONS AND DISCOUNTS
  • About & Contact