Gmade bashing mods?

[chomp]

Hi everyone.

I have two questions, but maybe I should start with a note: I'm a victim of Gmade R1's awesome advertising and good looks. I bought this kit to bash with and have almost zero interest in rock crawling. I like to crawl (at high speeds) over cement parking blocks and up jumps, though. In hindsight something like the Axial Exo would've been an better basher, but what can you do? (Besides the obvious answer of "buy an Axial Exo").

1. After taking my freshly built R1 outside to drive, I quickly broke one of the plastic driveshafts. At some point it fell off and I wasn't able to find it, so I bought JunFac's hardened version (specifically for the R1) and carefully installed it with lots of thread locker, etc. JunFac's hardened driveshafts are male/female, just like the plastic variant, and when I put the car back together I noticed that the male end only sits a few mm into the female end on the front (I'm writing from memory and could be wrong about this, it might be the rear). I measured both driveshafts and they were the same, so there's not a front/read driveshaft.

To combat this, I moved the upper and lower links in to the second/most inward position. I was just wondering if anyone else had to do this and if this will affect my stability. It doesn't seem to, but I haven't driven it a lot. This leads me to #2

2. Have any of you done any modifications to make the R1 more bashworthy? In particular, have you done things that lower the center of gravity? I know there's a front axle battery mount, but I'm sort of afraid of LiPo batteries and would rather not risk slamming them into things. I do run with my battery under the battery mount so maybe I gain a little bit of stability from this.

I ordered some 1.9" wheels/tires (ProLine Flat Irons) which I figure would help out a little bit (since they're smaller) in addition to looking better. The stock wheels are very balloon-like. Are there upper/lower link mods I could do? I bought an Axial AX10 (Scorpion) axle kit and was going to try it since the portal axles by design have a higher center of gravity, but I didn't get around to it.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear anything you guys have done to make your R1 more fun at high speeds! I've been lurking your forums for a while and am in general very inspired by its content.

[nsbp]

Yeah. Gmade drive shafts arent worth the plastic thier made of. Some say E-maxx drive shafts work and are LOADS stronger than the stock ones. As for moving the links to the inside hole, you have shortened the wheel base a few mm doing so. I hope you moved both upper and lower links in or else you put some nasty caster on the axles which is really hard on the c-hubs.(as you did because I just re-read the post and saw that) Put the shocks in droop setting to lower it. Other than that, drive the hell out of it. They are pretty tough

[chomp]

I changed a few things today and drove it around and was very happy! I bashed around for 40 minutes or so and nothing was broken! A first for me.



The rear upper/lower links are screwed into the most-rear holes, but the front upper/lower links are screwed into the inward hole. I did this, as noted in my first post, to help the driveshaft penetrate more deeply.

Also, I moved the front shocks to a different mount. That helped lower the front end a bit which I think made a noticeable difference in stability. Especially with the smaller, less balloon-like wheels. I'll probably chop off the stock suspension mounts if I decide that this is the way I want to keep it.

I did a lot of tinkering today, thread locked what screws I could, tried things out, etc. I had an 18t pinion attached to my motor (neucastle 1410 3800kv) which I think was a bit overkill. I'd like to move down to a 15t -- the current 12t that I have on the motor now is a bit tame.

[nsbp]

Thats a good looking truck. Another thing I have done for crawling, but will benefit for high speed also is, Pull the diff pot off and put some heavy grease in there and also in the portal gears. I found it doesnt wear out as fast. I hve about 100 hours on mine and it is just starting to wear and get sloppy now. Those gears are stamped and cast so they are not a perfect fit to begin with. ANY gear wear makes the whole drive system super sloppy. I hope junfac starts making machined gears for this beast of a rig soon.

[Wrigleys]

Nice looking rig! but i suppose these crawlers / rock racers arent made bulletproof out of the box, so some MIP or HD shafts might be needed.