NK's V1 Bomber Build

[NKlamerus]

Starting a thread to document my journey back into RC.

In the mid-2000s through middle school and highschool I started with Tyco vehicles and eventually bought a Duratrax Warhead. We also had Dumas Air Swamp buggies running tower hobbies .64s on them. (Pic Below)

The Warhead was fun for tinkering, mainly because it was WAY more work than the Revo was at the time, and slower. Never got into racing as most of my classes wouldn't allow reverse or 2 speed transmissions, and the Warhead couldn't handle sharp 90 degree turns at all.

I ended up getting out of it when Li-Po stepped in, no more local nitro races and the LHS ended up closing. (NW Florida)

Fast forward to today, I live in Eugene, Oregon and my LHS is Eugene Toy and Hobby, however I still have not seen their showroom since COVID has them closed to the public.

I found a local V1 bomber with some aftermarket parts and bought back into it.

Current setup

21T Traxxas 550
Vanquish Links/Steering
Savox 1230sg/CC BEC
Older Ae-5 Dynamite ESC (no light connection)
Trailing arm plates (not sure on brand)
Metal knuckles/6 lug hubs
"Amazon Special" rims

Running 2S 50C cheap batteries

As with most, putting away for eventual 3S and brushless.

I generally haven't found myself crawling, and prefer to bash/bounce. More on this later

If you recognize the name, I'm also on other fishing, diesel, garage, and tool forums.

All posting through Tapatalk, let me know if there's issues with posts/pics.

First two photos are "small" this one is medium. Which is better?

 

[NKlamerus]

Back to the build

Within the last day I installed the rear sway bar from Axial with the soft spring. Wish I would have driven it with the normal gearing, doesn't seem like it's doing much

I've also been playing with gearing, I bought a harbor freight Allen set and the first one broke while I was trying to remove the pinion set screw....so I had to cut it off.

It was 11/64 gearing.

I switched to 15/64 and topped out about 10.5mph

Today I ran 15/56 and got an extra mph out of it.

Picking up a 12t and 15t motor tonight for real cheap.

I want to try the 12t Traxxas 550 with a 13t pinion and the 56t spur.

Looks like the slipper pads aren't reusable, so I'm using double sided sticky tape until I can pick up more pads tomorrow.

Temps have been easy going, 85-90 ambient temps and I haven't seen anything over 110 in the battery, ESC, or motors.

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[NKlamerus]

More pics

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[NKlamerus]

Let's talk melting

Unfortunately it looks like the titan 550 12t is a dud. I'm getting full voltage to the leads but no life out of it. Ive tried tapping and spinning it.

I just about caught the dynamite 15t on fire. Melting the lead wires, but it was the fastest setup so far! Smells like a Dennis the menace smore in the garage

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[NKlamerus]

Think I've found my happy medium for now

LHS recommended a 17t pinion, he was also running a V1 bomber with 54t spur, 15/17t pinion and 12t Traxxas motor.

I may look for a 12t but the next purchase needs to be some 90mm shocks for the front, probably 100 rear and 90 fronts, seem to be popular among the u4 guys.

It rolls. Every. Time. Not exactly sure how to tune the torsion bar yet, crank the set keys tight? Or loosen them up?

Outside temp is 89 degrees and no wind, ran it for 13 minutes and it hit 163 on the can. Just running around the backyard and a hair of crawling on river rock

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[NKlamerus]

Not sure why I didn't realize this before, I saw these mounts the other day and it never clicked

Moved the rear shocks and lowered the rear, lots of Carolina squat but it's definitely more stable in turns. Sitting at about an inch of rear suspension travel though

Tires and front shocks are the next changes, I'm riding sidewalls in corners, if the rims weren't beadlocks they'd be gone for sure.

Drop hoops would look cooler, but shorter shocks are probably much easier

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[NKlamerus]

Never liked the look of the fuel cell. So I removed it and made some rods for now

Added some wire loom around the body while I learn to not roll it so bad

Went out and had a blast on some gravel, about 30 minutes in and it started clicking. Was thinking spur but after opening the transfer case it was BONE dry of grease....

Really great at doing donuts.

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[NKlamerus]

Sneak peak of what's to come

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[NKlamerus]

Parts inbound

Universal shafts for the front axle should show up this weekend, noticed the dog bones are wearing quicky.

Picking up a bundle of parts today
12t Traxxas 550
Locking spool for front diff (hopefully the right part)
Overdrive gears for front diff
11t pinion so I can swap if I decide to crawl

No one around me has foams, so I'll have to order them

Will need another spool for the rear or leave it factory for now.

