Papa's Wraith Re-Build

[papabash]

Bought a nicely modded used Wraith from the classifieds a while back, played with it a bit, added some more upgrades, changed things around a little, but that was about it. After seeing all the cool Wraiths running at the St. Louis Recon G6, I decided to get serious about turning my Wraith into a fast-n-furious G6 style rig. Yeah, I know, Parker makes fun of the 2.2 Class and calls it the "training wheel" Class, but the fast rigs are just plain fun to watch (and drive). I hadn't originally planned to do a thread on this, and once I decided to re-vamp the rig I was so excited to get started that I forgot to take any "before" pictures, so I'll just post some pics of it in various stages as I make progress.

First thing I did was strip everything down to almost the bare cage. I'd been wanting to do a fastback mod for a while, but was always afraid I'd screw it up or weaken the cage. Finally took the plunge and did it:







The next thing I wanted to do was remove excess weight up high. I started by taking my heavy driver and stock Wraith seats out. When I originally put the driver in, I removed most of the lower portion of the seat in order to make him fit more naturally into the cockpit. Even with part of the seat removed, he still weighed in at 6 ounces:



To reduce weight, I began by picking up a set of Dinky R/C's Cheap Seats. These things are amazing; super light-weight, great detail, and plenty strong. They went together easily and with some Bondo putty filling the glue joints I had one ready for paint:





With putty and paint, the seat weighs in at a mere .42 ounces!



For contrast, here's a stock Wraith seat at 1.95 ounces:



The seat alone saves me 1.53 ounces, and since I removed the passenger seat, I'm saving 3.48 ounces just in the weight of the seats.

[papabash]

For my new driver, I grabbed one of my Wild Willy figures I had sitting in a drawer and picked up a new head from FreqEsKinz. The detail that is molded into the head is incredible, but it was heavy, so I did some roughing out on the drill press and followed it up with my Dremel:



It's not a pretty job, but once it's mounted, it's not visible. I was more concerned about getting every bit of weight out that I felt safe doing.

Before:



After, virtually half of the weight is gone:



Willy needed a bit of cutting and sanding to make him fit the seat, and I added some epoxy putty to his butt so I could drill and tap it later for a screw through the seat to hold him in place.



It took me a couple of days to apply all the layers of paint, and some of the fine detail on the head required using a toothpick for a paintbrush, but I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. I even gave him a gold tooth just to add character:







The completed driver and seat together weigh in at just 3.26 ounces, almost half what my previous driver/seat weighed, and a total savings (from my previous 2 seat arrangement) of 4.69 ounces.

[papabash]

Since I had the interior out, it was a good time to give it some more detail. I added some styrene diamond plate panels, a fire extinguisher, nitrous tank (the decal is on it's way), and a grenade shift knob. The grenade is my favorite scale item yet, not real visible, but oh so cool!

[Tgreer]

Nice work so far! Get it working so you can come to the next goat hill event!

[2manyprojects]

Man that is awesome!! Good job!!

[papabash]

Originally Posted by Tgreer

Nice work so far! Get it working so you can come to the next goat hill event!

Thanks Thommy! I would love to make it up to Goat Hill sometime. I'm a terribly slow builder, though. I've been fortunate to have a few days off from work lately to get a good start, so we'll see how it goes.

Originally Posted by 2manyprojects

Man that is awesome!! Good job!!

Thanks!

[papabash]

Here's a sneak-peek at what the rear will look like, just mocked in for now. Crawl Space rear tray and cover, great products. The TSC box will be functional, in that it will hold my land anchor, tow straps, etc. so they will be easily and quickly accessible when needed. The receiver will go in the space in front of the box.

[25-5]

this is a nice build

[ROLANDROCKSHOP]

off to a nice start!!


keep it moving along..

[2manyprojects]

Can't wait to see more!!!

[papabash]

Originally Posted by 25-5

this is a nice build

Thanks!

Originally Posted by ROLANDROCKSHOP

off to a nice start!!


keep it moving along..

Thanks Josh, I'm pretty excited about this build, so hopefully I'll keep getting some time in the shop and it doesn't drag on too long.

[papabash]

Originally Posted by 2manyprojects

Can't wait to see more!!!

Well, okay then! Here's another small piece finished. I needed an electronics tray with some real beef to it to mount a servo winch to, so I used the Crawler InNovations tray out of my son's rig as a starting point and cut one out of some G10 fiberglass. Should be plenty strong enough now.

[papabash]

Finished rebuilding the axles. The first thing I did was remove the Vanquish CMS/panhard. It looked good and never gave me a reason to remove it, but this rig is being built for all-out performance, and IMO, 4-link is just better. To replace it I chose the Dinky R/C "S" link; it puts the weight down low and has a nice solid 4 link mount built in. It also got a new pair of VP C-hubs and knuckles while I had it torn down. That's a Chaotic titanium steering arm:





Rear axle got a new set of VP lockouts and a new VP truss:



Older improvements on both axles include Fast Eddy bearings, Axial HD gears, HR Unibody SHD lockers, MIP driveshafts, VP diff covers, and DMG skids.

[Harley]

Looking good man!

[PontiacGT201]

ok i gotta ask(sorry if i missed it in the thread) how did you do the rear cage? did you just heat it up and bend it cause thats awesome.

[papabash]

Originally Posted by Harley

Looking good man!

Thanks Josh! Seeing "Hit and Run" in action was one of my inspirations for this build.

[papabash]

Originally Posted by PontiacGT201

ok i gotta ask(sorry if i missed it in the thread) how did you do the rear cage? did you just heat it up and bend it cause thats awesome.

No problem, First I drilled and tapped the cut ends so they would accept M3 screws, then I used a heat gun to slowly and carefully heat the plastic till it was soft enough to bend. If you're careful and don't rush it, you can do it without the plastic bubbling. While I was holding it in place I put it under the faucet and ran warm water over it to cool so it would stay put (I used warm water because I was afraid cold would make the plastic brittle). Then I cut some Delrin tube to fit between the rod ends and the cage. I used Traxxas Revo rod ends so they would be large enough to drill it out to fit (snugly) over the cage. The upper end of the tubes are tapped to M3, the lower ends are tapped M4. It wasn't difficult to do, but you definitely need to take your time. The hardest part was making a drill guide to fit over the cut part of the cage so I could drill it dead center to match the tube. Hope this helps.

[Billy D]

Looks great. Love the cage. Nothing better than good old personal quality craftsmanship

[PontiacGT201]

Originally Posted by papabash

No problem, First I drilled and tapped the cut ends so they would accept M3 screws, then I used a heat gun to slowly and carefully heat the plastic till it was soft enough to bend. If you're careful and don't rush it, you can do it without the plastic bubbling. While I was holding it in place I put it under the faucet and ran warm water over it to cool so it would stay put (I used warm water because I was afraid cold would make the plastic brittle). Then I cut some Delrin tube to fit between the rod ends and the cage. I used Traxxas Revo rod ends so they would be large enough to drill it out to fit (snugly) over the cage. The upper end of the tubes are tapped to M3, the lower ends are tapped M4. It wasn't difficult to do, but you definitely need to take your time. The hardest part was making a drill guide to fit over the cut part of the cage so I could drill it dead center to match the tube. Hope this helps.

awesome. think im gonna have to do this. looks sick. thanks

[papabash]

Originally Posted by Billy D

Looks great. Love the cage. Nothing better than good old personal quality craftsmanship

Thanks!

Originally Posted by PontiacGT201

awesome. think im gonna have to do this. looks sick. thanks

Post a couple pics after you do it.