Confessions of a Crawler N00b and the less than $1 Suspension Upgrade

[apuinator]

If this is your first RC crawler I would suggest reading this post all the way through and just don't scan for the upgrade tip :-)

If this is your first crawler then you are very susceptible to a disease called 'upgradeitis'. This is the uncontrollable urge to upgrade to every "best" part there is and think that it will make your crawler better. While it may do that as a driver you still suck. The best crawler will not make you the next GateKeeper or Just Zach:-P.
I was infected with this disease when I was looking at the 1/10 scale crawlers. I wanted to start out with a stock Axial, but soon after I wanted to upgrade everything and had a price tag over $1000. I am glad that I did not give into this. How can you tell if you have this? Here are some questions that you might ask:

"What is the best XXX?" Where "XXX" refers to a part.
"Where do I buy part XXX?
"Should I do XXX" Where "XXX" refers to some type of configuration of the crawler.

If you ask any of these questions and either have not purchased your MRC yet or have less than 20 hours of crawltime then you have severe upgradeitis.

Many experienced people presribe the wrong medicine for this by telling people to read, read, and read. This is what most likely got you infected in the first place. The correct solution is to drive, drive, and then drive some more. Mix your driving with tinkering to make the results last.

Crawling is part art part science. The art is in the driving. The science is in the building. Unfortuneately we loose a lot of the science when we use terms that are left open for interpretaion like (i.e. more, better, etc). These terms are not measureable.

Drive your MRC stock for a while and see what it can do and can't do. Try different terrain, angles, situations, etc and see how it performes. Note the things it handled well, things that need improvement. Also note the places that it had issues and did well in so that you can return to it after tinkering. If you change the way your crawler is built based on someone elses thread then you don't know why you did that and what real benifit did it give you. As you change each part of your configuration note what changes happened in your performance and if you had to change your driving style to either meet the changes or compinsate for the changes.

I got my MRC used since I was not sure I would be able to afford or even like this hobby. I drove it a least a couple of times a week over the same terrain. At first I though that this thing was perfect since it handled most of what I tryied to do. The more I pushed the more I found areas of improvement in both my driving and my setup. As stock I liked the break over clearance, but the height hurt on the vertical climbs and sidewall traveling. The torque twist was noticable, but I was not sure how this really effected things.

The first modification I made was based on badgers post about having his lower links and shocks in the same area of the shock. This made a hugh difference in the articulation for me. I did not like the limited articulation. When I would start a climb the same side rear wheel would come off the ground to quickly. I put things back and removed front springs to go for ghetto droop. This made the front end lower and helped on the climbs and side chambers, but I noticed that my breakover was affected. Not because I was bottoming out, but I did not know that the shocks help give you traction. Anoobsayswhat!?!?!?!?!? Yeah, the force of the shocks pushing the axle away from the chassis helps the tires get a better grip. I got to witness this first hand. The torque twist was a little worst and now I could see why it was a big deal. In a situation where the crawler is having to musle it's way out of a situation the chassis will twist and thow off the way the crawler handles. This is most noticable when climbing a steep incline and one of the front wheels is off the ground. Due to either stupidity or boredom I decied to remove the rear spings as well and run a full ghetto droop setup. This made the crawler into a very slow race car. It got stuck on the simplest break overs. It was interesting to see real bad torque twist though

Now armed with some knowledge and experience I headed to the store to get some high tech upgrades. Yep you guess the local dollar store to get 10 click pens for $1. I put the pen springs in the shocks. At first I put the whole pen spring in the shock assembly and then put the regular spring on the outside of the shock. Way to much limiting. I went through a few itterations of remove the pen spring and cut a few coils off until I got to what I liked, 4 coils. I did this for all four shocks. The next day I took this out to the proving grounds and liked the way it handled. So much so that I really pushed the MRC and burned the ESC. Turns out I also killed the reciever somehow also. Now I am waiting for Losi to replace the reciever before I can go any furthur. In the mean time I have done some upgrades. Some upgrades are for handling and some are for strength. I upgraded the lockers to the metal ones. I also have the blue claws and will put them on shortly. I am waiting for JRH to get back to order either a MiniTorqueMaster or Cobolt puller454 and a new ESC. I did notice that the stock ESC does not give me enough control over the crawler.

I can now sleep well knowing that I am making my upgrade desisions based on testing that I have done and not the posts of others.

I am now trying to figure out what difference chassis make. I watch all these videos, but I am not sure how much of the upgrade is the chassis and the rest is either suspension or other unseen items. This goes the same for the four link vs. three link. Someone will inevitably post that it makes a "big" difference or it is "better", but again this is where the science turns to folklore. The guys making the chassis know something we n00bs don't, but being a n00b I don't know what I don't know. With GateKeeper's new MiniGC2 I am close to be infected with upgradeitis. I have delusions of me driving like Austin since I own his chassis, but that is all it is a delusion. Maybe if I get a chassis I can test it out and see what a difference it really makes. All that will have to wait for my reciever.

[Timothy Hill]

I understand what your saying. I have been infected with the crawler bug. Near as I can tell you are rite on the mark, drive the thing seat time is the only thing that will help you know your crawler or your abilities. If you think those famous guy do not practice then you just don`t get it. Cant you Oboma rig that reciever back together. Remember Go Verticle Or
Go Home.

[rccrawlerguy]

Im getting my mrc to day and Im going to limit the shocks so what wt oil do they use? and also if you guys run nitros and have fuel tubing laying around ou can use that asa well it will proably give it a differnt(sorry for bad spelling) feel than the springs.

[apuinator]

I use 90 weight oil in all my shocks. I have not noticed a difference in oil weight as much as I have in limiting my shocks.