B-MOW's Element GK-Ecto-Knightrunner Build

[B-MOW71]

What's on the bench! Something new to keep my busy until this long, cold and snowy winter finally packs up and heads north!

I've been wanting to build an Ecto or Knightrunner for awhile now but other builds got in the way. Now that my VP Phoenix is complete and my bench is now cleaned off, I decided to pick up the GK Builders Kit. I decided to go with the GK kit because for one, it was a pretty sweet deal for what comes in the box and two, I had accumulated a good amount of points at AMain.

The end goal is to use this kit to build this kit using the IFS and Knightrunner body to build a tiny version of my 1:1 Toyota Tacoma. In the meantime though, my plan is to pick up an Ecto body and see just how good these rigs are. I've heard many good things about the Ecto and how good it does right out of the box and how it will drive lines and keep up with most flat rail chassis'. We shall see!!

I don't really have a build list yet for it, but I do have a few items that I picked up last year on Veterans Day that will be used on this build. More on those in the pics to come.




To start the build off, I went ahead and put the chassis together. Using Team KNK hardware, as always, I assembled and attached 2 sets of rear Rock Pirates RC shock towers. The rear towers are a limited edition gold that were sold on Veterans Day 2021 and all proceeds went to Operation 11 Charlie to help out our Veterans.

The Reefs RAW 500 servo is a limited edition servo which a portion of the proceeds were donated to Operation 11 Charlie to help get our Veterans to USTE 2022 this past weekend. It is a beautiful servo and should steer this rig over any obstacle with ease!








The front (rear) shock towers are also a set of Rock Pirates RC shock towers in the clear flavor. I decided to use these instead of the RPRC Element front towers because I had them and I didn't want to wait for another order to arrive. I also wanted to see if I could make the stock GK panhard mount work with these towers. I had to drill a hole in the shock tower for the rear panhard mounting bolt. For the front mounting bolt, I used a 3mm alum spacer to attach it to the rail. Looks like it should work and I'll have to add about 3mm extra length to the panhard link.





More to come later. I've got a few parts on order that should be here either today or tomorrow.

 

[twade984]

I like it already. I’ve been eyeing that gk kit since the price drop…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Panther6834]

If you're installing the IFS kit, why did you bother installing the panhard mount? Other than that, I'm looking it. I also installed the IFS kit on my GK...tho, I'm keeping the GK cage, and I'll be using the GK body panels.

Interestingly, I'm NOT using the wheels, or tires, that came with the GK kit...instead, I installed the wheels/tires that came with the VS4-10 Phoenix (guess you could say, I'm "sharing" several of the Phoenix parts with several other vehicles).


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Goro Majima]

Ah man I barely bought a set of shock towers from them a few weeks ago. I'm liking those limited edition additions. Toyota FTW!

 

[B-MOW71]

I like it already. I’ve been eyeing that gk kit since the price drop…

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, the price drop and the features sold me!

If you're installing the IFS kit, why did you bother installing the panhard mount? Other than that, I'm looking it. I also installed the IFS kit on my GK...tho, I'm keeping the GK cage, and I'll be using the GK body panels.

Interestingly, I'm NOT using the wheels, or tires, that came with the GK kit...instead, I installed the wheels/tires that came with the VS4-10 Phoenix (guess you could say, I'm "sharing" several of the Phoenix parts with several other vehicles).

~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

The IFS is part of the endgame with the KRunner body. For now my plan is to build it like an Ecto with a few bonus mods! Besides, since the IFS is obsolete, I'm hoping that Element brings out an all new IFS kit in the future! I'm hoping anyways! If that plan falls through, I'll steal the IFS out of my Trailwalker.

No plans to use the cage now. I'll keep it, paint it and use it sometime in the future to change the look of the rig.

Ah man I barely bought a set of shock towers from them a few weeks ago. I'm liking those limited edition additions. Toyota FTW!

They are sweet shock towers! Simple yet effective! I wish I would have bought 2 sets so all 4 matched. Toyota winning, no doubt!!

 

[soze]

Nice Brian!

Will be cool to see this build going through its process!

I need to get back to posting my builds as well.

 

[durok]

Great to see this flurry of GK/Ecto builds!

I'll be very interested in seeing B-MOW71's build, as his execution is always top-notch...;-)

Just so happen to have the GK kit and a clear Ecto body sitting in my own apartment right now, with most of the aluminum SSD parts and some steel axle trusses on the way.

Staying away from brass this time (unlike my Ascender) - want this to be lighter. The trusses are about all that will really add weight.

