Motosoul's first RC - Wraith build

[MotoSoul]

I figured it was about time I started this build. I am mainly into driving my full scale jeep, but I was introduced into the world of RC crawlers by a friend. It seems to be a good way to scratch the itch when winter hits and you can't go on the trails. As an added bonus it will be handy around the camp fire after a day of wheeling when you can just a beer and a controller for a few minutes to wind down.

Needless to say there is no hand of god in the real world when you butcher a line.


Onto the Wraith it was almost like being a kid again with a giant Lego set.



Now this is a kit of course and also my first RC, so I of course need all of the electronics. At this point I am borrowing everything from my good friend. He has been into RC's almost as long as I have been alive and his RC room is almost like a hobby shop. I start off with an old high torque airtronics servo, a Misc Tamiya ESC from some touring car, and a silver can motor. I also end up borrowing his old wraith rtr wheels, so I don't waste my soft compound tires.

[MotoSoul]

Now if you notice in the last picture I had chopped the front bumper for a more scale look. I love the look, but it is a little weaker. This picture is after a night a my other friends shop messing around.


That is one bumper and one c-hub down for the count. Wraiths don't seem to make good lawn darts lol.

Here is a picture of some of the things we get up to at the shop. Also pictured are a set of wagon wheels that we found while poking around his RC room. For the record these suck to install even with stock foams.


My first parts to come in were something I can't afford in real life, so I miss as well have them in miniature.


After messing around for a few weeks I managed to tear up the airtronics servo by bending one of the main shafts and stripping a gear. I ended up borrowing a bluebird servo to get me rolling. Also pictured is my scrap aluminium home brew bumper that I made to support the chassis.

[MotoSoul]

Now at this point there are quite a few of us rolling around with crawlers, so we decided it was worth a trip down to a rc shop that has a crawler course. It does seem like it is more geared towards comp crawlers, but it should be fun anyways. I figured it was time for a quick refresh before the trip.


The course ended up being quite the challenge and I forgot to take pictures of course. This is just a small little piece that was on the side.


I ended up burning up the motor due to not having the right of gearing. That was only one of 3 that we toasted on the day. I grabbed a Novak 35 turn Rockstar motor and got right back into the action. I also came to realize that the re pieced together airtronics loaner was not up to the task when in rocks that big. I also head re torn up a front control arm that I had patched earlier. I figured it was time to do a longer term fix.





Now it didn't end up being the prettiest repair due to the previous work, but it is still holding up. It is just an old partially stripped rear shock screw and some melted plastic from my left over parts tree's.

I have to state that reading this website is a very bad influence lol. After skipping through JIA's build thread I figured heck I can do that. I think I should have gone into it a little deeper as it is a heck of a lot of work. My friend who got me into rc picked up a used exo with a damaged frame. He picked up a spare new frame on eBay and the build was on.

Its time to put this...


Onto this....

[isyeskeert]

Welcome to the hobby!

[MotoSoul]

Before doing any cutting I saved two images from JIA's thread for reference.
JIA's IFS Ultra4 build

From there I made a few quick cuts and it was ready to start fitting.


It looks fairly easy from this point, but there is a lot of messing around to get things to fit.



Now in this picture you can see how I joined the cage. I used axial set screws drilled into the centre of the tubes. The one side of the cage is threaded in. The other side I drilled out a hair larger and you can see how far I was able to press it in from there. At this point all I had to do is add heat and it squeezed right together.

If I were to do this all over again I would do trial fitting with thinner steel pins first. This way you can take it back apart if it doesn't fit quite right. I worked my way from the back mount forward as I knew that was the one thing I couldn't move. It ended up working in the end as my wraith roof skin fit right back on.


Here you can see the back support piece that had to be flipped to clear everything in the back.


Here is the final test fit.

[MotoSoul]

I guess I should get this a little more up to date. After finishing all of the mock up t was time to get to two things that were bugging me. First was getting the new Savox 1230sg I bought to fit properly up front.

In order to do this it was time to tear it down again.


The front receiver box was hitting the servo at full bump, so a quick snip with the cutters was needed.


The screws that hold the receiver box do not even come close to going that far down, so there are no issues. Now at full bump I'm clearing everything. If you look closely you can see were I snapped off the bumper mount and fixed it with a screw.


