Baja Wraith

[Kingclod27]

Wow thats a nice Wraith...I like the paint too.

[crit rat]

Looks good!

Needs some surfboards on the roof though!

[Steelfish]

thanks guys I have some plans for this rig to run it on the beach and sand dunes, but that will be with some brushless combo later, for now I want to try some trailing runs in brushed form for some time or until my motor die.

well yesterday was the very first run of the wraith and my very first run with a rock crawler (or a 4dw car) and oooh my God this thing is awesome, I just tried it on the garden where I have some holes and uneven terrains cuz Im re-doing the garden and it was unstoppable with some 1ft deep x 1.5ft long holes, it just went over anything there, the flex is really good as well as the power/torque of the 550 motor (electryfly s600 19t), It even did nice rooster tails with the four wheels and some nice donuts and also have really good speed, I forgot to put the gps of the cell on it.
the only thing that I noticed and I dont know if its something that I have to look at it is that its a lot more noisy than my 2wd Ecx Ruckus like 3x, the noise comes from both diff on the same level of loudness (if I have to described it sounds like if something is pretty tight somewhere there) and also it didnt coast at all after I release the trigger, the wraith run well, strong and fast when I pull the trigger but as soon I release it the car coast just few inches or nothing and all this running on hard packed dirt or on the tile of the kitchen.

facts:
the ESC is a Xl-5
motor electryfly s-600
battery 5000 8.4v nimh (for testing the car)
2.5oz on each front tire (4.5oz each wheel with all hardware)
1.5oz on rears (3.5oz each wheel with all hardware)

should I have to worry, check anything, its normal or just run it until something break ?

[Steelfish]

well since the stuffed paper in the servo shock didnt worked well, the force of the servo compacted the paper and left a space that gave too much play on the shock.. so, it was time to go to the hardware store and look for a spring that fit into the shock body.. took the body shock with me and tried some until find one that fit into I just have to cut it at length need it and presto!!





the spring is harder than any rc shock spring but thats good cuz the response from the servo is faster, as long as I have the long plastic steeling link I will be safe, I will look for a softer inner spring when I put a metal link there.



aaaaaaaaannd good news.. I finally found a driver...











[starts enter the dragon music]
salute the DRAGON!!!





Waaathaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! [stops enter the dragon music]





.

[MAXXMASHER]

I have been considering stripping my wraith down and painting the frame as well. Hadn't considered chrome, but I really like how yours turned out. I may have to copy that idea. Bruce Lee kicks ass as a driver, too!

[Steelfish]

thanks maxx, the chrome was nice and all but it didnt accepted a lay of clearcoat for protection on scratches, the chemistry of this chrome paint reacted with the rustoleum clear enamel coat and turned it into dark-grey color, same thing happened with any kind of clear paint over it, I tried first on one of the tubes and that was the result, so is just the paint and no protection, this chrome paint will be prone to get scratch it easily but I'm ok with that I personally like it a lot and will use it like that until the paint on the tubes is really ugly then I will disamble everything and painted again with another brand or chose another normal color.

you cant be wrong with Bruce Lee, right?

[snicklefritz]

I really like the paint scheme, fits the title of this build. Good work!

[Bronco Bobby]

Running the traxxas speed controller will limit your crawling, because of no drag brake. It sounds like you have something dragging anyway. Is it still making noise? They definitely are a little more noisy than a fine tuned 2wd. Like your drag link/servo saver. Very creative.

[Steelfish]

@Snick, thanks pal, glad you like it, I'm aiming for a FOFF look first with a twist of baja off road races, the next upgrades for a FOFF will come later

@bronco, I installed the Xl5 and the electryfly s600 motor cuz I have them as spare for my ECx Ruckus (2wd MT) when it was brushed, but my goal is to get a decent mild BL sensored combo in a short future or when this brushed combo fail whatever happens first, I know about the lack of drag brake on the ESC but 80% will be trail runs for this truck, I'll surely look for an ESC with drag brake in my next the BL combo, on the noise issue, I just found some "NO MUSIC" videos on youtube of stock brushed wraiths and they sound like mine, it think I got worried because I was testing the car inside the house at midnight when the only sound was the wraith with 2 diffs, Im pretty sure its all good.
I will running it like that for now, at the end if something breaks I always looking for excuses to buy upgrades... but only when the stock part breaks

[Bronco Bobby]

Originally Posted by Steelfish

@Snick, thanks pal, glad you like it, I'm aiming for a FOFF look first with a twist of baja off road races, the next upgrades for a FOFF will come later

@bronco, I installed the Xl5 and the electryfly s600 motor cuz I have them as spare for my ECx Ruckus (2wd MT) when it was brushed, but my goal is to get a decent mild BL sensored combo in a short future or when this brushed combo fail whatever happens first, I know about the lack of drag brake on the ESC but 80% will be trail runs for this truck, I'll surely look for an ESC with drag brake in my next the BL combo, on the noise issue, I just found some "NO MUSIC" videos on youtube of stock brushed wraiths and they sound like mine, it think I got worried because I was testing the car inside the house at midnight when the only sound was the wraith with 2 diffs, Im pretty sure its all good.
I will running it like that for now, at the end if something breaks I always
looking for excuses to buy upgrades... but only when the stock part breaks

I try to keep my upgrades to repairs as well. Why guess what will break, when you can just drive it till it breaks

[Steelfish]

Originally Posted by Bronco Bobby

Why guess what will break, when you can just drive it till it breaks

ditto on that.



on a side note, I just made my very first official run with the baja wraith and actually my very first run with any 4x4 or rc crawler.. dang!!
You should have seen my face, I sent myself to 30 years ago when I had a blast running my tonkas with a smile from ear to ear.
My 2wd MT and this thing are two really different stories.