Driveshafts are rough, they were packed with sand so I let them sit in an ultrasonic cleaner for an hour last night. Going to lube them up and re use them until I can find some replacements

Metal motor mount would be nice, I think the plastic one is flexing and messing with the spur/pinion mesh. That's where the clicking noise came from

Not a fan of the plastic transfer case housing at all. The screws tightened all the way and the gears get really hard to turn, bearings feel good though

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[NKlamerus]

Would like to pickup an interior of some kind. When I purchased it the only thing there way a metal plate, simple, but hard to work on.

Id like to either make another plate that's removed with magnets or order a plastic interior of some kind

Any recommendations?

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[NKlamerus]

Sitting about 22mph on the new motor.

Pretty pleased with so far, probably going to heat up real quick on some rocks though

That's about all the tires can handle, if they weren't beadlocks they'd Definitely be destroyed. They are ballooning pretty bad

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[NKlamerus]

Funnest 5 minutes I've had with the bomber so far.

Then bam, no steering.

I don't think this happened from speed, a week or so ago I hit a concrete block and tore the stervo horn, it was the right tire as well that hit, and I bet that cracked this.

vanquish stage 1 kit purchased, can't pick it up until tomorrow.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense to reassemble only to disassemble on Sunday when the universal axles show up. So looks like I'm out of run until Monday or so

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[NKlamerus]

Dove into the front axle. Overdrive gears are installed, spool is installed, cleaned up all the bearings I could access and regreased everything.

Have an extra stud bolt that came in the diff kit but it's too small for the driveshaft? Not sure where it goes.

Down time means I can work on aesthetics.

I removed the silver plastic "shock reservoirs" and plan to keep them off.

Pulled the axial trailing arm plates and painting them.

I hate ruining servos with water, And I've got a lot of work experience with flex seal, so I lathered some up on the servo. Heat hasn't been an issue at all so I'm not worried about, going to take 2 coats, just hate how long it takes to dry!

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[NKlamerus]

Stage 1 kit is partially installed! Still waiting on Universal's to show up tomorrow.

Any input on the rotation if the chubs? Seems like everyone rotates them back (clockwise), which raises the steering components? For clearance?

While setting up the front end I noticed a rod end was crooked. Thinking it was broken plastic, I found out the whole link was bent. So I upgraded to the Vanquish titanium rod.

These aftermarket rims must have a much better offset than the factory setups, I was expecting some running issues but I have tons of clearance.

Also picked up some 30w shock oil, it's lower than I wanted to go but my shocks are dry and the shop only has lower than 30, 80, and 100 at the moment.

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[NKlamerus]

Broken knuckle was a blessing in disguise, I was completely missing all the balls out of a ball bearing in one of the hubs, only thing left was the cage, inner race, outer race, and one of the shields

I purchased an entire fast Eddy wraith bearing kit from my LHS and got everything swapped.

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[NKlamerus]

Shocks are cleaned and currently ridding bubbles.

Guess there was more air somewhere originally, I couldn't get the full range if compression

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[NKlamerus]

Shocks are back on, really wish there was a heavier weight but I'll run these for now.

Just ordered some 5.5" Double Duece tire foams, medium firm, from crawler innovations. Unfortunately they won't show up until Wednesday-friday of next week so for now I'm still riding on rim, axial really cheapest out on foams from the factory.


Also ordered some red shock tubes to cover the springs, hate the way dirt sticks to the lower arms. They used to be real popular, now I rarely see people using them? Only 12$ for a 4 pack with shipping. They used to be 8$ a piece

 

[NKlamerus]

Disappointing day.

Shafts came In, looks like I got scammed with Chinese versions, I installed anyways and one of the tolerances was so off that the outer hub bearing got STUCK.

BROKE the Vanquish steering knuckle, and the bearing. The small lip that separates the bearings is sheared off.

So now I'm out a knuckle and shafts. Hoping vanquish can send me another single black knuckle. I'll pick up some axle shafts locally, gonna cost twice as much.

The knuckle I'm SOL on, another 30$ gone if I have to order another pair. And a weeks wait, which means at least the tire foams will be here.

Might order some beef/axle tubes? Undecided, a new ar60 whole tube is only 12.99, whereas need tubes would run 20-60$ depending on where I get them

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[NKlamerus]

At least got the axial plates installed on the rear trailing arms

They look way better black than gold IMO

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[NKlamerus]

I assembled it enough for pictures

Definitely having some issues with the servo, I either rotate the chubs forward, get a shorter servo arm, or raise the servo with some washers?

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