Lovin the axial

[cbtu0914]

Well I have had my ax10 for right at one week now, and the jury is in-It is awesome!!! The wife bought me the rtr version, and in the last week I have already replaced and upgraded several things. It has (so far) a 65t lathe motor, losi speed control (had an extra one lying around from my stike, it's a ton better than the axial esc and water resistant to boot,) replaced all the plastic lower links with some I made from stainless tubing and 8-32 allthread with revo ends, cut tires and foams with 6oz in front and 4 1/2oz in rear, and I just got done doing a droop setup on it. I just ran it for a minute with the droop setup, but it is different, don't know if I'll keep it like that or not, I know some say that the stock chassis isn't the best to droop, but I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I put 70wt in the shocks with pen springs under the pistons, because that's what I had on hand. I want to 4 link the rear but I was curious as to what length everyone is running for upper links, if anyone has a measurement from ball end to ball end I'd appreciate it since I'm fabbing my own with stainless. Thanks for the wealth of info on here, and looks like my wife now has another toy to hate, lol. I will try to get some pics up soon. Thanks again.

[cbtu0914]

Update, today I mounted the lower links inboard, changed oil in shocks to 30wt, experimented with some different springs, and most importantly hit the rock garden out back. Lots of fun, still trying to decide if I like the droop setup or not, but I'll give it a couple weeks of tuning and make a decision from there. My lipo charger will be here this week so I can get that stupid heavy stick pack off the top and mount my little lipo down low.

[Crawling Calvin]

Wait till you get the Lipo, trust me, t will be insane . I only ran mine a few runs with a heavy nhmi and that was enough. I still of all things need to try tire weights, I do "guess" they work good

Just take the upgrades one at a time like your doing and you will be happy to find what you "dont need to do" to get it going, helps so you don't so overly modify the car that... it becomes almost impossible to tell what upgrade did what

[cbtu0914]

My lipo charger came in today, so I charged up the little 1300mah 2s hyperion and mounted it on top of the servo for now, changed the settings on my losi msc-12l to lipo/crawler modes and hit the rocks. What a difference getting that heavy 6 cell pack off of it made, and changing the esc to crawler mode (forgot it had that until I got out the manual to set the lipo cutoff.) It actually seems to have a pretty good drag brake, much better than what the axial esc had, and it runs very cool even when binding the servo up, the axial would overheat and cut out when getting bound up on the rocks. I also changed it back to a sprung setup since my rock pile requires more ground clearance than I could get out of my droop setup (less than 2") maybe once I get my hands on some mini-t springs I'll try droop again. I added a little fuel tubing under the piston in the shock and put the stock springs back on, got my gc down to just a hair under 2 3/4" and it seems to work pretty well, might take it down another 1/4" once I get my hands on some losi white or losi pink springs, just waiting for my lhs to get some back in stock. I must say it crawls so much better and I haven't even gotten rid of the plastic upper links yet, although I am going to try to make a 4 link plate for the rear and a servo/battery tray/4 link plate for the front this week, and then make some more stainless links for the uppers. I read several people suggesting making the uppers the same length as the lowers, is this a good idea? Still kinda new to the crawler suspension geometry thing. Just throwing an update out there, trying to convince the wife to let me buy a star, but you know how wives can be, lol.

[Crawling Calvin]

Originally Posted by cbtu0914

My lipo charger came in today, so I charged up the little 1300mah 2s hyperion and mounted it on top of the servo for now, changed the settings on my losi msc-12l to lipo/crawler modes and hit the rocks. What a difference getting that heavy 6 cell pack off of it made, and changing the esc to crawler mode (forgot it had that until I got out the manual to set the lipo cutoff.) It actually seems to have a pretty good drag brake, much better than what the axial esc had, and it runs very cool even when binding the servo up, the axial would overheat and cut out when getting bound up on the rocks. I also changed it back to a sprung setup since my rock pile requires more ground clearance than I could get out of my droop setup (less than 2") maybe once I get my hands on some mini-t springs I'll try droop again. I added a little fuel tubing under the piston in the shock and put the stock springs back on, got my gc down to just a hair under 2 3/4" and it seems to work pretty well, might take it down another 1/4" once I get my hands on some losi white or losi pink springs, just waiting for my lhs to get some back in stock. I must say it crawls so much better and I haven't even gotten rid of the plastic upper links yet, although I am going to try to make a 4 link plate for the rear and a servo/battery tray/4 link plate for the front this week, and then make some more stainless links for the uppers. I read several people suggesting making the uppers the same length as the lowers, is this a good idea? Still kinda new to the crawler suspension geometry thing. Just throwing an update out there, trying to convince the wife to let me buy a star, but you know how wives can be, lol.

