Another Agent Down Under

[LAY80N]

Hi all, figured i would throw a build (well more a already built) thread up for my current 2.2 pro truck. I had planned to do a slow build up towards the end of last year, but being stuck on an oil rig with nothing to do waiting for a crew change boat and access to RCC classifieds combined to net me some good deals on most of the gear I was after. Props to IttyBitty, Hitman and joshsmith512 for being top people to deal with.

Specs

Chassis: .
YTC Secret Agent 3.5 with Topper. Al bolts throughout. Chaotic Ti links to suit.
SCX10 Shocks

Diffs:
XR10 fronts (front case in rear too)
Axial lightweight gears
VP Upper housing on front
VP Motor plate (lightened)
VP Trans cases
VP Upper link mount
VP Chubs (modified extra caster)
VP XR10 Knuckles (lower double sheer removed and tie rod on top of upper arm)
Lightweight allow tie rod.
DLux Knuckle weights - Currently running no Knuckle weight
RR Motor electronics mount
RR Battery mount (lightened)
Alloy fasteners
Insert mod in plastic rear upper housings
Axial plastic lockouts
CF servo mount

Electronics:
2x Mamba Micro ESC
CC BEC
GT3B RX/TX
All electronics smashed into single unit mounted on the front motor plate.
Hitech 7980 servo
Br00d vapors - 30T skewed
18G wiring
500mAh 35C-45C lipo

Rims & Tyres
Narrowed HPI Blitz (previously buggy rims)
Losi Boss Claws - 2nd row cut
CI CC foam - soft front, medium rear


RTR Weight - 1702g - 3.75lbs
Track Width - F= 11.25"
R= 10.25"
Few random pics.


Electronic Smash - excuse dodgy phone pic, it looks neater in real life

[Oz Bruiser]

Good to see something written up in here Layto. For those that wouldnt get to see it run, it goes really well and give's the front runners a good run for their money.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[ash38]

Finally Leyto lol, can't wait to see how the new motors are treating you, how much weight did you loose with the vapors compared to the apocalypse? With any luck they should put me into the 16XXg region


Sssshhhh

[LAY80N]

Thanks Ben and Ash.

Weight comparison between my old 35T skewed Apocalypse and the new br00ds







Hope this helps you mate. Your build is coming along great. I had a bit of a drive of the new Hulksta chassis today. Very impressive bit of gear.

[LAY80N]

Small update. Had our May round of our local series last Sunday (5/5/13). Still waiting for the final position after a small error in the scoring input has to be corrected. Had an up and down day. Some courses i had clean runs on, only to hit an easy gate in the next course. Though I did manage to follow up my win in the last round with another win in sportsman with my light weight SSS-R.

Short video of a few of the competitors on PRO1 - Credit goes to NEC from cANZ for the video efforts.

[ittybitty]

Looking good man...great video

[LAY80N]

Originally Posted by ittybitty

Looking good man...great video

Thanks mate.




Video from Pro 4 (didn't get any footage of my rig on pro2 or pro3 ). Again thanks to Nec for shooting the video and getting it all together.

[LAY80N]

Just a slight update. I have been running the rear links at the lowest hole on the VP mount for a while now. So to get some more front bias into the rig and drop some more weight i threw on an old stock upper link mount. Also have changed batterys to nanotech 350mAh 65-130 3s lipos. This along with a few other little things has dropped my RTR weight down to 1690g, still holding a nice forward bias.

Last Sunday was the May round for the Sydney cANZ group. My day started in a random disaster, 2nd gate on the first course i flipped the rig over from a gentle roll and lost rear motor power. I drove a bit more of the course but ended up wedged and DNF'd. On further inspection i found a very small rock jammed up in the rear motor brush wire. After repairing this I ran Pro2 and Pro3 clearing all the bonus's and only taking one reverse on Pro2, and clearing the bonus but hitting one gate in pro3.

[ash38]

That sucks about the rock, easy fix though luckily, weigh is real good considering you use VP upper case on the front, how was the run today?


