Sneetch's 1.9 Wraith

[Brake Weight]

Are you going to leave the fender flares on the unpainted body? I love how those look.

[Sneetches]

Originally Posted by calcagno45

Good notes on the 1080. I have one in route so I’ll be cautious as well.

Man the Wraith on 1.9s looks mint! With the frame rails, it’s c2 legal?

I've read the rules a few times and I believe so. The only ones you have to watch would be the rule about the inside of the tires can't be outside the cab width, and wheelbase must be 3" shorter than length of the chassis rails. With my rails that means the most WB I could legally run would be 12.3", which is fine anyways, however I'm wondering about the rule whether the length is taken from total length of the rails with bends or without bends.

Originally Posted by Brake Weight

Are you going to leave the fender flares on the unpainted body? I love how those look.

Most likely, so far this is the most indecisive I've been about the body choice and color so I might just plasti-dip this one for now so I can peel it off later if I don't like it lol.

Anyways, I apparently lied yesterday that I'd have to wait for a good day, turns out yesterday was the perfect day to head out and test (I took those pics earlier on). I loaded up the 1.9'er and the SCX10 II and headed for the comp spot.

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The setup for now:

Holmes Hobbies SHV500
Hobbywing Quicrun WP 1080
Holmes Hobbies 21T 550 Trailmaster - geared 13/56
Flysky RX/Gt3C

Pro-Line Scaler shocks - 2 stage springs F/R - 30 wt F/R
Hot Racing Wraith Sway bar - "softest" bar on rear

Pitbull 1.9 Rock Beast XLs - CI DD soft outers Front / medium outers Rear
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So I got about an hour of run time on the rig so far and I'm very please with the performance, I just have a few smaller things to adjust. I'll just list them so my ramblings are a bit easier to follow.

1. Sways bars: Being that this is the first time I've driven a class 2 style rig with them, it definitely felt different. The rig seemed to sidehill just fine, but my main points of interest are the spots where you are going into a dip with the front axle and the rear suspension gets loaded on one side. I can't tell yet if the rear bars are hurting performance when they don't let the suspension opposite of the tipping side unload and droop further, or if they're helping by resisting in the direction the rig is tipping towards. I guess I will have to try the same lines with and without them to find out.

2. Overdrive/Underdrive: Since this rig has none (currently) and my class 2 Deadbolt did, I immediately noticed it in the turns. However, the only problem I see is that given the size of the AR44 gears, the overdrive gears are really only offering about a 10% overdrive compared to the SCX/AX10's up to 25% overdrive. Not sure if this is a worthy change, will have to read some more from anyone who's used the Hot Racing or other brand of OD gears.

Otherwise the rig was driving great and the performance on the stock 1080 was good enough that I didn't even feel the need to break out the programming card. Startup was plenty smooth with the 21T 550 on 3S, and I love the steering angle on the SCX10.2 axles. The only thing I noticed was quite a few times where the SHV500 stalled out, I was kind of surprised since it didn't seem like it should have but perhaps that was a result of running around the 3.8v/cell mark, since it seemed to happen less on a fresh pack. Pictured here is the "Birch Rock" as I have called it, it's one of the best angled rocks at the spot for testing grip and weight bias (it's also got the interesting dark grey pattern which is the line you want to take). I was amazed when I shot right up on the 2nd try, so I expect good things from this buggy in the performance department. With the stock SCX10.II bumpers on the Cherokee you can't even pull up to the rock, and even if you can you simply tip backwards too fast in stock form.


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Given all that, now I need to figure out the aesthetics part. Might be trying to 3d print my own interior to go with the body, but I'll see once the body is on first.

[Sneetches]

So a quick update (pics later)... I sprayed the Pro-Line JK body with some Tamiya Silver and it looks pretty nice. However, I was browsing Freqskinz site and came across a skin that made me switch gears, so I'll try to get that done here and post up some pics.

[Sneetches]

Crap weather so I finally attached the Freqskinz graphics and mounted the side panels for now. Certainly was a bit more meticulous than I thought to get the skin straight on the panels, but I think I got it on there well enough.

[Sneetches]

Well I took some time off but I think I may have caught the bug again when trying to clean up my workshop making room for motorcycle parts, so I started back in on the 1.9 Wraith.

Not too much added right now but the rig still has a small list going before I'm satisfied. I painted the fenders and installed them (RC4WD Wraith fenders). I removed the rear sway bars for now, I think I like it when the rear flexes a bit more. The to-do list for the rig is still kinda like this:

1. Rear fastback look - I'm going to start learning how to braze in an attempt to make my own piece.
2. Headlights + Rear lights - not sure if I just want tail lights or a rear lightbar. Need to redesign the part that'll hold the halo eyes in place.
3. Interior - I'm waiting on a OG Wraith interior now, which will hopefully fit without modifications over the transmission. I'm 3d printing some test seats in the meantime. After that I have some ideas to fill in the rear.
4. Small part stuff: Swap out servo horn (stock Holmes horn bent after the 2nd outing), change out wheel screws to 4-40 x 7/16 because the 5/16 are just a tad too short with the hub caps on.

[JatoTheRipper]

Good looking Wraith!

[Sneetches]

So this weekend was the rare nice day and subsequently I decided to take the Wraith to its first comp. I think for it's first outing it did admirably, however not driving for 6 months or so since my last post didn't help, nor did the fact that the comp grounds changed quite a bit and there were a couple obstacles on the courses that tripped me up. Otherwise, I was not easy on the rig and managed to survive all three courses plus random crawling afterwards. At the end of the day I had it on the bench and noticed my servo horn coming a bit loose and my C-hub screws seemingly backed out a bit, but otherwise nothing else of note.

Electronic wise, I think everything is working great right now and I just need more time driving before making any changes. The 21T 550 worked great on 3S, I had plenty of wheelspeed when messing around later on some steep hill climbs, not 3500kv brushless speed but enough to stay only warm to the touch all day. I used the 1080 programming card on the fly which was nice. The SHV500 put in work sliding the front around for positioning on trickier gates and getting me through the rock creek courses.

I do have plans for the interior so it's a work in progress right now. Anyways, onto some pics:

[Sneetches]

Well it's been a while but I finally decided to go out and test the Predator compound Krawlers. Tested them at the pure rock comp spot and I'm surprised that after 30 minutes of running they don't show any wear, considering the concrete is very gritty. They worked great, but I think having Duece's Wild medium outers up front is too soft. Might have to go complete closed cell rear and then firm outers up front with these tires. I have ideas to give the rig overdrive, namely I'd like to pick up the Enduro Stealth X transmission to see what the fitment is like.