The best things in life come in pairs...

[89redranger]

Aaaalright...here we go. I bitch about a lack of forum activity while the Zuckerturd machine takes over the world. I guess I should probably work on being the change I would like to see...[emoji17]

Anyway, short and sweet first post.

Horizon had a sale. My son was due for a new project, and I haven't owned anything I could crawl in a while. My absolutely amazing girlfriend saw this as an opportunity to spoil my son and I. She ordered them, they showed up, and I took a picture. The end. For now.

Please excuse the image size. Tapacrap gives me two options...tiny or huuuuuge. You get huge I guess. [emoji2371] i will try changing my default image size for forum pics in the future I guess. Only way I can see to fix it.

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[89redranger]

First victim...little man's truck.

Shimmed the drive shafts/pinions with some Traxxas washers (TRA1985), peeled most of the stickers, chromed the headlight buckets with a Molotow chrome pen, and swapped the servo horn for a billet Axial unit I've had laying around for years.

I also have some beadlocks and CI dual stage foams for him when the time comes. For now, he's convinced he likes the Axial dish sponges and stock wheels. He's 7 and attracted to the shiny stuff...he'll learn soon enough what actually makes better foams better.

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[89redranger]

Then came mine...

Pulled and sold the stock electronics without ever even plugging them in. Swapped the stock wheels and tires for some Pro-Line G8 compound KM3s wrapped around Axial 8-hole beadlocks, and they're stuffed with CI foams. Then we peeled all my stickers, chromed the light buckets, and shimmed the drive shafts and pinions.

New electronics include my Futaba 4PM, one of their R334SBS receivers, a Castle BEC 2.0, a Protek 370TBL with a Vanquish 20mm horn, a Hobbywing 1080, and a Team Brood 35T Apocalypse handwound brushed motor. And LOTS of custom wiring to keep things neat and tidy.

Spent about 6 hours shortening wires, crimping new servo plugs, adding connections to make things modular, and slimming things down. The system is wired so my receiver grabs 6V from the 1080's internal BEC...this runs my stock lights at correct voltage and prevents my receiver from having to carry the full amperage my servo draws. The servo is wired to the BEC 2.0 to get a full 8V and as much amperage as it wants.

Soon...3D printed battery tray adapters and our first crawl. [emoji48]

 

[89redranger]

Ignore the two wires woven between the tubes below the hood. One goes to the HW 1080, the other goes to the BEC 2.0. These allow tuning without dismantling the car and will be unplugged and removed later. Either with tweezers or the next time I have the skid out. They're basically just extensions with servo plugs on each end.

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[HumboldtEF]

Thats awesome! They look good de-stickered


My first axial was a Wraith 2.2 and because of that I've had my eye on the 1.9 Wraith since it released. I ended up pulling the trigger yesterday, I finally had a good excuse to buy something I didnt need because it was my birthday

I also plan to ditch the RTR electronics, I'm guessing a kit version will be announced tomorrow :lmao: (Axial has said they have no plans for a kit though).

 

[89redranger]

Thats awesome! They look good de-stickered


My first axial was a Wraith 2.2 and because of that I've had my eye on the 1.9 Wraith since it released. I ended up pulling the trigger yesterday, I finally had a good excuse to buy something I didnt need because it was my birthday

I also plan to ditch the RTR electronics, I'm guessing a kit version will be announced tomorrow :lmao: (Axial has said they have no plans for a kit though).

You won't be disappointed man. It's a rig that has it quirks for sure, like the tires that hit the cage even with the limited steering angle of the stock dogbones, but it's neat. I can see these making for lots of grins.

 

[Steve g]

Nice. My son and my first crawlers were also wraiths (2.2). Still our most used trucks

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[89redranger]

Built a set of rod end modded Traxxas big bores for a local guy in exchange for him printing a pair of the battery trays I drew up the other night. These fit a typical 2200 3s pack PERFECTLY.

Little man's BEC showed up today also. So, naturally, I peeled the shrink tube off and saturated it in Team Brood's silicone conformal coat. After dinner him and I will recover it in fresh shrink tube, pull his rig apart to install it, install a Holmes 35T Trailmaster I'm tired of looking at with a 12T pinion, and then rewire everything. His lights will end up rewired to a servo plug and run off the receiver. Same as my rig, the Castle BEC will power the servo by itself through a hand built y-harness. Then all the wires and leads will get shortened up to eliminate clutter.

While I actually drove my rig yesterday for a bit while he drove his Mom's Element, tomorrow should be our first real trail day together.

 

[grob23]

Looking awesome! Reminds me of my Wraith... same Axial 8 hole beadlocks and a de-stickered black body8)

Except, my electronics don't look near as nice and I don't have a fancy battery tray. Looks like an awesome part!

