HSP Pangolin upgrades - Body, tyres, suspension, speed

stephennclark · Nov 3, 2017

Hi.
I am new to crawling and got a HSP Pangolin for my grandson last year.
I’ve noticed a few initial problems that I’d like to rectify as we are starting to get out and play with it together a lot more now.

1. Body fouling the arches (Jeep Wrangler body)
1. I’ve tried cutting the arches a bit but it seems they need cutting off a lot more than I want.
2. I tried smaller tyres but the ground clearance is too low and the bumpers catch. I actually went for 1.9” tyres but they are only 93mm diameter instead of 125mm. I’ll probably get some super swampers or mud slingers
3. I believe I need to limit the shock travel but can’t find any sites showing how to do it, can anyone give me some instructions?
4. It would actually be nice to get a better fitting body as the standard wrangler has 240mm arches centre to centre but the wheelbase is actually 330mm
2. Suspension leans to one side
1. I’ve seen people recommending putting the motor on the other side of the spur gear which seems simple so I’ll give that a go to limit torque twist.
2. Putting spacers on the spring on the soft side to firm / push it up. but that seems like half baked solution as the shocks would be unbalanced so...
3. I wondered about better shocks. Wouldn’t mind some anodised alloy threaded adjustable shocks. Would that solve the lean?
4. I’ve also seen people adjusting shock angles but that seems a bit extreme with cutting lower arms.
5. Some people seem to be really proud of their SCX10 conversions which have upright shocks, but even with a second hand chassis from eBay or gumtree it will be an expensive solution I think.
3. Speed
1. The standard Pangolin runs at about slow walking pace and while it’s a crawler my grandson would like a little more speed as he drives it on gravel trails at full speed. Fast waking pace would do, I don’t want to destroy it’s crawling ability so would a different size pinion do the job?

Bob_in az · Nov 3, 2017

I have a Pangolin & it was set up very well out of the box. The body is the worst thing about them in my opinion. Mine had the Hummer body, which needed to be cut severely. Take the bumpers off & cut the mounts off the axle. They are not needed. This helps immensely.
An easy way to limit shock travel is to put ball point pen springs in them. Search for "pen spring mod" for more details. I still run the stock shocks & don't have any complaints.
Mine never leaned or had torque twist, so I can't really help you there.
A 35t motor will wake it up a bit. Going to 3s lipo will also help the speed.
I would purchase either alloy "connect boxes" for the axles, or Axial "Iron Cross" lockers. If you go the Axial route, you'll have to file the axle shafts down a bit.
Mine is no longer stock appearing & I don't run a body. I went with a $35 Integy roll cage/chassis & couldn't be happier. Overall, I think these trucks are a great value. I am not nice to mine & it keeps going strong. HSP has many aluminum upgrades available & most Axial AX10/SCX10 parts will fit with slight modifications. Hope this helps!

Smokin' Joe · Nov 4, 2017

Check out the Redcat RS10 forum for posts about the Everest 10. My understanding is the Everest 10 is mechanically almost identical to the Pangolin apart from lacking rear steering and there are posts in that forum that should answer most of your questions.

ferp420 · Nov 4, 2017

You can get a bigger pinnion gear to make it faster but it will cause the motor to heat up ive run mine with the bigger pinnion gear for 8 months and its right at the limit you can smell the motor after a long crawl sesion but i hasent burned up yet i would only go up like 2 teeth in size you should be ok and it will take 3s batterys but the brushes on thoses motors suck and ware fast on 3s running the spacers on one side of your shock wont change your spring rate just the preload on the spring so its not realy unbalanced and besides its a crawler it dosent go fastenuff to need good shocks i took the springs out completely and run in full droop i like it so much better i made a new chassie for it my self out of hdpe plastic or basicly a plastic cutting board and it works great it blows away my more exspensive rigs it cruzed its way through axialfest as a loaner rig for someone who showed up unexspectedly and it went all day on one pack with no breakadge hit like 5 trails and other than the chassie and pinnion and axial rear lockouts with xrmod rear axle shafts and iron cross locker and tires it was basicly stock not one failure ive since upgraded to cheap aluminum shocks filled with greese and half a pen spring on the lower shaft so i get mayb3 1/4 of spring traval more like a bump stop than a spring and most importantly they match the blue beadlock rings lol in my opininion the chassies are th3 worst part of the rig everything else can be fixed next is tires then servo th3 rest can be tuned to your liking on the cheap the scx10 chassies are cheap too if you want a scaler or you can get creative and cut one out of aluminum or plastic carbonfiber or even steal i just looked at everyone elses chassies for th3 basic shape and used the stock chassie as the basic size dementions and i had i good idea what i wanted and i got realy lucky and it works awsome the body i say cut the hay out of it or raise it up till it clears its basicly a axial ax10 clone so what ever there doing to the ax10 you can do to your clone ther3 so close that most parts interchange so any sporty type chaseie or scx10 chassies will work dont over power it and it should last a long time and when the time comes spend the money on quality axial upgrades you wont be disapointed

stephennclark · Nov 6, 2017

Thank you for all your advice. I'd like to see pictures of your modified chassis ferp420. I was actually thinking of a way of creating new top shock mount positions to get a more scale look, the chopping board sounds like a very good alternative to an SCX10 chassis which seem to be about $150 on eBay. I guess I would need shorter shocks then though, but I can measure that if I decide to go down that route.

