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The Telluride Project

Keep up the solid threads!!! This rig is cool as heck.

Learning of the swb slash chassis makes me go measure for a sxs body I have been saving to make a scale version of my Kawasaki KRX 1000.

Great info.

Thanks Ross
 
^^Thank you, it's a 275mm wheelbase if it's helpful.

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Got a few minutes after softball practice this morning and stopped on the way home to hit a few lines and try out the new setup.

The "VFO" aka center diff did exactly what it was supposed to do. I didn't pull it apart, but it felt much looser than when I was testing...wondering if some leaked a bit. In any case, It was kind of a mixed bag... 90% of the time I never even noticed it. It only came into play on super steep inclines and declines. It definitely added stability when climbing - the tendency to rear backwards was gone BUT at creep speeds and trying to finesse my way up and over something, I'd get rear wheel stall completely. I had to use a bit more throttle than I like and eventually enough friction would build up and the rear wheels would kick in and dig. Of course, I would then almost launch off of the rock... I did get pretty much everywhere I wanted to go though, so I can't say it was a loss but it's not my driving style.

One good thing was on steep descents, it never wanted to endo at all - I set my drag brake to roll slowly on my trucks, and that combined with the diff allowing some front wheel slippage meant this thing worked it way down some damn steep inclines. Never thought of that, but I guess that exactly what a center diff does. Adds F/R stability.

So 2M oil is not thick enough...and it doesn't get much thicker than that. I've ordered some moldable silicone ear plugs which I'm told will allow some slip but not much - sounds like exactly what I need. I'm sure I'm going to end up back with the slipper and rear UD gears eventually, but its fun for the time being experimenting.

On my test rock, can see the rear wheels are static but the fronts are digging... good, and exactly what I was looking for but didn't really get me anywhere.
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Still sidehills like a boss. Tires were not much gripper than the PL tires... Hmmm.... Not sure if that's a function of the driveline changes or the tires themselves. They are staying for now.
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Swaybars for sure got everything under control, but the rear was a bit too heavy for trail/rock duty. I've since switched over to the lightest bar front and rear.
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In the meantime, I'm looking at ways to add a bit of weight up front. I've added 1/2 oz just behind the front bumper to get to exactly 50/50 but I think a bit more will help.
 
I wanted to get a more weight up front... I found out lead strips can tuck in on top of the arms just below the driveshafts. Perfect! That's about as low as I can go with weight so I crammed about 64g of lead up front
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Painted it black and it blends right in there. Tucked a little bit on the chassis just behind the front bumper too. It's about as low down and forward as I can get it. I'm finally over the hump at 51/49 weight balance.
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THe center diff defintely was leaking and going soft, so I took it out and swapped back in the slipper and a fresh 87t gear...I still want to experiment with the center diff, but I'm waiting on some more "diff goo." Plus I have to clean up this mess...yuk. I also installed the UD gears out back. It's pretty aggressive, curious to see how it reacts. I didn't realize the diffs were just pin lockers...1 pin in a plastic cup. They're not going to last long, I've had these rip apart on my TT02 pretty easily. Defintely looking to beef that up.
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Finally, I played around a bit and found out that some narrow 25mm 2.2's I bought by mistake had just enough offset to clear the front knuckles.. Excellent! I tried to mount up some 2.2's, but had an absolute beotch of a time on those super narrow wheels. I tried stretching some Duratrax 1.9's over it and it came out pretty decent.. I've got them stuffed with CI foams, so now it had some proper crawler footwear all around. Maybe not the best 1.9 tires, but I had them laying around and they feel leaps and bounds more grippy than SC tires.
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It's put up or shup up time now, probably the most performance oriented setup I can come up with for this platform. Curious to see how it all works out!
 
What size is the inner of the SC wheels, 2.9? Do the wider arms hurt or help with the steering clearance for the inner wheel?

Just judging by the looks, that is a heck of a difference in gearing front to rear? Will the slipper take that up or just wheel spin?
 
SC wheels are 2.2/3.0. Wider arms don't make a difference in steering throw, it's the weird front knuckle that causes interference. Having said that, a wider track will widen the steering radius.

