Need some advice got my SCX10 Dingo kit

[natskiboy]

Hello All

First time posting here and looks like this is a good place to be to learn about crawlers. I picked up a SCX10 dingo kit and been buying parts for it.

So far on my parts list I have:

Proline Powerstroke Scaler shocks
Axial Low CG battery plate (move battery with servo in front)
Axial Aluminum Chub carrier
Axial Aluminum Knuckle
Axial Universal Set
Axial HD bevel gear set 38 T
Axial Alumimum Rear Axle lockout
MIP CVD Spline kit

I still have not picked up a Servo, motor or ESC yet. Most people suggest Holmes Torquemaster but my LHS told me tekin Fxr are good.

I appreciate any input you can provide. I plan to make this a very good crawler.

[AG74683]

LHS told you the Tekin is good because then they'll be the ones to sell it to you

In all seriousness though, Ive read good things about them. Personally I run a Holmes Hobbies BR-XL and a Torquemaster Pro-Handwound in my SXC10, and couldnt be happier.

As for servo, buy yourself the highest torque servo you can now, and not regret it later. Mine is a 7950th, which pushes 403oz/in...

[AX10wannabe]

buy the best servo you can afford. personally i dont think you need a servo with 400oz/in in a scaler. comp rig yes scaler no. i ran my 645mg in my honcho with no problems. i run a 7955TG in my ax10.

[natskiboy]

Thanks for the replies.

I want to build this kit right form the start and save me time in assembly. What other parts are essential?

[AG74683]

Originally Posted by AX10wannabe

buy the best servo you can afford. personally i dont think you need a servo with 400oz/in in a scaler. comp rig yes scaler no. i ran my 645mg in my honcho with no problems. i run a 7955TG in my ax10.

Thats true...I bought that servo because it was on sale, and because I figured eventually Id need to push something bigger. I figured buy for the future now.

[natskiboy]

Has anyone replaced the stock outdrives with the Axial steel ones?

[heinie_21]

Originally Posted by natskiboy

Hello All

First time posting here and looks like this is a good place to be to learn about crawlers. I picked up a SCX10 dingo kit and been buying parts for it.

So far on my parts list I have:

Proline Powerstroke Scaler shocks
Axial Low CG battery plate (move battery with servo in front)
Axial Aluminum Chub carrier
Axial Aluminum Knuckle
Axial Universal Set
Axial HD bevel gear set 38 T
Axial Alumimum Rear Axle lockout
MIP CVD Spline kit

I still have not picked up a Servo, motor or ESC yet. Most people suggest Holmes Torquemaster but my LHS told me tekin Fxr are good.

I appreciate any input you can provide. I plan to make this a very good crawler.

epic first post bro. way to do your research and not be an annoying noob lol.

one thing i would advise is to forget the lockouts. (unless you drive like a throttle happy 12 year old). ive never had any issues with stock plastic lockouts. spend that money towards getting a nice ESC instead.

also make sure the motor you get is hand-wound. (i would recommend a 45t)

make sure you have a good radio. the radio is the heart. if you have a junk radio, you will constantly be fighting with trims and response. Be one with your car.

I can't say enough about getting a strong servo. I disagree that a 400oz servo is not for a scaler. Is it a bit overkill? yes. but will you love it more than a 250oz servo? YES. You will never stall out a 400oz servo in your scaler. I have 3 hitec 7955tg's and one JR ds8711 servo and i love that i never feel starved for steering power.

as far as ESC's go, i've had both HH BR-XL esc's and Tekin FXR's. The BR-XL is a GREAT esc and you would always be satisfied with it's performance.

The FXR is much smaller and is a GREAT esc.

The BR-XL has the capability to have a stronger drag brake (strongest one on the market i believe).

The FXR has a good drag brake too. not as powerful as the br-xl, but the only time you'd need as much brake as the br-xl provides is if you have like an 11lb scaler! haha (most scx-10's are around 7lbs, depending on how much weight you add to your wheels)

I personally sold my 3 BR-XL's last month and replaced them with 3 FXR's. I like how superly silent the FXR's are when you're barely barely barely creeping along. you can't even hear a thing. The BR-XL makes a super high pitched electronic whine when you barely are on the throttle. like dog whistle high pitch. it's not a big deal, but it just got on my nerves when i was running with my friend who has a FXR and his was silent and mine was annoying lol. I'm not saying the br-xl is bad. I LOVED my br-xl's. but i also have been 100% satisfied with FXR's as well.

the small size of the FXR is a plus sometimes too. fits in tight spaces if you're gonna do an interior/floorpan/waterproof boxes and stuff.

bottom line IMO is that you can't go wrong with either the BR-XL or the FXR. if you do go with the BR-XL first, and end up wanting to trade it to somebody for their FXR, you will have no problem. I put up a "want to trade my br-xl for an FXR" add on this forum and had like 8 people in an hour saying they'd trade me. so maybe go with the br-xl first and see how you like it!