Sssshhhh

[LAY80N]

Run was good thanks Ash, just a quick few packs between the weather.

Current pic - cleaned up a few things that resulted in a slight RTR drop.

[JeremyH]

Originally Posted by LAY80N

Great video!

I heard you guys talking about me in there....thanks for not saying anything bad.

[filotr14lsdude]

Well done today layto.

You drove well all weekend.

[LAY80N]

Thanks Al. Your new rig is really coming along too, even if you turned traitor on us XR kids

Just finished the cANZ Australian Nationals this weekend. After the 3 regular courses on Saturday i was in 2nd spot. Ran the top 5 shoot out today (Sunday) and after a couple of brain freezes I finished the competition up in 3rd spot. (6th in sportsman ).

I have a few little updates from the rushed prep for the nats that i will grab some pics and get a better post when i get a minute spare.

[LAY80N]

Rightyo then. This thread could do with a decent update.

In the last month or so i have made quite a few changes to the rig. As the weight has been falling for a while, i have been a bit lazy with pushing the tuning to match. With the nationals coming up fast i got stuck in to getting this rig dialed. First thing i started at was the link geometry. After some (heaps) of testing i am quite happy with the current settings. My nationals practice was a bit all over the place, with house renovation drama's, one of my dogs having an operation to remove 7 cancerous lumps, working away at short notice and a heap of other things. Then one week before the Nats one of the micro mamba's decided to let out its magic smoke. Luckily one of the local guys (Ash38 ) had a spare micro sidewinder. So i stripped the MSW out of the sportsman, smashed it and re-did the entire electronics on this rig, and fitted the surviving Mamba micro to the sportsman. Finally i decided to add some colour to the rig so i made some new skins up.

Come nationals i was not expecting great things, but with some consistent driving through out Saturday i managed to end up sitting in 2nd place. Come Sunday morning and nerves were getting the better of me, leading to a few rookie mistakes that left me in 3rd place. Overall i am still very happy with my result. The rig worked great, it was just the goose in control of it that let it down. Huge congratulations to Mike in 1st and Dan in 2nd. Both you you really drove great and earned your spot. Also congratulations to Steve in 4th for some great consistent driving over the weekend.

A big thank you to the sponsors of the event -
Hulksta Engineering
RC4wd
OttSix Tyre
OneTenCrawlers
Krawler Koncepts

And a personal thank you to Dan at Hulksta Engineering for both the help with the lead up to Nationals, and for passing down his 2nd prize to me. Also a thank you to the guys at OneTenCrawlers for supplying the right gear at the right price.

Some random pics that people took on the weekend. Thank you to all the photographers :thumbsup:












Just after nationals i had some alloy tube arrive. So far i have re-done the rear links, and nearly finished the front links. Current RTR weight is just under 1660g, front links still to be fitted. I'm am hoping to drop under 1650g once the links are on. I also have some freakin sweet C/F rims courtesy of Dan at Hulksta to be fitted. I have mocked up the rims using an offset face setup and should save a few grams there too (i can hear the plastic rim jokes starting already).

Setup as the rig currently sits:

Rear links
Stock front axle link mount shaved down (I run a front case in the rear)
Lowest hole in chassis
Links on "outer" side of chassis mounting

Front links
VP axle link mount top hole
Lowest hole in chassis
Links on "outer" side of chassis mounting

Tyres/Foams
BC's with 2nd row opposite clipped, shaved sidewalls
CI DD 5.25, soft front med rear

Shocks/Springs
SCX10 - 30w front, 40w rear
Mini-T silver front, MRC silver rear
rear 3 hole from center, front 2nd hole from center
ZERO knuckle weight :birdie:
Weight: 1658g (3.65lbs)

[ash38]

You drive well at nats mate, a much deserved 3rd place, next year pots top 3


Sssshhhh

[nec]

Hey Layto, Congratz on 3rd place.

cheers
Nec

[Highlucks]

Well done bud, great to finally meet you and the rest of the boys. You drove extremely well on the weekend and deserved the podium.