It is a heck of a difference, 38% by my math. The slipper won't have any effect, the front wheels are spinning faster than the rear at all times. I won't be trail running with this setup, it's way too much OD - it's just for playing on rocks. When I get the center diff sorted, I'm curious how that will interplay with the overdrive. Might take the edge off enough for trail running, or be completely useless not sure.
 
More updates, this rig just keeps evolving. I'm determined to make a killer performer out of it...I know it's in there somewhere!

I picked up these Integy front shock towers for all of $16 each on clearance, so I had no qualms about hacking one up. Which is why I bought it! I was looking for a flat plate design to open up some shock mounting options and these were perfect. Cut off the outer shock mounts and used the holes already there for the body mounts as upper shock mounts. Laid down the shocks a bit and gave me a narrower upper mount which meant...
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I could cut a hole in the body to drop it down lower since it was sitting on the front tower. Hacked off about 3/4" from the bottom and now it just looks mean!
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My soul brother Al Bundy is not impressed... :) He refuses to get his hair cut until he finds just the right barber - I also haven't cut mine in 8+ months. Not sure of that's a badge of honor or not. Still the funniest show ever made imo.
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Anyway, so I snuck out after softball again to do some testing... 1.9's with good foams, lower CG, lots of OD, should be a pretty good performer, right? Nope. It was worse than when running the damn center diff.
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Looked badass out there, but couldn't climb worth a damn. That's about as far as it would go and it would just sit there and spin. Tires flat sucked, I don't know if they needed some break-in or what, but I had better grip with the SC tires.
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I brought along the swaybars and did some testing - in the end, I removed them both front and rear. I ran some lines with and without and seemed to do better without. I do have progressive rate springs in back and seems like they do the job the swaybars should do. It just seems to "stick" to the rock better overall without.
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Surprisingly, still sidehilled pretty decent, but that was pretty much the only bright spot. Odd with so much OD
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The OD made it far worse overall. There's just not enough weight on the front end to take advantage of it, and the front and rear are doing 2 totally different things, so it broke traction constantly. Plus the CVD's were not happy at all - lots of chatter and some cracking sounds to boot. Lots of OD definitely put some stress on them, and frankly they are the only spot I'm worried out in the drivetrain.
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Ok, so back to the drawing board....

Kept the slipper and went back to the stock gears all around losing the OD. I smushed the earplugs in the center diff and they feel great, but I stripped the screw holes in the housing and the thin plastic cover is not seating correctly. POS. So it's sitting for now, and I'm not about to pony up $70 for the HD metal unit. Ridiculous. HR makes an aluminum casing, I might spring for that though. I can always use it in another truck if it doesn't work here. (I bought a 4x4 rustler slider to sop up the spare parts from these two builds)

Then I got a wild hair... I was thinking about weight distribution and kinda wishing I had a lighter motor since it's all the way in back. What am I thinking, of course I have a lighter motor! I've got a bucket of motors sitting here....I was thinking about a Holmes outrunner initially, but the output shaft had to be cut to work with the GRU. Nope. Not doing that. I already had cut the shaft on the Tamiya X-acto mini motor, so in it went. It's not a crawler motor, and it's not exactly torquey so it needs to be geared down quite a bit. But it is much lighter! Works good in my Tamiya builds, should be ok here since it's somewhat light.
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I put a heatsink on that bad boy which just pokes out the existing hole in the body. The motor is not 3S rated, so I dropped back to 2S which isn't the worst thing in the world since I can use some lighter packs I had laying around from the Capra. I'm geared as low as I can go with the Slash diff gears and it's in the ballpark, but I ordered another set of 'pede gears to open up a few more gearing options.
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Between the motor and battery, I dropped 110g from the chassis. Not bad!