I will try to edit the video to make it shorter with the best moments cuz is really long, hope to make it today or tomorrow.

meanwhile I will put some stills of those vids as small teaser.

desert lands....





cross country.....








like van halen told me.. go ahead and jump!! jump!!
(gotta love the shadows)





stay tune..and have fun

[Bronco Bobby]

Looks like a fun time was had.

[Ballistic17]

Looks like a blast.

[Steelfish]

yep, it was a blast my amigos.

I couldnt help myself, I liked a lot of small parts of the video so I ended up having 2 short videos of the first run, one in the dry and death lands and another in desert lands bashing and trailrunning

the 1st video is up and ready to enjoy, second video will be up after lunch time

I hope you like it as much as I did

Baja Wraith first run in death lands - YouTube

have fun

[Steelfish]

second vid is up and running..

baja wraith on desert sand bashing and trailing

Baja Wraith first run in a desert trail - YouTube

[Steelfish]

a new video of my last run with the Baja Wraith

folks I need your complete sincere opinion here, I already know that as long as I have fun with my wraith that's enough, but since I'm a Newb on crawling and trailing with a 4x4 scale truck I want you to give me your $0.02

is this a nice performance of a wraith?
is it lame?
is just as regular run as the thousand out there?
it was really good?
it was way below regular performance even boring?

this a steep hill with a lot of small rocks as you can see, check how some of them rolled down as the wraith step on them.

[youtube]hRNtJE35yOQ[/youtube]

by the way, it was fun day and that 2200 3s LIFE batt really lasted long time.

[hoyt]

Originally Posted by Steelfish

by the way, it was fun day and that 2200 3s LIFE batt really lasted long time.

This is what it's about right here.

[Steelfish]

OK amigos, I need help again

I just got a nice "almost" new 80a ACE ESC from a Thunder tiger MT4 G3, and an ACE ripper 540 3300kv motor sensorless



I know this motor is NOT recommended for the wraith since is not sensored but it was almost free ( this guy didnt want it and I didnt need it so he just asked for $15 dls for it to trow it on the same 80a ESC box since shipping was already covered) anyway.. this is my problem

since I dont have money for a sensored motor right now, and I want to try BL on my wraith to get some more speed, for achieve that I have two alternatives:

facts: on the Ecx Ruckus I have a Brushless hobbies 120a ESC that is pretty programmable for sensored and sensorless motor and a tacon 550 2700kv motor, and now I have this 80a ESC that is programmable too for sensoreless and "some" well-know sensored motors and smaller can 540 3300kv motor, I can do a mix and match between this 2 cars to get the best option on boths so, what would you recommend me?:

on the Ruckus that is same size of a traxxas Slash with MT tires, the actual setup is BH 120a/2700kv 550 can and 3s LIFE and getting an average of 38mph, with 8-cell nimh gets 42mph.


possible combinations:
BLH 120a / 3300kv on the ruckus, sounds like a possible option
BLH 120a / 2700kv on the wraith, mm maybe too much cogging
ace 80a / 3300kv on the ruckus, sounds like an option too
ace 80a / 3300kv on the wraith, will I have heating problems?
etc, etc.

please advise, what combo would be better to run on the wraith while getting a nice sensored motor?

[Steelfish]

well I was testing some combinations yesterday and seems like its not what works better on which ESC/motor combo.
the tacon 3660 2726kv clogs way more at low speeds than the ace ripper 3300kv 3650 motor no matter what ESC I was using, so, the combo for the wraith ended up being the BH ESC and ACE 3300kv, this both work flawlessly at any speed, I did some test at really low speed inside the house with not noticeable clogging at all, yay!!

now I just need to find the best place to install the ESC properly and do some real world runs, not really important but I will check the speed with this new BL combo because it doest seem very fast on the test runs on the patio, I actually not looking for a speed demon but it would be nice if it can handle some beach sand and some hills

[Steelfish]

well my Baja Wraith is under some mechanical and cosmetic changes..

kind of upset right now cuz some of my parts that I was waiting (metal gears, 32p spurs, pinions, etc) got lost in the mail, you know those cases when the postman mark the package as received in the system but I never got it, anyway I have to open a case on ebay, blah, blah, meanwhile my wraith is in the shop all in pieces

well, this are some of the cosmetic changes so far, not finished but almost done on then as soon as I get my parts or buy them again

since Im cheap, I got 2 really good deals on used parts, one of them on some c.k. rc shocks all aluminum they were for the exo so are shorter than 100mm (stock shock on wraith), they are 89mm from hole to hole, I was thinking to try them like that but I opted to switch the nice shock shaft on the stockers and installed them on the new shocks, now the c.k. rc shocks are 93mm from hole to hole, not bad, just 7mm less than stockers.


at the left the stock shock, middle the c.k.rc modified and at the right the stock c.k.rc shock exo size

I dont think I will loss too much articulation, and for trailing and bashing it will be good.


then I found a deal on some 2.2 steelies that were pretty used as you can see, good thing they came with long SS screws and 2 mounting types pin and hex.



so, I sanded them and painted them

this is how they were


this is how they are right now.. 3 coats aluminum/chrome and 4 coats of clear


I saw this tip somewhere on here and I like it, painting the rear of the inner plate black, I used liquid tape to take it off if I want to


what for you may ask.. well

the holes are pit black now and looks ton times better, right?

and last mod to the OEM 2.2 steel wheels is that I made a new spacer, I really dont like it too much how the tire look with the stock size of the wheel spacer 1" (25mm) so I made a new one of PVC in 1.25" (32mm), the tires looks better IMOP

I rounded the external edges of the pvc tube and tested it in one tire, it fit and feel really good and strong, let see how it works once the car is running again.

more to come as soon as I get my parts..

have fun