[johnnyh66]

Since you're buying Axial CHubs, get the clockable ones!

I've snapped an Axial outdrive, use Robinson racing if you are not running a dig. Robinson Racing makes a Outdrive gear and Idler gear... great invesment.

I also agree, buy the biggest, best servo you can afford... and a BEC to run it.

[natskiboy]

Appreciate all the replies. I forgot to add that I will be running a Futaba 4PL radio with this setup.

Looks like I will go with the RRP Outdrive gear. I assume that replaces the whole gear set as well? What about the idler gear?

[Optiskate]

I got a Savox SC-0251MG. Pushes 222 oz/in at 6v. It works great and I love it so far.

I like my Rooster CE ESC, its pretty good. I was shooting for the HH BR-XL, but I didn't want to wait for one and I got a killer deal on my ESC. If you can find a BR-XL, go for it.

I've got a HH motor and that thing is an absolute beast, even with a 2S lipo. Cant go wrong with HH as far as I am concerned. You might want to decide what you want to do with it now though. Rocks, trail, both, formula off road, or what ever. The amount of turns on your motor will be crucial to what you plan on doing. If you're trail running, then a 55T will more than likely be too slow for you and not provide you with nearly enough wheel speed. 27-35T seem to be great for trail and 55T works good for crawling as far as I have seen. I run 35T and I do both crawling and trail.

I've beat the piss out of Danger Dingo and I've found that some things such as aluminum knuckles and C's aren't really necessary as of right now. I haven't broke any axles or anything really. My only issues as of thus far has been trying to work out dig unit issues. Then again, I don't roll my rig off of 5'+ cliffs, jump it (too much ), or do anything stupidly crazy. Don't get me wrong, it spends plenty of time on its roof and I do beat it, but I'm not out to destroy it.

I've found that the mods I like most are the ones that actually improve wheelability. Such as moving your weight up forward and down lower. Space gets tight with a chassis mounted servo up front. So you may have to either run a smaller battery up front or run it 90 degrees to the chassis. I found that my 5000mah doesn't fit 90 degrees to the frame without excessive rubbing from the tires. I flipped by battery on end and ran it along side the servo. Not idea, but not nearly as high as it would have to be to mount the battery up front with the servo up front using the stock mounting options.

Improving turning radius (to me any way) is important as well. Being locked up front and rear means your turning radius is going to be horrible. There's no avoiding it. Your tires are always spinning at the same rate and your rear end pushes your front a lot more. Overdrive front gears, underdrive rear gears, or both would help with turning. I've heard mixed opinions on Axial CVD axle shafts or just CVD axle shafts in general. I have heard that the RC4wd XVD's might be okay though. There is always the XR-10/AX-10 hybrid axle setup as well, but that requires a bit of work and if you're not comfortable modifying stuff fairly heavily, then that option might not be for you.

There's a lot of tweaking you can do with weight placement and suspension that you can do for free or cheapish that will greatly improve performance. I'd place this stuff higher on the priority list than a lot of the durability stuff. I don't have much money into getting my rig to perform. If you've got a reasonable budget, then you should have a decent amount of money left over after this stuff to do the durability stuff.

[steele42]

You have my vote on the strongest servo as well. You'll never regret overkill. I had a hitec 645 servo and thought it was ok, but when I installed my 7955TG I realized what I was missing and will never go back. My front tires/wheels do weigh in at 10oz though. But point being, don't limit yourself.

I'm also an FXR guy and love it. I'm heinie's friend that has the FXR. I hear alot of good about the br-xl but I have to agree, the noise would drive me nuts. The FXR has never let me down and has never limited me on something I wanted to do. But every rig is different.

[AG74683]

one more thing from me...Ive yet to break anything serious on my SCX10....but the one thing that I did smash up was one of the rear shock towers. Not sure if thats common, but its an upgrade to look at.

[Optiskate]

Steele42 mentioned something that I totally forgot to mention. Weight you wheels. That makes a huge difference and its cheap to do. I have 3oz in the front and 2.5oz in the back and it helps a lot, but I wish I had 6oz of weight in the front and 3oz in the rear. Get bead locks as well instead of gluing your tires to those Walker Evans wheels.

[K.O.M.]