I hacked up the tires a bit... the build I bought them for a while ago never happened, so I didn't feel too bad breaking out the scissors. Removed every other center lug and siped every other outer lug. Not sure how they'll work and they aren't pretty but they definitely feel more grippy. I did break the cardinal rule and added some weight the the front wheels - not too much, 66g per wheel. Really, it's only the last place I can add it.
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Moving the weight from the chassis to the front really made a difference. It was very balanced before, but I can feel just handling it that it is now much more front heavy. According to my scales, I'm at 2445g (or 5.3lbs for those in Rio Linda) with 54% of that on the front wheels. Not bad. Fingers crossed for the next test!
 
Meanwhile on the "Go Fast" Telly, I completed the Bandit arm swap. I think it came out fantastic. Took it for a spin and it was a hoot to drive. My daughter was taking the pics... this is the best one I got. :)
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Came back in and fiddled with it a bit and found out Gearhead 1.9's fit with a bit of trimming and some wider hexes up front. I think it looks freaking great! So I'm going to turn this one into a trail truck - kind of what my crawler Telly started out as before I went crazy with it. I think the stance is spot on!
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Ordered another 3:1 reduction unit and some scale bits and have all the lights and bits I just took off the crawler, I'll get them mounted on here. Thinking I need to paint one since they look so much alike.
 
on mine, i've been running slayer wheels (narrower stance and 14mm hexes) with the wider slash arms and IIRC, its narrower than the stock telluride. I've cut /stretched a few sets of tires and run it a bunch of different ways (short and long chassis) and with a 56t spur, 9t pinion, 21t motor and the lower stampede gears, its plenty slow with still enough to have fun trailing.



even though its one of the simplest builds I've done, its by far the most fun to drive and everyone loves it. since parts are easy to get/replace, its the one that I let everyone drive and it never doesn't bring smiles.
 
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Meanwhile on the "Go Fast" Telly, I completed the Bandit arm swap. I think it came out fantastic. Took it for a spin and it was a hoot to drive.



could you post some pics of the front arms with (if any) mods? The one article i found that did this swap had to cut/trim quite a bit of the outer support to fit the steering knuckle, but it looks like your arms are more parallel to the ground, so maybe not as much trimming???

either way, BA rigs. I love that others appreciate these things
 
Yup, sure did. I'll get a pic next time I'm down there.

Not much to see really - the only really noticeable part is the outer cross brace on the arm - I cut that back pretty good. They fit together ok, but there's no movement. The Slash/Telly arms are beveled on the outer edges and the Bandit arms are not - that's 90% of what needs to be done. I just kept trimming a bit at a time, both on the arm and the knuckle until I got a full range of motion.
 
Started converting over the other Telly into a trail runner... It was fun going fast, but as soon as I put those bandit arms on, I knew I was going to convert it over. I'll call it the Trail Telly. :)

First things first - locked the diff up front, and used the silicone plugs in the rear. Never tried this setup yet, curious to see how it does. I picked up 2 lockers, so I have one ready to go if needed. I did rebuild the center diff with an aluminum case, I have it on standby for random experiments.
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Pic of the front where I had to hack out a bit to use the Bandit arms.. I did remove quite a bit of material, but there's still plenty there. Looks terrible close up... looked nice and smooth and precise to me, but I can't see a damn thing up close anymore. Getting old sucks!
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Brought the lights over from the crawler since I no longer needed them.
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Also brought over the motor and GRU - basically I replicated the setup I used on the crawler. I did leave the receiver box on, spring season is here and some waterproofing would be nice. I broke out into hives driving through the wet with the Crawler Telly, the receiver is way exposed and not waterproof in the slightest.
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Found these cage panels online and I'm not 100% sure what they represent, but I thought they looked pretty cool, and makes it a bit different from the crawler.
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SSD wheels and PL Predator TSL's. Won't have any grip problems with this truck, that's for sure.
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Compared to the crawler... the Trail Telly sits a bit higher and has a bit more ground clearance.
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Some numbers for the nerds like me: the Trail Telly wights in at exactly 5lbs and 50/50 weight balance. I've got some SSD brass wheel rings on order to add some front weight, should end up around 5.5lbs total with 54% up front. Should do fine. I have to figure out the rear toe situation... the Bandit arms have about 2d or so of rear toe and the bulkheads have 2.5 or so, so I've got a ridiculous 4d total in back. Looks terrible. I can reverse the bandit arms, but putting the shocks out back means hacking quite a bit out of the body and I'm not quite ready to do that yet. Not sure what to do there yet. I'll figure something out, I have a bunch of hubs laying around to play with.