Sounds like you used a few of my tips, way to go

Links...
Aluminum is nice if you can use it, since its light weight.
I "prefer" Delrin but thats just me (even lighter... blah blah blah)
Stainless is "nice" but its HEAVY and for upper links... hmm, maybe not so smart

As for equal it REALLY helps a LOT with torque twist (as well as 4 linking, its night and day) I ran "near" similar links and it did the trick really nicely to keep the torque twist down, and the articulation in check. You will need to drill some new holes in the chassis/move your links back (maybe) but with a little "hackola" you can do it

Aah whats $20 for a new star... odds are you will save as much $$$ if not more with it, than if you didn't have one

As for anything else, look into a "dual triangulation" skid plate out of *DELRIN* It really helps with the nasty torque twist and "axle steer" that the car can have, and its bling I am working on my own design for one so if it turns out to work good... i may buy me a star and get to work

[cbtu0914]

The uppers I thought about delrin or aluminum, only reason I was going to make the outta stainless is I have quite a bit of 1/4" tubing laying around and I'm a bit of a cheapskate. That dual triangulation 4 link is something I have been looking into also.

[Crawling Calvin]

Originally Posted by cbtu0914

The uppers I thought about delrin or aluminum, only reason I was going to make the outta stainless is I have quite a bit of 1/4" tubing laying around and I'm a bit of a cheapskate. That dual triangulation 4 link is something I have been looking into also.

I have done the "cheepey cheesey" mod on the stock AX skid and it was nice, then I made up my own custom "dual triangulation" rig with a custom chassis, same principal, and it really smoothed things out. I should be able to test and report back on my custom one in a few days, that is if I can keep my head out of machine shop where I keep re-designing the stupid thing 200 times For now just stick with the stock one but whatever you do, DONT buy an aluminum one, the aluminum chassis sticks enough. My hope is by modding my skid design, you won't have that issue

If your real cheap, in a pinch (doesn't work long term... but its something) get an old cutting board and hack that up. It is "okay" for a skid but you will want Delrin after a little while

[cbtu0914]

Keep me updated on how your delrin skid works out, I'd be interested in one, I looked at the aluminum ones for about 2 seconds, then noticed how "sticky" the aluminum chassis plates are and decided that wasn't a good idea, I thought about the cutting board skid idea also, but really want a black skid so that idea was out, so until a nice delrin dual-tri skid catches my eye then it's a ckrc stage 2 style hacked up stock skid for me. No complaints though since it's working. Torque twist is slowly going away with my mods, although I ended up with quite a bit of TT with my droop setup, everyone says droop will eliminate TT but mine would flop way over on a straight line high angle climb. Anyway that's all for now, but seriously let me know how that delrin skid works out for you.

[Crawling Calvin]

Originally Posted by cbtu0914

Keep me updated on how your delrin skid works out, I'd be interested in one, I looked at the aluminum ones for about 2 seconds, then noticed how "sticky" the aluminum chassis plates are and decided that wasn't a good idea, I thought about the cutting board skid idea also, but really want a black skid so that idea was out, so until a nice delrin dual-tri skid catches my eye then it's a ckrc stage 2 style hacked up stock skid for me. No complaints though since it's working. Torque twist is slowly going away with my mods, although I ended up with quite a bit of TT with my droop setup, everyone says droop will eliminate TT but mine would flop way over on a straight line high angle climb. Anyway that's all for now, but seriously let me know how that delrin skid works out for you.

Lol you got me inspired Re-assembling the car as I type, should get around to testing it (maybe) by Wednesday, since I spend most of my time working in a machine shop class... time isn't something I have a ton of. Do check your PM"s tho

[cbtu0914]

Got some pics up so as promised here's a few

[cbtu0914]

sorry for the crappy iPhone pics.

[Crawling Calvin]

Lookin good Siping suggestion for the tires... I recommend using a dremel with a single cutoff wheel, gets a "tad messy" but it does the trick. Hey whats the worst that can happen, you get practice in *AND* you could make the tires grip a smidgen better

Sorry if its hard to see the red lines but I did my best, I think you can get the idea