Exceed mad torque 1/8 to 1/10 scale budget build!

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Wheels on the way. Should be here Friday.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Went to a local foam/fabric outlet store today. Picked up a good chuck of 3" thick foam. Made some 6" tall foams to go with the treps for my new wheels.


They are just as soft as the proline memory foams I have and fill out tires nicely. I mocked up one on my axial rims.

I also poked 2 vent holes in between the center lugs on opposite sides of each tire.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Wheels came in the mail today. Got right to mounting the treps on them.


The new homebrew foams really fill out the tires now but they are softer than my previous set.

The wheel faces are a little scratched so I may be painting them in the future. For now ill run them as is. There was 6 screws missing for the beadlocks but ill be getting all new hardware in the next few days anyway. Using the smallest hub my track width stayed the same but the inner bead doesn't come as close to the steering knuckles. With my prolines I had only a few mm of clearance. These also weigh significantly more with the weights installed. The bfg's weigh about 250g each and these are about 375g each. Without the rings they would be more like 275g but I decided to see if there is any benefit to a heavier wheel/tire.

Went out to the track and did some testing. The new foams and latest round of trimming have really changed how the treps perform. They are 100 times better than in stock form. Ill get some more testing in this weekend to compare them with the bfg's.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Also the front shock/link mounts didn't quite work out right so they got removed. Ill be making another set like the rears.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Totally reworked my rigs setup this weekend. Started by lowering where the frame extensions bolt up and moved inside of the chassis plates.



Picked up a pack of alumiweld rods from harbor freight and eliminated the screws holding my sliders together. Then remounted them a little higher using the bottom skid screws. Changed the rear bottom links to longer ones that match the uppers. Uses the back skid mount hole as well.


Then did a little measuring and planned out some bumpers.

Then after a lot of cutting with a dremel, filing, a propane torch and workin the alumiweld I ended up with these.




I think they came out ok for a first attempt. Mounted up and also installed a self retracting tow chain in the rear. Sorry for the dark pics.



Got some adjustable shock mount plates for an scx from a friend and they bolted right up to the holes I already had drilled in my rails. I could have done without them but it gives me a few more different height settings for better fine tuning of the shocks.



Mounted electronics in between the upper shock towers. Battery stayed in the same place. Also used a piece of tin and made mounts for the body to Velcro to.

Here it is all done and mounted up.






Overall it was quite the change from before but I like it.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Went out for some testing. Performs at least as well as before. Still have a few things to complete and tuning to do.

[cameron20118]

Looking good! I really like the way those bumpers turned out.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Originally Posted by cameron20118

Looking good! I really like the way those bumpers turned out.

Thanks. I was going to make the rear a little fancier like the front but just went with a simple design.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Got in some good runs with the treps and they are a lot better. Have tuned the suspension to my liking as well.

Decided to swap the bfg's on to my new rims and get some comparisons. Also removed the weight rings, the wheels were to heavy with them and I think they limited some of the tires compression. And I put the treps on my prolines.


Both sets seem like the rims go with the tires better and have a little better grab. But overall I still give the edge to the bfg's, they grab better at all speeds and hardly ever get clogged up. Treps sometimes need more throttle and have a harder time cleaning themselves out.
Got some new videos posted up on YouTube including a new gulch crawl we found 2 min down the road.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Current setup has been workin great. I've put the bumpers thru some abuse and they are tough. I also think the bfg's are softening up a little. The more I run them the more I love how they look and grab.
Decided it was time to get rid of my last stock links, the steering links. Went and a pack of Revo ends from the cuz I'm also thinking of redoing the uppers in front and rear. While there I saw they had the new yeti xl so I took a couple comparison pics with my truck.


That thing is a monster.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

I used some 8/32 threaded zinc rod and 1/4 alum tube for the steering links. Added a couple bends to the tie rod to tuck it up right under the servo arm and put a small bend in drag link.