I am going to get the Wrangler 4 door body for 313mm chassis from asiatees because the wheel arches will then be much closer to the wheel base of the vehicle so the tyres should go into the wheel well rather than catch. Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s2k1DxOvbA

I am also considering getting the Axial Maxxis Trepador R35 tyres as they are 117mm x 38mm, hopefully combined with the body there will be much less if any fouling and no need to mess about with the suspension in the short term.

I really like the look of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHonBHM2Gm8

With a 35T motor, that sounds like it would provide more torque, I was reading about motor turns and all I read suggested more turns is more torque and less speed and fewer turns for more speed, that's why I initially thought about the pinion. The standard motor is a 540 which I assume equates to a 27T as the AX10 is a 27T 540.

Do the LiPo run on the standard ESC? I already bought a spare NiMh battery pack and don't have any other LiPo so would need to get a charger too so that will have to be a more long term upgrade. Although I did see a Traxxas TRX4 2 speed ESC on eBay for $45, maybe that would be a worthy upgrade? unless it won't be compatible.

I could easily get carried away here. :for:

P.S. Ferp420, Please let me know more about your full droop setup. I like the theory that this guy is covering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hle_eXjmLzQ

magic_yeti · Nov 6, 2017

if you think upgrading the esc better get a Hobbywing 1080 (80A cont. 3A internal bec and new 40$). the trx-4 esc is crap (15A cont. 1A internal bec), one of the first replacements after the steering servo on a trx-4.

Vagos2 · Nov 7, 2017

I own a Maverick Scout (or whats left of it..) which is a sibling of the Pangolin. The stock esc is good for a 2s lipo (not sure if it handle 3s though). There are a lot of easy & free mods you can do to the stock shocks. I settled for a -8mm reduction via the fuel tube mod and placing the shocks were the body posts used to be. I would definitely agree with magic_yeti about the HW1080 esc and Bob_in_az about the urgent need to update the stock shitty shitty diff lockers. If you decide to change the lockers and buy the aluminium "connect boxes" consider buying the the one with the 43/13 gear for the rear. Under-driving the rear axle does wonders on torque-twist and climbing abilities. I run a 45t motor with a 87/17 spur/pinion and its a good balance without any overheating problems. If you want to go scale I would pick a cheap ebay chassis and 3d print this : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1306476. Check my thread Maverick FrankeScout if you want and maybe it should be helpful.

Bob_in az · Nov 8, 2017

Regarding running 3s on the stock ESC, my Pangolin came with a Hobbywing WP-1040, stock. I run 3s with no external BEC & no issues. Just make sure you change the jumper to the lipo setting. Another thing I just thought of, make sure you set your end points on the servo. Once you do that, the stock 15kg servo should last allot longer. Mine has been fine.

stephennclark · Nov 21, 2017

Hi @dallen. A few updates. I think the lean is purely down to the battery being on one side of the chassis. The new 313mm Wrangler unlimited 5 door jeep body arrived today and looks a good fit albeit I haven’t cut the body out yet but can see that the chassis is slightly longer (330mm) than the wheel arches. I can also see that the standard 2.2 tyres are way too big for the arches but I’ve not ordered 1.9s yet, well not replacement 110-120mm ones, I still have the incorrectly ordered 93mm ones on. I read the box and the motor seems to be a brushless one, I’ll have to confirm by reading the manual. There is a parcel at the post office to collect that contains a 16T and 17T pinion and the HSP RC4 chassis rails ($17) so I have somewhere to mount the front and rear bumpers to. I thought they were cheap but realise I haven’t factored in the chassis brace rails or bumper mounting end plates so a bit more $ to spend yet on top of the rails. I’m also looking for a set of 5 tyres as we want to mount a spare on the back bumper. I’ve been looking for Axial Maxxis Trepador tyres either on regular deadbolt rims glued on or on beadlocks. Even for a set of 5 possibly copy Super swampers on alloy beadlocks from China via eBay we’re looking at about $150. Have seen a set of 4 Trepador glued on deadbolt rims for $70 though from USA so may end up down that route.
Once the chassis rails are on it will also still need shock towers $18 eBay and body posts $5 and I’d like magnetic posts so no holes in the body. So the parts list is racking up. Oh and metal front and rear bumpers are coming in at about $30-40 plus side sills $30 unless I get plastic scx10 ones at $15. Off to get paint tomorrow 2 metallic colours, silver to back it, matt black and smoke tint all at $12 a can. This is getting silly. Look mint when done though.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

stephennclark · Jun 26, 2018

I got really carried away with this project. I sunk hundreds into it. What I found is there is no easy way to convert a Pangolin into an SCX10. I tried the HSP RC4 chassis rail set thinking that model would be a replica of the SCX10 but they are a lot shorter. I did end up finding a set of SCX10 rails on eBay for $20 (most were usually $60). I did make the skid plate and braces between shock towers from chopping board but decided to get metal bumper mounts. The metal upgrade shock hoops were about $20 on eBay. I always intended to put a tyre mount rear bumper on but initially went for cheap original plastic bumper and dummy winch but the winch fell off and I’ve now gone for a metal bumper and metal winch with metal cable. So I may have spent a few hundred $ on this over several months but had I have bought this outright as a genuine SCX10 with metal upgrades it would have been between $600-$1000.

I also made a slimline roof rack from a thin 7mm chopping board.