Newbie Mods and Upgrades

[BrokenBooks]

Hey all...

Been out of crawlin for a bit, and just got my CC today. After taking out for a first run I noticed a few things. First and most obvious is that it doesn't seem to hold very well. Tips and rolls really easily.

Anyway... I noticed a few threads talk about various basic mods to start with (wieghts, motors, etc...)

What I really want to know is if you had a brand new CC and cash to blow... What would be the first things you would do to upgrade, not including larger tires. Im open to tire mods, but I like the stock size...

Let me know what you guys would do... Remember that you have cash to blow.

- J

[furiousgeorge]

I would remake my the frame i made out of titanium, for the heck of it. I would buy one of those mamba max ESC (I cant justify that purchase now). id buy all the flashy, unnessesary ( in my opinion) aluminum hopups.

ill try to think of more.

[BrokenBooks]

Again, Im a newbie...

What do you mean by hopups? And Im pretty sure I understand what it does, but what does ESC stand for?

[papabash]

Newbie to crawling also, but what I have gathered from this forum is that the first thing to do is lengthen the wheelbase either by fabricating your own chassis (not aware of any longer aftermarket chassis) or by making longer links. This will help with the clod stall. If you are doing more than just casual bashing, the Banebots motors seem to be the trick, there is a thread on these. Castle ESC would be great, just because of the drag brake. There are other mods as well, Spartacus has an awesome thread dealing with such.
The hopups I think furiousgeorge is referring to are the items Duratrax has on their site that they make specifically for the CC. Some are worthwhile, some are not, unless you like bling for the sake of bling. There are very few items made by other companies, the aftermarket support for these is pretty sad so far.
ESC = electronic speed control
Hope I've helped. Keep us posted on your build.

[ccbg]

IDK what the Mamba Max is retailing / ebaying for, but two Losi Mini Rock Crawler ESC's would do the trick, wouldn't they? I've heard they have drag brake, and they are 40$, so 80$ for the two.. Plus you can later on hook them up to a 4Channel Dual Stick radio, for nicer crawlability (or get 2 mamba 25's if you can get your hands on, on a reasonable price that is ;))

[spartacus_nuc]

Originally Posted by ccbg

IDK what the Mamba Max is retailing / ebaying for, but two Losi Mini Rock Crawler ESC's would do the trick, wouldn't they? I've heard they have drag brake, and they are 40$, so 80$ for the two.. Plus you can later on hook them up to a 4Channel Dual Stick radio, for nicer crawlability (or get 2 mamba 25's if you can get your hands on, on a reasonable price that is ;))

The Losi ESCs do have a decent drag brake, but they only handle 6 cells, and the BEC is pretty weak. I put a nice digital servo in my wifey's MRC, and it lasted about 8 minutes until the ESC died, and when I took it apart, I could see IC with the BEC on it was partially melted. The power mosfets were fine, but it just couldn't handle a decent servo. Until that point, she had been driving it regularly on the weekends for a while. It also fried my servo. If you don't HAVE to have a drag brake, the stock ESC is fine, and will handle 2 high torque servos without breaking a sweat, as well as just about any motors except the HH 454 Pullers and similar cobalt motors. 2 mamba 25's....that may be pretty awesome.............

[BrokenBooks]

Originally Posted by papabash

Some are worthwhile, some are not, unless you like bling for the sake of bling.

Which would you say are worthwhile?

[papabash]

Worthwhile: Anything that will potentially improve performance or durability such as:
Big bore shocks (increases articulation) Also requires either the graphite chassis or the big bore shock mounting set.
CVD's, but geesh, they are $$$$!
Aluminum knuckles
Metal gears
Not worthwhile: Things strictly for bling such as:
Graphite PATTERN items such as axles, trays, etc. These are purely aesthetic items and do nothing to improve performance since they are simulated graphite.
Also not worthwhile: Duratrax upgrade motors. These improve top speed, not torque, which is what is needed. Not sure what they were thinking there.
Aluminum links - These have been reported to be weak where the threads join the link and tend to break at this point. If you want new links, make your own. There are a couple of articles in the tech section that show how.
Hope this helps.