[LAY80N]

Just a slight bit of an update. Used some of the left over alloy tube to make some chassis braces. Dropped down to 1657g after fitting. The alloy tube I have used for links and braces is 3/16 x 0.49in (4.76mm x 1.24mm) 6061 T6 if anyone is interested. This gives an I.D. of 2.28mm so a quick drill out to 2.5mm and its perfect to tap to M3 x 0.5. Still to fit front links as i have been a bit lazy.

Unfortunately i could not get the funds together to fly over and run with you guys in the US nationals this year Though if i have a spot I WILL be coming next year (even have the blessings of my awesome and very tolerant wife). So fingers crossed i can get my sh*t together and earn an invite.

As part of my 3rd place price was an OttSix voucher (Thanks again OttSix for your support ) I have decided to give the voodoo's a run. Still working out what compound to grab. Silver looks to be a good options so far, planning on throwing some comp cut 5.5 CC inners and see what my foam stockpile has for outers. Any suggestions regarding compound and foam choice are very welcome. There are only a few drivers running the voodoo's in Aus at the moment. Though that number is growing at a large rate.

Also as part of the nationals prize was a voucher for Hulksta Engineering. Dan is one of our local crawlers and an all round top bloke. I have been talking to him regarding a couple of sets of rims, as well as a few other little bits of bling he has been designing. Hopefully i will have some photo's of some rims and other trick bits up soon. I have had a great run from the narrowed HPI Blitz rims and although they are plastic they have survived plenty of comp abuse. But the new C/F rims should see a bit less weight, some room if i choose to run knuckle weight later on, and a whole bunch more adjustability.

[LAY80N]

Last Sunday saw the July round for the cANZ Northern crew. It spelt a day of frustration for me. The terrain we were running on was very technical. Super grippy with lots of diff grabbing ledges and cracks perfect width to jam a tyre into. On PRO1 i had a great run, reaching the last gate with around a minute to spare. I then proceeded to find on of these cracks and wedge my rig in it. I worked out out and with only seconds to spare i got a bit of a blood rush and lined up to jump the finish gate. Only i miss timed the jump and missed the gate entirely Luckily no other competitors finished either, i was the closest so the score didn't hurt so much. PRO2 again i had a great run up to the last gate, and about 50 seconds to spare. I got 3 wheels through but my RHR tyre slipped into another crack. Needing only to move the wheel an inch forward i tried to work the wheel through. But the damn thing stopped just before it cleared the gate, and my frustration got the better of me for a split second and i damaged a hex in my Blitz rim. It was entirely my fault, the rims are great i was just a meat head for a split second . Only one driver finished the course so again luckily the score was not as bad as it could have been. PRO3 was a repeating bonus setup. Glad to say i only took one reverse on the way to a great run, cleaning all gates, driving the bonus after every gate and finishing with plenty of time to spare. We had some time left over so a 4th PRO course was laid out. About half the field finished this course, i did quite well and snuck into 3rd for the course, getting only 1 gate and a few reverses, but making up for it by nailing both tough bonus lines.

While the finals results are not posted yet, a quick calculation puts me in 2nd place for the round. Im happy with this as it moves me to outright 2nd and only approx 10 points adrift of Hulksta in 1st. Unfortunately my day with the shaftsman was not so good, finishing 4th i think. Though i will still hold my 1st place on the Shafty table buy about 12 points.


A whole pile of spacers just showed up today in the mail too, just waiting on some Al bolts from Fastener Express and some more rim parts and i can start to swap and test out the new Hulksta C/F rims.

[LAY80N]

Last Sunday saw our July round for the cANZ NSW series. I placed 6th in pro, not so great but my driving was a bit off. After the comp Hulksta, The Crawl Black and myself decided that jumping our pro rigs was a good idea - hence the following video. My first attempt somehow went wrong providing some good laughs (and me looking a bit retarded ) but i cleared the gap twice straight up after that.

RC Crawler Pro rig jumping - YouTube

Rigs in order - Hulksta, Myself then TCB (Who was suffering from flat batterys and just managed to head butt the wall).