Allowed me to remove the front guard so I should have better front approach clearance. I had been noticing how much I actually hit the guard and it was a little limiting. Ill get some testing in this weekend.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

I thought about trying a cms setup as well but decided against it for now. Ill see how it works first and possibly try it later.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Did a little testing this morning.

So far so good. Did get a better approach with the new steering. Only thing that sticks out is the screw off the servo arm, might try pointing it up with a different drag link.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Also got a set of white dot rovers from the classifieds comin. I wanna see how my truck does with a well proven tire.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

I've been slowly losing paint from my body so I decided to repaint it. Brushed on some dot3 and let soak and it came off no problem. I went with a little different theme this time, wanted to try a fade. It came out ok and paint job stuck great until I wasnt careful enough putting in the velcro for the front body mount. As I laid it in I kinda smeared the paint in the hood, see pic. Other than that I'm very pleased with it, a new paint job really revives an old body.


And the boo boo!

And since I have rovers on the way I swapped the bfg's back to my prolines and gave the faces of my rc4wd's a coat of silver. All blinged up and ready for some new tires.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Got the rovers in the mail today so I got to mounting them on wheels. They were in great shape and mounted fine. I put my homebrew foams in for now. They may actually be too soft for these tires, which I think I'll be very pleased with. Here's how it sits now.

Shot comparing the bfg's and the rovers.

The rovers are tad shorter and a little wider. I think it'll be closer in size after I get the c.i. foams I want for the rovers. Can't wait to give these a good test.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Took the rovers out for a run today. I'm very, very pleased with them. Posted a vid on YouTube with front and rear cam angles.
http://youtu.be/flkVT2laSEM
Also had a few set on private so I changed them to public.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

The rovers continue to wow me by how well they perform on all types of terrain. I still haven't gone thru any significant mud but they handled sand nicely so I think they will be ok in muddy situations. On rocks they are amazing. Loose dirt is no problem and nice grip on slippery wood.

Broke my phone so I used an upgrade. New one has some cool pic editing features.

And I really dig the dual camera video recording.
http://youtu.be/lgHsmH4T1Ck

[Crawlin' Lobster]

Time for an update. I've made a few little changes to my rig. First I picked up some alum berg knuckles from the classifieds for my front axle. My plastic ones were beginning to get a little sloppy.

I also got a great deal on an unused set of berg v1 tubes, 2 sets of shafts, 4 knuckles, 4 stubs, bearings for everything and a few other random berg parts.

I will be getting another set of berg v1 tubes with the servo mod on the fronts tubes and lockouts on the rears. Along with more shafts and other things.
My plan is to order a couple new exceed gear box cases and 1 set of steel gears and 1 plastic gear set. Then I'll need to mod the tubes to fit the gear boxes. I hope to be able to use a berg locker with exceed gears as the exceed locker doesn't fit in the berg tubes. I did a little mock up and when done the axles should end up around 1" narrower than my current ones.

[Crawlin' Lobster]

While out one day my servo just stopped responding. Still had power to it but it wouldn't turn. Took the case apart and found that the signal wire had pulled off the board. So finally put the hitec 5997tg in.

It has some chatter with no load on it but after searching on rcc it appears that it's a normal thing. Definitely doesn't hurt the performance. I will be ordering a solar d772 when I order new gear boxes. I figure they are worth a shot at $20 for over 350 oz/in at 6v.

Now for some free mods I've done.
I made some new upper link mounts for front and rear.
I took the caps off my old shocks and did the cap mod like people do big bores. Put the modded caps on my new alum bodied shocks and flipped how they mount. Laid them down a little at the chassis mount points as well.
Shortened the bent links I made before and retapped the ends. Then changed out the long uppers for the shorter ones that were the lowers.




My skid clearance was reduced by about 1/2" but I gained about 1" of extra drop in front and a little over 1 1/2" in the rear. Overall height is now just under 10" too. Also got a little more articulation with this setup.



Been doin some work on the backyard course too and I should have some new videos up soon.