Have a bunch of hop-ups I bought for my Sendero that I have not gotten around to installing - not sure what will end up being used on the Ecto, things like the inverse gearbox shaft and the all-steel gears(?).

I think the Sendero will get the length-wise Samix battery tray and transverse servo mount, and it may get brass later. The body I have for it is heavy, so it may need it.

As always, mine will be slow in coming together!

 

[ScaleLifeNewbie]

Great to see another B-MOW build! Always enjoy watching your threads. Reminds me, I gotta get my build threads up to date…

All these gatekeeper builds have me rethinking the GK. I guess I always seen it as something else, but it really is a regular ladder frame chassis for CHEAP! I’m sure I’ll pick one up eventually. My collection hasn’t slowed down in quite some time. I don’t get what it is about these tiny trucks, but man they never go away!

The addiction is real. First world problems lol.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[B-MOW71]

Nice Brian!

Will be cool to see this build going through its process!

I need to get back to posting my builds as well.

Thanks soze!

I need to get caught up on your YT vids!;-)

 

[B-MOW71]

Great to see another B-MOW build! Always enjoy watching your threads. Reminds me, I gotta get my build threads up to date…

All these gatekeeper builds have me rethinking the GK. I guess I always seen it as something else, but it really is a regular ladder frame chassis for CHEAP! I’m sure I’ll pick one up eventually. My collection hasn’t slowed down in quite some time. I don’t get what it is about these tiny trucks, but man they never go away!

The addiction is real. First world problems lol.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks SLN!"thumbsup"

I hear ya! I didn't pay too much attention to the GK until I took a closer look at it. It is basically the Ecto with a cage. I've been wanting to get the Ecto and this GK Kit IMO is the way to go. The price of this kit is hard to beat for all of the features that it comes with. It has a lot of the upgrades that many make to them.

 

[B-MOW71]

Great to see this flurry of GK/Ecto builds!

I'll be very interested in seeing B-MOW71's build, as his execution is always top-notch...;-)

Just so happen to have the GK kit and a clear Ecto body sitting in my own apartment right now, with most of the aluminum SSD parts and some steel axle trusses on the way.

Staying away from brass this time (unlike my Ascender) - want this to be lighter. The trusses are about all that will really add weight.

Have a bunch of hop-ups I bought for my Sendero that I have not gotten around to installing - not sure what will end up being used on the Ecto, things like the inverse gearbox shaft and the all-steel gears(?).

I think the Sendero will get the length-wise Samix battery tray and transverse servo mount, and it may get brass later. The body I have for it is heavy, so it may need it.

As always, mine will be slow in coming together!

Thanks durok!!"thumbsup"

I'm glad to see all of the GK and Ecto builds too! From what I've seen and heard, these rigs are wicked on the rocks! My Enduro Sendero is one of my favorite rigs to go out and wheel. It's such a simple design, yet does so great on the trail and rocks.

Sounds like you have a sweet GK/Ecto build in the making! Can't wait to see it! I agree on the brass, I'm gonna try to stay away from too much brass and make mine lighter using alum parts. I think these rigs may perform even better slimmed up a bit and just add the weight where it is needed.

Nice to hear your Sendero will be getting a little love. I should roll mine in the shop and show it a little love too!

 

[B-MOW71]

Spent a little time last night on the GK/Ecto. Assembled the shocks and added Hot Racing bleeder caps to them. On my Trailwaker, (http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/elem...ck-sendero/618127-b-mows-ifs-trailwalker.html) I installed a set of AE shock bleeder caps and really like how easy it made it to fill and bleed out the air in the shocks. So I figured I'd do the same and try out a set of these HR bleeder caps. These caps made it super simple to bleed and there is no sign of air in the shocks afterwards.

These caps are aluminum and fit the Element shock bodies perfectly. The only issue is you can not use the steel ball end that is used in the plastic shock cap. The mounting hole in the HR cap is smaller and requires a plastic spacer. Luckily, I had four plastic spacers in my shock spare parts bin that fit these shocks perfectly.






These Element shocks are so smooth and look great with the bronze anodizing! I decided to fill them with 40wt shock fluid for now and I'll see how it feels once I get it on the rocks. On the bench they feel really good. I cycled them and left them hanging overnight and I see zero leakage or seepage of fluid on the shock shaft or shock cap/bleeder screw.




Assembled the axles as well. Easy to assemble and feel smooth when spun by hand. This is my first experience with the Element "hard" gray plastics in this kit. I found that tapping all of the 3mm threads first before trying to thread the screws in made it a lot easier to assemble and reduced the chance of breaking or stripping out the plastic. I did not tap any of the 2.5mm threads. These 2.5mm screws seemed to thread in pretty well without tapping.

