Building a new Wraith

[RebelRat]

I finally purchased a wraith kit. I built a wheely king one off tuber a long time ago and then got out of RC. I got the itch to tinker again so I ordered the kit.

As of now Ive got aluminum C's, knuckles, and steering links on the way.

A HH BRXL with a Crawlmaster 13t on the way

Got a 56t 32p spur, 11t & 12t pinion coming as well

2-3s 3300 35c lipos on the way

1 Blue bird 660dmg servo on the way (going to take my chances with the cheapy)

I still need to get a BEC and an aluminum servo horn.

Ive spent alot of time reading around on here. Did I go wrong anywhere? I realize the servo is cheap but I figured for $22 I would give it a shot.

I dont really plan to get too serious with it. Mainly going to be used for crawling. We go to the lake alot here and there are a ton of places to crawl around the banks of the lake.

[badhoopty]

the stock lockers are kinda crappy and you might also consider some mip or maxx driveshafts.

[RebelRat]

Im thinking about waterproofing all the electronics as well. I contacted John about waterproofing my esc if he hasnt shipped it yet. I got sucked into the 15bajillion pages on the waterproofing thread haha

[RebelRat]

On the driveshafts, for now Im just going to run the stock ones until they bust. Im going to do the mod to fill the hollow male side of the shaft and see how long it lasts.

[MarvTowel]

I am new to the Wraith as well and burned up a Crawlmaster 13t using 56/12 on 3s. HH told me to drop to 5.6:1 which seemed like it may be too slow but the motor temps dropped and still had plenty of wheel speed for crawling. Using 56/10 made the motor hit the transmission at its closest setting which let the gears run a bit loose but a $10 gear change is cheaper than a new motor. Probably going to ditch the spur cover and run 62/11 when the spur dies so I can tighten the mesh up a bit. I think the stock drive shafts may interfere with an over sized spur though. The MIP shafts extend the front yolk a bit I believe.

The kit was extremely fun to build btw. A couple oddities in the manual but Fast Eddy's video guide was extremely helpful when I got stuck.

[RebelRat]

Thanks for the heads up. I've got an 11t pinion coming, I will check the LHS for a 62t spur and go with that setup first. Did you try 56/11?

[MarvTowel]

56/11 is 5.09 which is still higher than HH recommends. I did swap to 62/11 which is 5.63 and is within their gear ratio recommendation. Did the MIP drive shafts as well and ditched the cover. I wish I had checked the clearance with the stock drive shafts to see. Held them next to it and seems like it may clear if you need to save some dough.

I am definitely a crawler but have some loose dirt climbs to do and that ratio has been awesome. Can crawl all day but still spin the TSL SX tires fast enough to throw some dirt and make a mess of the truck. Thought I would miss the 4.6:1 speed but it was crap, just made me bounce all over.

Just got back from running a 3s 4000 mAh which ran for 2+ hours! Make sure and put an action figure in there as a driver, makes it extra cool.

[RebelRat]

I couldn't locate a 62 locally so I opted for a 60. Going to try it with the 11t pinion and keep a check on the temps. I'm right in the middle of the build but so far I am missing 4 different types of screws in the kit. I'm kind of pissed because I have to leave some stuff half done until I get the screws. So far I'm pretty disappointed with the QC of the hardware.