Flash sale Spawn

[bgredjeep]

I figured the recent sales might get some of these pages active again. Maybe not, but I'll get mine started. I had been looking for a wraith for a while but not really finding anything between clapped, and big $$$. The recent sale forced my hand.

I opened it up this weekend and it went right on the bench. I had a cheap set of stainless link ready to install. I also threw in some cv front axles I had to replace the dogbone shafts. I thought the car would include universals since the picture of the axle on the site shows them.

The link install was no trouble. I also put some normal hexs on the axles and threw a set of wheels that already had the right adapters installed. I tossed in a pair of 90mm trx4 shocks in the rear to lower it a bit.

I'm not breaking any new ground with this build. Basically doing all the usual things to make it good trail truck and mild crawler. I've got a few more things to get done before I run it.

 

[Brake Weight]

Didn’t realize these were 2.2 Wraiths. Maybe it’ll revive this forum some.

 

[Timmahh]

ya they've been knockin the sales hard...

 

[twade984]

Interested to see what you do here. I was tempted a little, but since I snagged a bomber I figured I could live without.

Pretty cool looking rigs out of the box


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[Ninomaniac]

The spawn kit came with CVDs IIRC.
Man, I had to throw a lot of parts at my Wraith to make it semi-reliable. And still couldn't treat it nearly as rough as I do my trx4.

 

[lonleycreeper]

The spawn kit came with CVDs IIRC.
Man, I had to throw a lot of parts at my Wraith to make it semi-reliable. And still couldn't treat it nearly as rough as I do my trx4.

Negative ghost rider... Spawn comes with dogbones. But I do agree the Wraith takes some upgrades to make reliable.

 

[Ninomaniac]

Negative ghost rider... Spawn comes with dogbones. But I do agree the Wraith takes some upgrades to make reliable.

Pretty sure i got cvds with my kit. Not the RTR!
Then I had to get better lockers, diff gears, tranny gears, beef tubes, knuckles and outdrives, links, shocks, rod ends... But other than that it was OK :lmao:

 

[bgredjeep]

Yeah, that was my only disappointment with the car so far. The 1 detail pic of the axle on the spawn page shows the universal style shafts so I was expecting it to have those. I already had a set of cheap cvds to throw into it for now. If they don't hold up I'll get the axial shafts, but these were in another crawler for over a year and are still in good shape. Beef tubes and servo horn came in yesterday so those will go in soon.

2 small updates. The stainless links I installed pushed the wheelbase out a few mm so the servo horn was hitting the bumper under compression. I printed some quick 1.5mm spacers for the bottom bumper mount and it clears again.

I'm also making an aluminum front battery mount. I drew and printed a template which I'll transfer to some .090 aluminum for the actual part.

 

[Brake Weight]

If you have the ability to scale these.

 

[bgredjeep]

If you have the ability to scale these.

Thanks for those. I'll likely make use of the panels at some point, but i dig the body for now. I'm going to have to figure out the hood situation soon. I just don't want to end up butchering the body in the process so I'll take my time working that out.

The mount holes for the front battery tray (or radio box) are a little different on the spawn than the older version. That was the last thing I still wanted to add. I have what should be the final template on the printer now.

 

[bgredjeep]

And just like that, the job is half way done. I need to mount the receiver box. I think I'll make something to attach it in front of the esc under the driver. It's sitting there in the pics, but not mounted.

 

[bgredjeep]

I got the receiver box mounted today. It turned out really nice. The tray mounts using 2 screws on the side of the cage, and 2 zip ties on the inner tube. The radio box screws onto the tray. The box sits at an angle so I'm able to use all 3 mount points, and remove the box without pulling the tray if there was a need.

All back together

I went ahead and put the 90mm shocks on the front as well. We'll see how it works out once I take it for a drive.

And off topic, it looks like it would take very little effort if someone wanted to put a Spawn body on their bomber. Lol
If I didn't have a roof rack and light bar it looks like it would set right down on it.

 

[bgredjeep]

I got the hood cut today. I probably could have done a little better with it. I most definitely could have done worse. Overall I'm happy with it, and best of all I can get to the battery without unscrewing the body.

 

[AK KRAWLER]

For working with Lexan, I think you did a great job.

I like the metal body posts as well, nice touch.

 

[bgredjeep]

For working with Lexan, I think you did a great job.

I like the metal body posts as well, nice touch.

Thanks man. The posts are from the the Traxxas battery mount (3727) i found mentioned in past threads.

 

[bgredjeep]

While I was messing with the radio box relocation mount I noticed the lower section of the chassis where the original battery tray mounted felt pretty flimsy. I printed this up today to tie the shock mounts and lower chassis together.

I'll probably tweak the design some and run another. I made it based on the battery tray measurements but I see some changes I could make now.

*edit*
Made some adjustments last night and printed an updated version this morning. Looks a little better now.

 

[bgredjeep]

So pretty much as soon as I get that dialed in, I come across an old post about flipping the rear upper shock mounts to lower the car. That was the only reason I put the 90mm shocks on the rear, so flipping it will be.

4 screws and 5 mins later I had the mount flipped. I took some new measurements and it moved the shock mount almost exactly 10mm. I spent 10 mins updating the brace in Fusion and started a new print. Back to 100mm shocks in the rear. I'll probably end up doing something to raise the front mounts as well, but that's for another time.

I also ordered some springs for the rear. The car is so light in the back, I've got axial orange and black springs coming to try out.

 

[bgredjeep]

For my next trick... front upper shock mounts.

Pretty much like I did with the front battery tray, I drew a template design in Fusion, printed it, and transferred to aluminum. Swapped back to the stock shocks with the taller mounts and it's sitting where I want it.

After that, I took it for a drive today. Met some friends at a bike trail and spent some time crawling around the creek. This is basically what I wanted this car for and it worked really well. The stock motor did well, but I'd rather swap in my 20t crawlmaster motor and run 3s. I haven't heard many people having luck running the stock esc on 3s. Might just grab a 1080 instead of chancing it.

The only issue I had today is that the cheap cvd shaft in front (long side) started catching and locking up when I turned full right. I pulled it apart and can't see anything obvious wrong with it so I just grabbed a set of axial universals from the hobby shop to swap in.

Here's a bunch of clips I took today
<iframe width="850" height="478" src="https://youtube.com/embed/pSOxviJOXHU" ></iframe>

 

[bgredjeep]

For today's update, there's what I know I should have done, and what I did instead.

I'm planning to use a crawlmaster sport motor I have (540 20t), but I wanted to run 3s to keep the speed about the same as stock. I've read enough posts about the stock esc letting the smoke out running 3s so I went ahead with another option.

The obvious choice is the hw1080. Well, instead I got roped in by the fancy Bluetooth programming of the ISDT esc70. Cost was not a factor, I just liked the feature set, and programming without digging the receiver out is a nice bonus. I saw all the videos about different problems people were having with programming, updating etc, but most were months old so I figured they had some time to sort the software out.

So far all I can report is that mine worked fine out of the box. I soldered a battery connector and crimped the motor leads. Powered it up and connected with their app just fine. I played around with a few settings, but haven't gotten too far in yet. I'm waiting for the trans gears to come in so I can pull the trans and swap to the Holmes motor at the same time.

 

[bgredjeep]

So far no issues to report on this esc70. I've only done some quick testing with the new motor and 3s, but it does what I expect.

The ssd trans gears came in so I got those installed and my 20t crawlmaster sport motor swapped in. I went to a 13t pinion but its still a little too slow for what I want. I'll bump the pinion up again and it should be ok. I'll probably go for a slightly faster motor when this one wears out.