Now that the front was taken care of I had to fix the back. When the suspension was fully compressed with the flipped links the upper control arms would that the interior. A quick trim and it was good to go.


Now that the functionality was restored I needed to work on the cage. The b piller from the original wraith cage was still just a friction fit at this point which wasn't going to cut it. I used some old Tamiya pins inserted into drilled holes to secure it. I test fit the depth and then cut the excess off.


Now that everything was secure I used cut offs from my parts tree's as solder to join the various sections of the cage. I also did a comp cut to my Wraith side panels to hold me over for now.

[509hooligan]

That cage mod is sweet! It's looking good and it looks like you need break that fresh paint job in too!

[MotoSoul]

Thanks. They are still the stock panels for now, so unless I angle the camera you won't see all the nice gouges I have in them lol. I am slowly doing templates up for aluminium panel's, but I am going for full inner fenders front and rear. I have a friend that did his front inner fenders in one piece with his side panels that I am going to borrow his template to speed up that process. I'll be keeping my panels bare and using a scotch brite pad to get a uniform grain to them. I want it to some what resemble my full scale truck if I won the lottery.

I still have a few tricks up my sleeve coming for my next update, but I'm trying to pace it out as I have been busy lately.

[MotoSoul]

Now that I have a bit of the cosmetic side dealt with I felt it was time to tackle the per formance aspect.

Ever since I put together my kit I have never been happy with how the rear lockout fit. After some serious abuse it was time to do something about it. I rotated the lock out and drilled new holes. It now fits better then new.


After reading a few threads I also felt it would be as cheap upgrade to cut my tires. The goal was to allow each set of lugs to fully grip each ledge. I have been very happy with the results on wooded surfaces especially.


I had been looking for replacement shocks for a while, but I could never quite make up my mind. My friend suggested I try out some HPI wheely king shocks. They are 77mm compressed and 117mm extended. This is the best amount of travel while staying close to the original compressed size as I could find.


I think the king shock was a little over filled, but I think you get the point.


A quick little test run around the shop and my mind is set. These are going to work well with some adjustments.


I have been wanting to adjust my weight bias even with the lower stance using flipped links. It's time to move the battery up front to make those steep climbs a breeze.


I re used the stock battery mount and chopped off the top. I would like for it to sit lower at some point gut that will have to wait as it is screwed into the original ESC mounting hole.


Here you can see that I decided to move the receiver box into the interior for cosmetic reasons. Also you can see the exo light bar I bought that supplied the mounts I used to make the hood flip up. Don't mind how low it is as I flopped it onto it's roof a few times in testing lol.


I also picked up another stock bumper and gave it a rough trim. I still have not decided on a mounting solution for the light controller. It might end up inside a fuel cell, but that has to wait on some other things to happen first.

[MotoSoul]

Well I let the cat out of the bag a little bit elsewhere, so I mide as well update this. I helped my friend make a quick crawler course in his back yard to entertain us for a little bit.


My HPI crawler/wheely king shocks came in. At some point they will get the oven cleaner to strip the purple, but it will do for now. The stock spring rate is too soft, so I reused my stock kit wraith springs.


Here is the stock shocks flexed out.


And now with the new setup.


I am happy with the results so far but it does require some tweaking. I was able to move the front shocks back one hole to keep the ride height close. The back however was already maxed out. Before selecting these shocks I had tried all sorts of things to get the travel I wanted using the Exo mount. Nothing ever quite fit, so it requires a little custom work.

This is the rough idea of making a new upper shock mount support with a lower mounting hole. It should allow me to just barely get the rear axle to touch the rear cage tubes and still have max travel.

[MotoSoul]

The full scale season is starting to wind down, so there are going to be some updates for this coming soon.

[vicstag]

Nice rubi but why does winter slow wheelin that's my favorite time to wheel how do you like those shocks I am using integy 138 mm shocks with bgr fr/rear shock mounts it flexs great and crawling is a lot better I've been building mine using my 1 to 1 experience

[MotoSoul]

A lot of the trails or the access roads into the trails become snowmobile trails in the winter. That combined with the fact I've put too much money into it to have the road salt eat it means that after this October I need a beater to drive. Then I can dive in and prep it for next season.