The Crawler telly lost its motor of course, so I bit the bullet and ordered a Holmes Stubby Revolver in 1800kv flavor. I thought I had one, but it's the standard version - I wanted the stubby since it's lighter. Figured this platform had been working way better than I expected, so I feel better about throwing cash at it. :) Who am I kidding, I would have done it anyway! I swapped out the diff gears F/R for Stampede gears as well to give me more gearing options.


On a side note, I didn't abandon going fast, I picked up a Rustler 4x4 roller a while ago. I was debating using the lower CG chassis on the crawler, but decided not to for now. Think the crawler body looks pretty decent! I'll save this for a different thread.
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UPS made a stop - on time as always! I'm like one of Pavlov's dogs...I hear the UPS truck idling out front, and I start drooling. :)

Anyway, some goodies showed up the the Traxxas Twins (Not to be confused with the Thompson Twins for all you 80's fans out there) I had a MicroX/Revolver combo in my Capra that I have since sold...I ordered a Copperhead ESC and Revolver Stubby to split the pair. The lightweight MicroX and Stubby are going in the Crawler Telly as it's probably the lightest combo I can put together. The Copperhead will pair up with the Revolver and get installed into something, no idea what yet. A 3:1 reduction arrived as well..
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and just like that, all mounted up and ready to go. I had to trim just 1mm off the motor pinion shaft to use the GRU, not nearly as much as I thought.
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The Trail Telly got some SSD brass wheel rings for a nice 200g weight boost up front.
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Both were charged up and ready to roll Sunday morning.
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First the Crawler: I've removed the OD, lowered it a bit, cut the tires, and installed an Outrunner. It's back in business! And Damn, it's loud. I know outrunners are loud, but this one seems especially vocal. Yikes. In any case, it's back to crawling like a champ. Cutting the tires made a world of difference in grip, but I think there's still more to be had. I went everywhere I wanted to go except the 1 hard climb... it's now my goal to get this rig up that one line. I'll be experimenting a bit with pinions, weight, and tires - I think it's doable. it's right there, balance is good just needs a bit more grip to get up the rock. Think I'm almost done with this one, not sure what else other than fine tuning I can do with it.
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The star of the trip was the Trail Telly. Putting that weight up front in the tires apparently makes a lot of difference since this rig killed it out there. It still has an semi open rear diff, but it didn't matter - this truck went everywhere today. It did everything the Crawler did no sweat (it also failed the hard line test, but it gave it hell.) I'm sure the PL Predator tires had something to do with it, they were like suction cups on the rocks compared to the Duratrax tires I have on the crawler.
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Cleared this gap, don't ask me how. More luck than skill!
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I forgot about the servo saver and basher servo so the front wheels were a bit floppy.. the servo is pointing straight here. I drove around it, but I'll need to tighten this up.
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The Mini motor and GRU combo did not have nearly the torque the outrunner had, but did fine for trail running and was smooth enough down low that I could finesse me way up and around some impressive climbs.
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It started making gear clicking noises and lost drive, so I stopped to investigate... Pretty sure I blew up the GRU. :( So I did the walk of shame, drove home, unloaded, tore it down and found the pinion was just loose. I feel like a idiot, lol. First thing I should have checked, I should know better. Oh well. I got 1.5 batteries through it, enough to know what to change.

Came home and ordered a new steering rack, did some shock oil changes (from 50w down to 30wt, it was pretty stiff out there) and dropped down to a 9t pinion...and that's pretty much it.
 
