Budhatrain's Wraith Buildup... rc4wd xvd's,CC sv3, holmes hobbies and more

[budhatrain]

So with everyone building this and talking about that, seeing pictures of wraiths and their axles here and there... I finally purchased a kit. I have been wanting one for a long while but finally pulled the trigger and just picked one up just after Christmas.



When I first received it, I didn't want my wife thinking I was totally out of control so I calmly left the box un-opened through dinner only casually looking at it. Meanwhile my children think it's a jungle gym. After dinner was done and everything cleaned up, eta for children going to bed 30min. I pulled it out and officially set up shop! My youngest loves trucks... he copied me and kept sniffing the tires when I first opened the box. haha Do you ever sniff your own tires!




Man it's been a while to build a kit... my first was the rc10T, then rc10T3, couple hpi rs4mt ect... then around 8 years ago a Clodbuster and TLT-1. I am impressed and love the R&D in the axles... made it as far as shocks and called it a night. Back getting sore sitting in the hard kitchen chairs. I hate getting old.





My goal with this project is to just bash the snot out of this thing. First in stock form and then grow and morph it to something great and MONSTER. But first thing is first, the build up. Ordered a new castle sv3 and holmes hobbies 27T brushed motor- running this on 3s to begin with. Also RC4WD sent me a brand new set of their HD xvd's- UPGRADE

[budhatrain]

Going together easy... obviously the axles and trans are the beautiful part of this rig.




The cool thing about a kit is that you feel and know the truck. The stock axial plastic drive shafts fell short... part of them are great and brilliant and then comes the plastic part-- boo. Same thing with the trans, such a simple design but then plastic gears-- boo again.

So those will be upgraded at some point... but overall I am extremely satisfied with this truck and build

Almost there! The cage took a while but it was cool- I like the design and layout. Going to mess with electronics tomorrow... Need to waterproof my servo- hopefully the motor shows up tomorrow.

[budhatrain]

Alright with a day off and some time to get some work done... I tackled the electronics. I hate doing this part to tell you the truth. But I did it... received my holmes motor today and I had everything I needed to get it rolling.

With one exception... the new castle sv3 waterproof esc. I had won a 30% off coupon at ihobby and you can only use it one full priced items yada yada yada. So this made a decent deal. Four days after I ordered it I get an email stating that it's going to take up to 3 weeks to ship the new esc- no indication of this on the website or during the checkout process that they are not ready to ship. I had ordered previously from them over thanksgiving weekend too, when they were running those specials and it took 4 weeks to get my order then. Previously I ran into problems with the tech department when trying to figure out the cogging with the sv2's. I have a number of speed controls and motors from castle but I am ready to jump ship to say the least.

Electronics:
Currently a Castle Sidewinder SV1- programed to run brushed motors with reverse via castle link, waterproofed sv3 to come soon
Holmes Hobbies Sport Torque Master 540 27T brushed motor
Spektrum 6030 Digital Metal Geared High Torque Servo, 278oz-in @6v with .15 transit time
Castle external BEC
$9 ebay special dsm2 receiver

First thing I did was address the servo. I like the titanium geared ones so I am gambling a little bit with this one-- probably should put a servo saver on there if I find myself racing at high speeds and jumping. However I need to water proof this baby. Watched a video on this process and didn't look too hard. Popped the cap off and put some blue marina speed grease on the top gear. This is not supposed to fling around and should basically stay in place and repel any water. What I am wanting is to seal up that hole for the servo arm and I put enough grease to surround the bearing and ooze out a little. Next, I took some liquid electrical tape and sealed up the whole servo minus the top part. Used a blow dryer and added a couple of layers. It doesn't look bad... not refined but once it's sitting in an all black tube chassis you will never notice.





So then comes the rats nest and getting everything into the chassis. I grabbed the lighting gear from my old scx10 (forgot I had it) and threw it in. Bound the receiver, zero'd the servo, stuffing in the lighting unit, added the external bec, mounted the esc and got the wiring roughly in there. Then with the transmission pulled out (easy to do) I mounted the Holmes Hobbies 27T brushed motor (I really liked this) and then put it all together and wrapped up the wires nice and neat.

The motor is cool, very well made and I am confident in this purchase... I ordered it prewired with 4mm bullet plugs. Comes broken in already from the shop and has replaceable parts. Awesome purchase. Programming the esc was easy just look for a "motor" option in the castle link program and choose- reversing brushed- update and good to go just connect the red and black motor wires and tie up the white one. With the BEC you need to disconnect the red receiver wire on the esc and then plug this unit into the receiver- any open spot. I wired it with some deans plugs so that I can quickly switch it out to another vehicle if I needed to- otherwise you need to hardwire into you battery leads. Only thing with an external bec, is that part of your system powers up without turning on the esc. I am sure it's as easy as adding another on/off switch (we'll see).







One thing I want to point out... my not so great looking waterproof servo. Once it's in the chassis it looks fine! You can't even tell really, I am pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I will probably update this as it goes on.




So what's next? Well I have ordered some custom skins and waiting for those to show up. I will be doing some testing in the meantime but can't wait til the wraps get here and I can button it up with the interior. Obviously I am waiting on castle for the sv3-- fail. But running it around the house I am impressed and excited. My wife says I have a glint in my eye-- like a boy on Christmas. Then I will be morphing this project... first is this stage and then GO BIG!

[budhatrain]

I have been consistently bashing this girl and seeing what will happen. My biggest problem is the out of control wheel wobble due to those plastic parts at the end of the axles. I am surprised there is not more talk about that here with so many people trying to use them for monster truck builds. Just too much slop. I want to take full advantage of the XVD's but something has got to change with the plastic stuff.

I order up some skins right when I go the truck and received the wraps last week... too cool! Neal from freqeskinz Welcome to Freq-E sKinz - Custom Wraps, Skins, Radio Wraps, Panels & More






Also I ordered up the parts to open up the diffs and also stiffen up the chubs/knuckles.




And I put on some tires I had laying around... not as big as clod sized tires but a good transitional stage. Ohh and I needed wheel wideners to be able to get the steering (xvd enhanced) that I want. With the wheel wideners the axles are LOOOONNNNGGG.






Tomorrow will be the maiden voyage in the new setup... I still need to blue locktite some new machined screws that are going into aluminum and I need to switch out some wheel hubs. I have some high expectation and hopefully no breakage!

[budhatrain]

Well took her out for the first bashing session with bigger meats. Kaboom within 20min- short rear axle (stock axial) right past the drive hubs near the threads for the axle nuts. Probably too much stress from my terrible driving, awkward landings, wheel wideners, barrel nuts and bigger tires.

It's cool though, that is an evident weak spot. I ordered up another set of stock ones, if those break I will need to pick up a set of HD oness. I actually attempted to video my driving, I will compile the footage and post HAHA I know that the battery placement is terrible... that will all change once I start focusing on the interior.

[budhatrain]

Here's the Video!



Check out this crazy amount of steering from the rc4wd xvd's... The aluminum support really allows these things to do what they were designed to do. Wheel wobble has been greatly reduced.

[Kitty]

looking good,altough i don't like the tyres,but hey....is everyone choice

[evan03]

ive been breaking axles and threw the even shorter honcho driveline on that comes with the kit. its shot but seems to work im tearing them apart where the universal bolts to them coming off the tranny.

dont specktrumn servos have a gasket. watch the cable were it comes out of the servo it likes to rubb. with taller ride height its less of a worry.

love the milk cow design on your rig