The shocks I am pretty happy with so far using the wraith springs. I want to switch it to a dual spring setup so that I can drop the ride height a hair. I'm also going to do more experimenting with shock fluid.

Mine is going to be what my TJ would look like if I won the lottery lol.

[vicstag]

I live in north east also none as the salt belt way on my jeep after changing oil I take old oil and paint brush all of under carriage with it helps prolong the life of frame can't fix the in side of it. But it helps my jeep is a 99 with 160k on the frame and 12 plus years of hardcore wheelin outside of frame has little to no rust and I to cringe at road salt with more then two lottery winnings in goodies lol I am building mine like I built my jeep not scale but function like it (go anywhere, and still get home) I am now looking to make a selectable locker like my ox's for both axle's

[MotoSoul]

The order from RPP came in, so it is time to get to work.

[MotoSoul]

This is the reason for the next stage of my build. We spent an afternoon in the back of the woodpile messing around with the rc's. I ended up with a knuckle screw backing out trashing my c hub and snapping my servo horn. The main obstacle was pretty much like back door in the hammers only made out of slippery logs. You could sit there for 10 minutes bouncing away and not make it up. Then the next attempt it would go up the first try The SCX10 was going up the side of it as it was not big enough to come straight up it.


The bottom of my truck has been getting a pretty good work out and you can see how bad my pinion angle was due to the flipped lower mounts.


The new R35 Krawlers are pretty bad ass, but are a bit thinner then the stock cut ripsaws I was running. The main reason for switching was to match my 1 to 1.


Overall they give it a much more scale appearance. You can notice with all the weight up front it no longer sits level with the current stock shock mounts.


The next goodie bag to open was the VP CMS. This was for looks as much as it was for getting the servo arm further away from potential damage.


Note the hap hazard way my electronics are currently run. This is going to change. I had added the BEC a while ago as I had major glitching issues due to the Savox Servo being power hungry.

[MotoSoul]

I decided to under drive the rear axle to allow the front to pull the crawler up steep inclines instead of the back axle sometimes pushing the front causing a roll over. The stock gears are a pot metal and they end up wearing out fairly quickly.


All of the VP Ti links were assembled for the front end along with the steering. I have decided that I'm going to stop bashing it and focus more on crawling, so I am not worried as much about the give the stock steering gave my servo.


The fresh housing with the panhard mount and new gears + some new c hubs was just sexy. At some point I am going to replace the lockers with spools.


With the front axle under control it was time to move onto the back.


The new axle housing went together so much better with the machine thread and now I won't have to worry as much about the screws backing out. With the RC screwz kit I finally had something long enough to move my shocks down to the same mounts as the lower control arms. I also added in the missing lens covers


With the rear shocks moved to the lower position I now have a balanced ride height until I get a chance to do my new exo frame mount.


It definately looks much better now in the front. I should note that I changed the angle of the front axle to fix the pinion angle after this picture. This allowed me to get the Traxxas end back on the drag link and get it more parallel with the pan hard bar.

[BamBamRC]

Looks great Brandon. Looks like I have a lot of work to do.

[MotoSoul]

That's half the fun, and at least you don't have to worry about mud falling on your face.

[MotoSoul]

I have never been all that happy with how my electronics were laid out in my wraith. I figured since I now has the Holmes Hobbies ESC that I would get it done properly. I had some aluminium left over from making a license plate mount for my car and put it to use.



With the battery stood up like I had it before it would come in contact with the hood slightly. I decided that with it flat the weight would be lower as well as more forward. My ESC is taped down to the CMS to keep the weight forward. All in all it is a much cleaner setup then I have ever had. The inner fenders will be more interesting to make, but I'm not all that worried.



I still had some left over mounts for my light bar, so I am using them to hold the wiring in place.



I moved the receiver box into the back compartment with another piece of aluminium. It keeps most of the wiring out of view. I will be painting in black at some point to blend it in.



I don't currently have a dig unit, which gives me a nice spot to mount another cable mount. You can also notice the new deans wire I ran from my motor. The old ones were starting to tear off and not allowing it to pull the proper current. I still haven't finalized my wiring for the rear lights, so they are not in the proper location yet. I am thinking of shrink wrapping the length of wire that comes down to blend it in with the cage.