My Yeti XL experience

[Sneetches]

Hey everyone, first post here, but I'm glad to see a Yeti XL subsection of the site. I've been bashing mine for a couple days and so far it's been a blast. I do have some carnage though, however it's been pretty dang durable and I only have some minor complaints thus far. Here's a bashing vid on 4S.

Axial Yeti XL - 4S bash - Box Stock - YouTube


NEW VIDEO 11-23
Axial Yeti XL - Farm bashing - 4S - YouTube


So for the carnage report, so far I destroyed a stock wheel on the same jump in the video, it hit the ground at an angle with a loud "SNAP". :shock: The wheel nut pushed through the wheel, not salvageable.

In other news, the rear suspension needs adjusted, i might try 40wt front /30wt rear. 10wt rear is way too springy out of the box.

I packed 500K in both diffs and shimmed them, the truck is tons better on the rocks than previously with the stock 20k. Now, you can actually gun it out of trouble.

The stock servo sucks, can't turn those huge tires much. I've got a Solar D772 to put in it and I'll run it at 6v if possible, should be a huge upgrade on the rocks and just for driving in general. Hopefully the servo saver doesn't hold it back.

Other than that, the body hinging is annoying, I just strap mine to the chassis when working on it so it doesn't fall down. The battery trays are a huge PITA to close until you get the "technique" down, but the first time I tried to use them I had to take a break from attempting it.

This is a pretty fun truck and it's great to see a lot of work around threads already made, some of you are pretty inventive. I'm not much on the homebrew side just yet but if something looks good enough then I'll definitely try it.

Anyways, I'll try to keep the thread updated as I keep driving.

 

[Sneetches]

So I just installed a Solar D772 along with a CC BEC and bumped it up to 6v, what a huge difference in steering. However, it now shows in the plastic steering links with a bit more flexing, but at least now it looks like it'll be able to steer in the rocks and such. I'll have a new receiver in to hopefully run 7.4v on it for another boost, since the stock receiver is only rated for 6v, but it looks like it may be time to get some aluminum links made :mrgreen:.

 

[rockhugger]

bypass the RX and run the BEC at 7.4, steering is strong and fast then

 

[CarterFab]

We will have our licensed Method Wheels going on the machines first of the year for these big boys. We stripped a hex yesterday in ours.
We will have the front link kits available soon also. We are going to make them a 5 piece kit to replace the whole front end.

 

[skybolt]

"We are going to make them a 5 piece kit to replace the whole front end"

5 piece??

 

[CarterFab]

Two suspension links, two tie rods, and drag link from servo.

 

[Sneetches]

Sounds good man, looking forward to it, especially the wheels. "thumbsup"

I could bypass the RX but at this point since i'm just gonna put it on my Flysky with some of my other models, I'm just gonna wait.

 

[Sneetches]

I got my new stock wheels in and glued, hopefully we have better luck than last time.

I have two spots I want to try to take the truck this weekend, one is the slate dumps in town and the other is a construction site with plenty of huge boulders, I want to try some more "rock racing" with the new diff oil and check out how much better the crawling is now.

 

[Sneetches]

11-22

Took the truck up the farm today to test it out after getting the new wheel on and getting some 500K diff oil in.

All I can say is that this thing is definitely now worthy of the "monster buggy" title. I drove it over rock piles, sod piles, some jumps, and then decided to take it on the hill for some scaling and rock racing. I found a great spot that I had forgotten about; the foundation of an old silo. It's basically a hill about 5 feet high at a 50-60 degree angle, covered in very large rocks and grass.

I took multiple lines up the hill, with plenty of roll overs while I figured out how the truck handled itself. Some lines were easy, others were quite a bit more difficult.

The truck managed to pull itself through and lay down some ownage on this test though, clearly we need a bigger hill with some more obstacles for this monster. Even the steep cattle trails weren't enough to stop it.

The 500k oil worked nicely in the diffs, in the above pic ( the pics suck, I didn't have my DSLR with me) I was simply trying to take a picture with the truck on the hill so ignore the look that it was diffing out easily. When you pinned the throttle now compared to stock, the truck was thrashing itself out of whatever you'd try to put it in. I might try 1 million or 2.5 just for kicks and to see how it feels then, or possibly just silly putty (if that can hold up).

The steering is much better than stock with the D772 @ 6v (soon to be 7.4v), however, it was still possible to get the steering frozen because of those flexible plastic links and steering rack. There were also some clearance issues at time but with some of those rocks, it was understandable.

Overall, I had a ton of fun today. I gotta get more batteries and maybe add a lightbar on for some evening driving.

 

[Sneetches]

Well I edited it into the OP but for a bump as well, I tested out the truck some more. Definitely loads of fun, and honestly the video doesn't really do much for the truck since it was simply a lot more engaging to drive now that it doesn't diff out so easily. I need to find a construction site with some gigantic dirt piles. 8)

Axial Yeti XL - Farm bashing - 4S - YouTube

 

[Sneetches]

So i've recently discovered that the stock Tactic receiver does in fact take 7.4v from the Castle BEC. On 7.4v, the Solar D772 feels "awake" now, steering seems responsive and quick enough. I'm going to take the truck up for some rough terrain crawling/bashing to test today and we'll see if the RX holds up or not, but as far as I can see it didn't have a problem once I plugged everything in.

 

[SouthChill]

So i've recently discovered that the stock Tactic receiver does in fact take 7.4v from the Castle BEC. On 7.4v, the Solar D772 feels "awake" now, steering seems responsive and quick enough. I'm going to take the truck up for some rough terrain crawling/bashing to test today and we'll see if the RX holds up or not, but as far as I can see it didn't have a problem once I plugged everything in.

Me neither, yesterday I installed a Savox SB-2274SG with the CCBEC on 7.4V directly to the RX and everything fine...

 

[Sneetches]

I just found it strange because I swear that I read it that the RX was only rated for 6v, so I avoided it until now, but I guess I didn't need to.

More phone pics from a hike through the woods.

King of the Rock(s) ;-)

These aren't any pebbles either. I was able to actually come down that side of the rock pretty nicely.

Flexing of course.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with performance so far. The size is a double edged sword sometimes for trails. On tight, technical stuff, you've got the wrong truck. For straighter lines and just generally running stuff over because of it's sheer size, it's a whole lot of fun. I'll have to take my SCX10 Deadbolt on the same trail walk just to see how they both feel, which I know doesn't seem like much of a comparison, but I just want to do it anyways.

 

[Bronco39]

Thanks for the info - I definitely see a Yeti in my future !

 

[Sneetches]

So this weekend I've been hunting and have seen a lot of spots that made me wish I had the XL on me at that moment. If I try for another video some time here, I want to do some real hill climbs and more crawling. Theres a couple steep, rocky inclines that I'd love to take a spin on.