There are a few of the 2.5mm screws that I still need to replace with stainless screws. Since I didn't by the Team KNK hardware kit for this rig and was using only my stock of SS screws, I didn't have enough to swap out all of them. I'll have to get an order in to KNK soon so that I can replace the black oxide screws.

I do have plans to swap out the stock c-hubs and knuckles with SSD, but I haven't placed that order yet. When I do, I'll get pics posted of them.

Almost forgot to mention, this kit does come with steel 6mm hexes. It's nice that I won't have to worry about replacing them any time soon. I believe the RTR GK only comes with the plastic hexes.

 

[soze]

The GK Kit really is the way to go. I picked up one at the start of the current sale over the builder's kit v2. At the same price, GK kit beats the v2 kit out with the high clearance front links and GKS suspension setup (panhard, shock hoops) and sway bar. One of the things that disappointed me between the v2 kit vs the v1 kit is the shock caps. The v2 has plastic caps where the v1 had those blue aluminum ones. The v1 kit also had multiple length links.

 

[Panther6834]

Brian, when you get around to buying/installing the IFS kit (RPP Hobby had some, but no longer...if you wait too long, you might not be able to find any), be sure to get the Bowhouse IFS upgrade parts - bell cranks, steering rack V2 w/ bump stops, servo mounting plate - as they'll have a huge positive impact on steering.

As for whether, or not, a V2 IFS kit is forthcoming, according to someone I recently spoke with, the 'possibility' is there, but the 'probability' (according to him) seems unlikely. If you find anyone (LHS, online, etc) having one, grab it asap.


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[B-MOW71]

The GK Kit really is the way to go. I picked up one at the start of the current sale over the builder's kit v2. At the same price, GK kit beats the v2 kit out with the high clearance front links and GKS suspension setup (panhard, shock hoops) and sway bar. One of the things that disappointed me between the v2 kit vs the v1 kit is the shock caps. The v2 has plastic caps where the v1 had those blue aluminum ones. The v1 kit also had multiple length links.

Yeah, it is! I'm shocked out how cheap the kit is for what is included! With this kit, I honestly see no reason to ever buy the V2 builders kit, ever!!

Brian, when you get around to buying/installing the IFS kit (RPP Hobby had some, but no longer...if you wait too long, you might not be able to find any), be sure to get the Bowhouse IFS upgrade parts - bell cranks, steering rack V2 w/ bump stops, servo mounting plate - as they'll have a huge positive impact on steering.

As for whether, or not, a V2 IFS kit is forthcoming, according to someone I recently spoke with, the 'possibility' is there, but the 'probability' (according to him) seems unlikely. If you find anyone (LHS, online, etc) having one, grab it asap.

~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

I see that the IFS is getting harder to find! I can't understand with the popularity of the IFS why Element would discontinue it if they didn't have plans to replace it with a newer/better version. If all else fails, I'll steal the IFS out of my Trailwalker if Element doesn't have a replacement when I'm ready to install one.

And, yes, the Bowhouse IFS steering upgrades are the way to go! I added these to my IFS on my Trailwalker and it corrected the odd bumpsteer and geometry that the stock setup had. Definitely recommend doing this upgrade to the IFS kit.

 

[MaX-D]

What are the benefits performance wise with the IFS vs solid axle if any?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[B-MOW71]

What are the benefits performance wise with the IFS vs solid axle if any?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Hey MaX! Well, IMO I don't think there is any performance benefits with the IFS if it's used for crawling. I just like the scale realism when I take it out trailing. It doesn't do too bad on the rocks either, but I think a solid axle works better for crawling.

 

[B-MOW71]

Made some more progress last night. Got the links all threaded together and measured. Installed them with the shocks and axles. I like how this GK Kit comes with the front high clearance links.

On the front shock towers, I want to mount the shocks further back in the last top hole, but before I can do that I need to modify the batter tray to give room for the shock cap and spring. I'm going to get an aftermarket battery tray on order that will not interfere with the shock.

Also need to work on the panhard link. I need to put a slight bend in it so that the link does not hit the diff cover. The suspension travel is limited on the driver side because of the link making contact with the diff.

Ok, photo dump of the completed chassis below.

 

[twade984]

Coming together nicely Brian


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[B-MOW71]

Coming together nicely Brian


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey thanks![emoji1689]

Should have a small update tomorrow.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk