So, I bought a Wraith
 

Yeah, this was a good idea.

http://i.imgur.com/vj2tfUH.jpg

It was really starting to bother me that I get home from work late enough that there's no time to run my vehicles after dinner and before the sun goes down, so I really needed a vehicle I could run at night. Climbing over stuff is way more conducive to having fun with an RC at night, vs. driving fast and crashing into unlit obstacles at high speeds.

Unfortunately, the very first thing I did was solder on the XT90 battery connector backwards and I burned out the ESC before I ever got to drive the thing. My LHS is a ten minute drive away, though, so I went and got a replacement ESC and some longer wires (the stock wires were too short), put everything together *correctly* this time, and took it out for a run.

An hour later, it was still running strong on my Duratrax Onyx 5000mAh LiPo pack. I knew crawler motors could run longer, but I had no idea they could run *this* long. I'm really impressed.

First upgrade is going to be an open front diff, filled with the thickest fluid I can find, to improve turning and reduce traction-rolling on pavement. Second upgrade is going to be wheel weights for the front wheels; I was originally planning to get normal rotating wheel-weights, but then I found out about BlueMonkey's non-rotating axle weights, and I decided I like that idea better. Third upgrade is going to be a bunch of aluminum parts I ordered from AsiaTees: aluminum diff covers, steering links, front hubs, rear axle extenders, shocks, and little decorative bits for the centers of the wheels. Fourth and fifth upgrades will be a two-speed gearbox and titanium axle links, though I haven't decided which order to do them yet. I may upgrade to MIP steel driveshafts and a rebuildable 20T motor when I replace the gearbox.

Yeah, this was a very good idea. I'm going to have a lot of fun with this vehicle.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Welcome to the addiction. Check out Harley's threads for a good list of upgrades and stages of upgrading!

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Yea you got the bug, no doubt. Enjoy!

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Okay, I'm driving myself nuts looking at wheels. Are there any 2.2" beadlock wheels that have the same offset as the stock Wraith wheels, and *don't* cost almost a hundred bucks per set?

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

You could pick up some Axial Walker Evan wheel like on the Poison Spider Wraith, part # AX31118. With Vanquish SLW hubs you can adjust your offset how ever you want.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Cool, thanks for the tip. I think I'll go with those Walker Evans wheels and maybe upgrade the hubs with those Vanquish parts somewhere down the road.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Cool, get a BEC for steering servo is good upgrade even for stock servo. Stay away from AsiaTees due to low quality.

YES. READ before you buy and avoid the cost of low quality. "thumbsup"

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

ya what natedog said asiatees has very low quality of goods, might even call them junk!!

I've gotten plenty of stuff from AsiaTees before and it's been good enough for my usage. I'm not one of those people who beats the hell out of his vehicles.

Hmm. I tried the open diff in the front, but even with 500Kwt diff fluid it still diffed-out too easily when climbing, and it didn't fix the scrub in corners on pavement either. It did fix the insta-flip problem when braking in a corner on hard terrain, but it's not worth the tradeoff. Million-weight diff fluid might work better, but the next thing I'm going to try is an overdrive pinion/ring gear for the front axle.

It's too bad RC vehicles don't have proper limited-slip diffs, with torque-activated clutch packs to lock the diffs when necessary.

Just for the heck of it, does anyone know if there are remote locking diffs available for the Wraith? I haven't been able to find any, but maybe I don't know where to look.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Not that I'm aware of.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Haven't seen a remote locker for a wraith yet. It would be an awesome thing to have for a trail rig period though. But I can see where there would be weight and space issues for such a set up on a live axle rig.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Love the wraith I spent to much money on mine, a good buy for you would be a good esc like takin or torque master by Holmes hobbies and a good motor I like takin because they have a lot of power but they are not slow like others.
Get your self some good tires too and get the weight down low ;)

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

I bought some brass axle weights for the front wheels. That should lower the CoG a good bit, because the two weights will come out to a quarter of a pound. A new motor and ESC will have to wait a while -- the stock ESC seems to work fine, and I just bought a Castle Field Link so I can tweak its settings.

Remote lockers on a solid-axle vehicle would probably work best if they were cable-operated, connected to a servo near the center of the vehicle.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Here is some of the best advise you can get, go to the Wraith section and read, read, read! LOL it doesn't matter what fluid you put in the diffs because the are locked together. To make the motor last you need to change the gear ratio to somewhere around 5:1. And yes get a BEC.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Yes, go to the Wraith section and read a bunch. The sticky's at the top are the best place to start, just the first page on each even.

As said, avoid what you can from AsiaTees, especially anything like a steering link or links of any sort. While you may have had good luck in the past, not all of these things are made with the same principals. Avoid them at all costs, they flat out do not last.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Yeah, I've been reading. And soliciting suggestions. As far as the gear ratio is concerned, I'm thinking of getting the 2-speed gearbox from RC4WD, but I'm going to wait a while to see whether I feel like having 2 speeds would really add anything to my experience.

The open diff in the front was just an experiment, and it didn't cost very much. It didn't fix the scrub in corners, it didn't tighten the turning radius, and it destroyed the vehicle's ability to climb over obstacles. Something I didn't realize until I tried an open front diff is, sometimes when crawling you only have one wheel that's actually got enough traction to move the vehicle, and if you add an open diff into the equation, you may in fact have three wheels spinning while the one wheel with traction doesn't get any torque. Lesson learned.

I'm unclear about what a standalone BEC will accomplish, if the receiver already has a built-in BEC.

Nah, I ordered titanium suspension and steering links from Blue Monkey RC, not AsiaTees. Those parts get banged against stuff, and I wanted them to be stronger than aluminum can be.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

The BEC is in the ESC, not the receiver. However internal BEC's typically have low amperage outputs and cannot feed servos properly. A 10 amp BEC from Castle Creations should be one of the first things on your list to buy.

It's is a must have for 99.9% of all crawlers.

What on earth could a servo small enough to balance on my finger possibly need with 10 amps of current? That's 84 watts if the power source is a fresh 2S LiPo. What scenario would require the servo to exert that much force on the steering linkage without any of the other steering components breaking first?

The Team Orion Method Pro 20t motor went in tonight. It gets hotter than the stock motor because it doesn't have an integrated fan, but it's a little faster and has more torque too. Hooray for stronger magnets!

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

A single servo doesn't need all 10 amps, but it needs more than the internal BEC can provide.

Re: So, I bought a Wraith
 

Fair enough. I have noticed the stock servo seems a little weak, and an insufficient power supply is certainly a plausible explanation for that. Is a 10-amp BEC the only good option, though? I have to think a lower-wattage BEC would be smaller and easier to shoehorn in.