The Dome is one of SCX's better efforts. I agree that the box is a little bit of a problem but I don't play with the box much.
As for the car, out of the box, everything worked just fine on my example. I didn't run it many laps since I wanted to break in the motor seperately. Taking the car apart revealed some items that could be improved on slightly.
First, the light connection spring contacts are not mounted very securely by the plastic melt method. I added some super glue to fix them more securely.
Second, as with some of the other cars made, the crown gear rubs against the body slightly if all the mount screws are tight. To fix this one needs to shave some plastic from the inside of the body around the gear bulge.
On the chassis, several areas could use some work.
First, the spring contacts on the motor that make with the chassis copper strips are easily bent and can slip off the chassis strips. I personally pua drop of solder on both to preclude this from happening.
Second, the motor cradle needs to have a cooling hole cut for the bottom cooling outlet of the motor. Even running without magnets the motor can get rather warm.
The second problem with the cradle is more serious in my opinion. The arms that hold the rear axle bearings and axle assembly are too flexable. Under torque load the car has allot of axle tramp due to this flex. This is more noticable if higher grip tires or a more powerful motor is used. This can be fixed but one has to add structural reinforcement. A better design might be to make the magnet holder part of the pod assembly and add a rear brace across the arms to increase regidity. Including the magnet with the pod would make the car handle better in setups using magnet downforce. Adding axle spacers to eliminate side to side slop helps this flex problem to some extent though not completely.
Also, why change the bearing type? Now I have to have one more different spare part in my parts bin.
Finally on the pod, SCX could have made it a little easier to remove the motor from the pod. I know that we all complain when the motor is loose but there must be a happy medium.
To get better tuning performance you can start with the following.
1. make the guide single braid rather than the double setup. The reduced springyness of the braid will lower the front slightly.
2. Either sand off the front tires to make them smaller or change them to a lower profile type. This will take load off the front axle and improve cornering speed.
3. Run in the motor at 3,6&9 vdc for 2,1,1/2 hours respectively, lubing bearings as necessary. add a couple drops of isopropal alcohol with motor running after breakin to clean comm. It should be noted that SCX type motors do benefit quitea bit from careful breakin and seating ofthe comm brushes.
4. Run in drive train for about 30minutes to seat gears and bearings.
5. Lube the motor cradle pivots with silicone oil to free up it's movement. assemble chassis and loosen rear body screws so that some "flex" is available.
Add these specific items to general tuning and the car really comes alive. This car runs pretty well without the magnet installed if the proper tires are used.
Jimmy in Greece