 

[89redranger]

Looking awesome! Reminds me of my Wraith... same Axial 8 hole beadlocks and a de-stickered black body8)



Except, my electronics don't look near as nice and I don't have a fancy battery tray. Looks like an awesome part!

Thank you. Personally always liked the Axial wheels. Light, easy to mount PL tires on, and cheap. Can't go wrong. And black is hard to conflict with. Makes for an easy neutral while I try to decide what color I want to paint my next lid.

The trays came out nice. But these were definitely a rushed quick job. Need to thin up V2 a bit and alter the velcro loops for ease of use. But these got us rollin. The V2 design will then end up expanded into a model for smaller, lighter packs yet. Most likely the files will end up dumped somewhere you guys can get to them when I'm done. I don't have the patience to sell toy car parts anymore.

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[89redranger]

Got little man's rig finished up today. Did get a quick crawl session in but, it was already getting late quick and we had to get dinner going and get him ready for school tomorrow.

Both rigs turned out better than I could ask for. Just a matter of tuning and tinkering as we drive the wheels off them. On the list of future upgrades is a set of universals for the front axle, a link set, some TRX-4 shocks, a little more weight at all 4 corners, and possibly drive shafts. Otherwise, they perform very well.

The weight bias is honestly almost perfect...but they lack overall weight. These rigs flat out feel too light. Steering angle isn't great, but it works somehow. An increase in steering angle or a drastic drop in ride height would surely require smaller tires anyway. Even the stock tires hit the slider portion of the cage at full lock/full articulation...with dogbones.

Overall though, 9/10. Even his damn near bone stock rig is a total blast on the trail.

 

[89redranger]

Well, I ended up parting out my Formula Offroad Capra yesterday. [emoji17] Found so many cracks in the wide XR modded 10.1 housings that I don't care to repair it. Especially knowing it will just happen again and again. It is what it is.

But, that leads to some free upgrades for the Wraith 1.9 RTR. Snagged the TRX4 shocks and Incision drive shafts, cleaned them up, swapped springs on the shocks (orange front/white rear), and fabricated a quick delrin cross member to tie the rear shock mounts together. I did notice however, if you use TRX4 shocks you actually need a 1mm spacer at the lower shock mount or the rod end binds against the lower link mount during articulation, which causes deflection and binding in the shock shafts. Some little blue 1mm Element/Associated spacers between the lower pivot balls and shock mounts fixed that quickly.

I also noticed that the stock shock mounting locations left the front and rear shocks very unbalanced travel-wise front to rear. With the rears in the stock position the front had more droop and the rear had WAAAY more compression travel. Standing the rear shocks up, the very rear hole in the tower, fixed that. It also added a little roll resistance.

Balanced travel, less tire rub on the body, better damping, better spring rates, less flex in the rear shock mounts, and less drivetrain slop...a win in my book. [emoji41]

 

[89redranger]

Progress pics. [emoji1787] Seems they never get parked these days.

 

[89redranger]

Not sure what Tapacrap's issue is with the pics in my previous post, or posting images in general. Anywho, on with the show.

I sent BP Custom Chassis (BPC) a request a while back for some of their axle trusses/servo on axle mounts for one piece RTR style 10.2 axles, but in aluminum. Bruce got back to me quick and, after sending me the style for kit type axles first by accident, sent me these to try out.

They weren't originally headed for this car. But I had had enough of the flimsy ass stock panhard mount and crappy steering. As expected, the steering now feels very precise and direct. When I turn the wheel, IT STEERS! As an added bonus, my CG has dropped, there is more applied weight on the front axle, and less weight in the chassis trying to flip the truck backward when the suspension droops on climbs.

Install was fairly straight forward. Just install using your factory diff cover screws, a couple M3x8s to tie them to the molded trusses, and I put a single 2mm Axial spacer between the servo mount and molded truss at the outside ends. I used one of the extra plastic links included with the truck to add the necessary second front upper link. Then I whipped up a simple temporary drag link from 8-32 allthread and a couple Revo ends I had laying around.

Real links are coming soon. And sticking with the theme of the rig, I think I'll build those myself on a budget. I mean, I've only been waiting a month to hear back from three different vendors that are supposed to be the shit when it comes to links...

 

[89redranger]

Recently swapped the stock rear links for the longer units included with the RTR. This bumped the wheelbase up to about 12-3/8". Noticed a pretty significant difference in torque twist and forward weight bias. Especially now that the swervo is mounted on the front axle.

Also moved the ESC and stock ESC mount to the left side of the truck, opposite the motor. Now that the servo is mounted on the front axle that side was a bit light. And, obviously, balancing the rig out side to side improved a few things.

Other than that, we've just been driving the crap out of them. And getting driven over. And getting filthy cleaning this damn Central Oregon moon dust off every time we take them anywhere. [emoji1787]

Note to self: NEED to go pick up a new air compressor soon.