Another 2 hours yesterday afternoon and I've got the Trail Telly dialed. Wheels as good as anything I own, and better in some ways. I added an aluminum steering setup, harder spring from my stash on the saver with it cranked all the way down and a 25kg servo and now it actually steers where I want it...mostly. Sidehills almost as good as it's big brother, and has better clearance under the diffs and better steering due to the narrower arms. Still needs a better steering servo - the 25kg isn't the best, but it's what I had.
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No issues with water on this one, I left the receiver box on the chassis so I wasn't breaking out in hives every time I got near water.
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There's a tough line through here - down one rock and up another, and if you make a mistake, the truck is going swimming. The water was way high due to some heavy rain Friday night - if it went in, it was going down the creek a ways. But no worries, the Telly didn't even break a sweat.
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Trail carnage... pulled out a steering link. Hmm... didn't have a spare, and didn't want to thread back on. Quick trail thinking, I wedged a small stick in the rod end and threaded it back on. It was just enough to help the threads re-bite into the plastic, and it held all the way back to the parking lot.
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Walked right up a sheer face. Having open wheels means if I can get a tire on it, I can usually get up on it.
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For sure, this one is a keeper. Going to add a few more aluminum bits maybe go with some lighter shock oil and that's pretty much it.

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As for the crawler....I did some more testing - no pics though. I added a rear diff - same silicone earplug filled diff as the Trail truck and it really calmed it down. This platform has a solid coupling to the rear diff, but a shaft drive front diff with just a tick of play. So when getting on the throttle, it moves the rear wheels first which can sometimes throw the truck off line. In driving the Trail telly, it is very, very stable when climbing whereas the crawler was a bit more on edge, so I copied the rear diff idea over and voila! The rear diff is doing what I had hoped the center diff would and basically letting the front pull 100% of the time and letting the rear slip on occasion. It only slips when most of the weight is on one of the rear tires, then it will somewhat diff out. Before though, that rear tire would keep digging and push the truck off line. I don't know how else to explain it, but it really makes a difference. Learning a lot of things with these two trucks. :) I still didn't get up the hard line I was shooting for, but it was way more predictable, and honestly it came down to grip. Just isn't enough with those tires for whatever reason.

So having said that, I think I've gone as far as I can go with it, and it's time for a new chapter. Finally found a cheap Slash 4x4 roller for all of $120. Driveline is complete, no shocks or body - perfect. Not sure what's going on - the driveline spins very hard but it overall looks lightly used. Time to tear it down and start transferring parts.
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Such cool looking rigs. They look great out on the rocks!

Nice MacGyver fix out on the trail!"thumbsup" I'll have to keep that tip in mind.

Looking forward to seeing what you have planned for the Slash 4x4. I've got one laying here that needs some ideas thrown at it!
 
This is one of my favorite threads to drop in on and catch up..."thumbsup"

Kit-bashing with Traxxas gear is a great idea, being as how so many rigs have been built from the same basis - and parts availability is TOPS!

Plus, in many case you can upgrade to RPM parts, or aluminum from a host of brands.

And the Slash has had a very wide variety of bodies released for it over the years - I have a sweet vintage Parma body that is gonna get cut up and slapped on a flat-rail Bomber chassis down the road (wheelbase and width matches!).
 
Thanks fells, it's been fun. Love my solid axle rigs for sure, but I've been out in the woods wheeling them since...what, 2008? 2009? It's been a long time. Messing with something different is refreshing and a challenge. And I'm learning a bit.

You're absolutely right Durok, I picked the 4x4 platform since it's got gobs of hop up parts readily available, can usually be found somewhat reasonably priced (very important right now!!) and the base chassis is pretty flexible. Very similar to my Tamiya's where things are mix and match. I've got 3 different widths, 3 different wheelbases, HCG, LCG, tall and short shock towers, 3 diffs or 3 lockers or any combination therof...and on and on. :)

I've got all the parts from the Telly over on the Slash chassis... it's a lot longer and a lot wider. I'd like to find some kind of buggy body for it, but it's a bit tough unless I want something like a 1/8 race buggy... Which I might. :) With a twist of course. Lots of Slash bodies out there, it's good to have options!
 
Just a heads up if you run the telluride radio box it fits right behind the front shock tower and bolts into stock holes, It gets a bit more weight up front and centered in chassis. You can also trim the sides of chassis to narrow it a bit if you want, obviously lose a bit of strength but you can then use some aluminum angle or something else to stiffen it back up.
 
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