I don't think anyone has picked up on this, but:

Axial Low CG battery plate with the battery up front and the servo off center to one side isn't going to work too well (it will prevent up travel because the servo and battery will now hit the frame rails) and does not look "scale."

If it's this part here, then it's not going to work too well:

[rebel35747]

Originally Posted by K.O.M.

I don't think anyone has picked up on this, but:

Axial Low CG battery plate with the battery up front and the servo off center to one side isn't going to work too well (it will prevent up travel because the servo and battery will now hit the frame rails) and does not look "scale."

If it's this part here, then it's not going to work too well:

my thought's also. good for a crawler, but bad for a scaler.

as far as esc goes, i run both the fxr and br-xl. love them both. like it was said fxr is much smaller, but can only handle 3s and only if using a 35t motor or higher, so if you decide to go up to a 27t for some reason, your back down to 2s. the br-xl can run 6s, if you get a br-xl, pay the extra $10 and get it waterproofed( more peace of mind, and you know it's done right) that way if you decide to run in mud or water, it's already done!

[natskiboy]

Originally Posted by K.O.M.

I don't think anyone has picked up on this, but:

Axial Low CG battery plate with the battery up front and the servo off center to one side isn't going to work too well (it will prevent up travel because the servo and battery will now hit the frame rails) and does not look "scale."

If it's this part here, then it's not going to work too well:

Thanks for the insight. I overlooked that when I ordered this part. I have decided to go with the Hitec 7954SH servo hope it will be enough torque.

What beadlock rims do you guys recommend?

[4WDwannabe]

Damn Natskiboy you got all the heavy hitters out giving GREAT advice!
One thing I have done on my incompleted(so far LoL) Honcho kit is mirror the transmission. Basically take it(with motor attached) and turn it around. Supposed to cut down on torque twist, look up Torque TWIST ON RCC.
I'm going to run the 645mg servo for now cause I have it and just got an FXR and 35turn combo. And waterproof grease.
Looking foreward to a 1:10 rig, my Losi mini crawler has been lots of fun getting to crawl well. Enjoy

[Optiskate]

Originally Posted by natskiboy

What beadlock rims do you guys recommend?

What kind of budget do you have and what are you trying to accomplish with your SCX-10?

Are you going for a super scale look? You can spend a ton of money on bead locks if you really want to. I'd say just find something in your rim size that you like the looks of. Apply weights to them, mount the tires, and call it good. There are a lot of machined wheels out there that are made out of aluminum, steel, or what ever metal that are stupid expensive, but they put weight where you want it. At the ends of your axles. You also have to remember, when you start adding tons of weight to your tires you're going to put stress on your drive train and you're making your car work harder to spin the the wheels. There's probably a balance. If you've got a tight budget you could just pick up a set of Axial bead locks or any other cheap good looking bead lock and weight them and come in some where around $55-65.

[Axial Rose]

I got my Dingo kit last week and used it a lot last weekend.

There are at least four errors in the manual - if you want to avoid them you can see my thread which I believe lists all of them:

#1 --> Page 23, step #29, I used part AX80005[1] instead of AX80032[1] shown

#2 --> Page 23, step #29, I used part AX80005[2] instead of AX80005[4] shown

#3 --> Page 19, step #18 --> omit part #AX80009[5]

#4 --> The upper Y-links are 7mm too short and you have to use a 7mm spacer (on the tree) and when I did this, everything came out perfect but of course, the spacers are not shown in the building instructions. :(

Note: There are several build steps which use fasteners which are similar in size so you have to be careful. One example is on page 21, step #23 --> don't confuse the fasteners AXA0414 with AXA465.

[natskiboy]

Originally Posted by Optiskate

What kind of budget do you have and what are you trying to accomplish with your SCX-10?

Are you going for a super scale look? You can spend a ton of money on bead locks if you really want to. I'd say just find something in your rim size that you like the looks of. Apply weights to them, mount the tires, and call it good. There are a lot of machined wheels out there that are made out of aluminum, steel, or what ever metal that are stupid expensive, but they put weight where you want it. At the ends of your axles. You also have to remember, when you start adding tons of weight to your tires you're going to put stress on your drive train and you're making your car work harder to spin the the wheels. There's probably a balance. If you've got a tight budget you could just pick up a set of Axial bead locks or any other cheap good looking bead lock and weight them and come in some where around $55-65.

How good is the tire that come with the SCX10 Dingo kit? I was thinking of getting some RC4WD Rok Lox Comp as well.

For wheels I will use beadlock on the good tire and get some landie wheels from ebay. I really like the scale look of he D90 body