 

[89redranger]

Haven't been doing a lot of crawling...not a lot of time to do so. But we did pick up some Chanquish wheels for both rigs. Love the classic look. And I'm sure the extra weight won't hurt.

Also have another set of G8 KM3s and CI foams coming for little man. And I'm fixing to order some goodies for Winter rebuilds. Links, fresh bodies and paint, billet knuckles and diff covers, an outrunner setup for mine, and little man will most likely be getting my old HW1080/Brood Apocalypse 35T.

I may donate my Protek 370TBL to him as well so I can give something else a try. Seems servo tech has went through the roof in the last few years. A fresh $100 bill will get you a whole lot of beef these days. Considering I've been using this exact Protek for almost 3 years now, and in like 5 different rigs, I'm excited to try something new.

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[89redranger]

When we first picked these rigs up I had shimmed the pinions tight with Traxxas 5x8x0.5mm "fiber washers." Yesterday I tore the diffs down for some basic maintenance and noticed the gears had started to really lap together. No funky wear or anything, just breaking in well. REALLY WELL. Polished gear teeth and all. **Shimming gears out of the box DOES make a difference.**

So I went ahead and pulled the ring and pinions and cleaned them spotless and checked the gear lash. To my surprise, the gears had settled in considerably and the lash had gotten quite loose...the front-rear rolling slop that had developed was driving me nuts.

Beings these rigs still have the one piece sintered ring gear/spool I can get away with shimming the pinions in a bit deeper without fear of the pinions chewing on my spools. So I swapped out the Traxxas shims for a stack of 5 Tekno 5x7x0.1mm shims on each pinion. I ended up at 3 shims (0.3mm) inside each housing and the remaining 2 shims (0.2mm) between the outer pinion bearing and drive shaft.

The result is almost zero lash...goodbye slop, both trucks run quieter and smoother, and these cheap sintered gears everybody else loves to hate will last another year or two easily. No need for fancy a$$ machined gears and spools, unless you need UD/OD or run wild brushless power.

I think we'll just swap in some Stealth X transmissions beings I already have a couple to play with in order to get OD/UD. Like the one pictured. Which is stuffed with HR UD2 gears (18.46% UD at the rear output), an inverse top shaft for spur-forward orientation, a Bowhouse SVT spur adapter with a Kimbrough spur, and I shaved the bottom of the case to lower the whole trans.

Sorry guys, wasn't in tutorial mode...forgot pics.

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[89redranger]

I started playing with some LEDs. The stock 5mm units just weren't cutting it. These 10mm units robbed from a Powershift RC VS4-10 OEM light kit really throw out the light though.

Installation was as simple as removing the stock units and taking my body ream to the stock buckets. The 10mm units are now a snug press fit and don't move. These are wired individually for 3s/12V use though, so I need to tie them to my main pack somehow yet. Or...install the Powershift 2 position switch with integrated 12V booster that I've been sitting on for 2 years.

Unfortunately, my phone doesn't care for the 6000k+ color temps of any of these LEDs...and neither do my eyes. So, before I go wiring everything, I'm going to order some 10mm units that are closer to the color of natural light...4000-5000k. I may also pick up some straw hat (wide viewing angle) units to play with beam patterns.

10mm units:

Stock 5mm:

 

[89redranger]

Said piss on it and just wired up the 6000k LEDs. Also rewired the whole truck...for the 3rd time. When I originally swapped to the SOA setup I had just stuck my RX to the back of the radiator with double sided tape. While this worked, it was messy. Also wasn't liking my BEC/RX adapter harness after the swap.

In order to clean up the clutter I relocated the RX to the back side of the stock battery tray on the passenger side, under the interior panel. I did have to just melt the corner of the lexan floor/firewall to clear my RX plugs/wiring. Nothing major though. Then I routed the headlight wiring across the "core support" and up along the cage tubes under the fender. A single piece of shrink tube holds wiring to the tube at the section closest to the front, the JST plug pinches between the body and cage tube which keeps it from moving. The Powershift 12V booster/switch is in the belly of the rig next to the motor. I have already spliced and terminated a second JST connection on the booster/switch so I can plug in my rock lights as soon as they show up.

I then whipped up a simpler BEC/RX harness to feed my servo all the BEC has to offer with a clean signal from my RX. Normally I splice in a second ground for the RX that meets the ground from the BEC at the servo end of things. This time I cut and soldered one at the junction in the middle of the harness...so much cleaner. And then I twisted the wires in a way where the soldered wire has some strain relief...no broken solder joints in the future.

 

[89redranger]

Haven't messed with these much in a while. Winter weather and holiday family activities have put a real damper on things.

But, we did get my son some tires finally. He didn't care much for the KM3s when they showed up so they got returned. Instead, he ended up picking out these TSL XLs at the local hobby shop yesterday and we mounted them up last night. Even paid for them himself with the money he had saved.

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