Minijuice winter rehab

[shelljeep]

I put some hard hours on the minijuice this fall so it was time to address some things and make some improvements.

This minjuice chassis is the business. It made more of a difference then any other mod I have done. The rig is pretty well dialed in. I'm not planning to make any major changes.

I'm very happy with the 18.5T Xcelorin system on 3s with an 18T pinion. Crawls well and hauls also. My friends call it that little dragster LOL. It is twitchy though, need a light finger, especially when finessing reverse on a steep incline. But fun to fly.

The Losi shocks are doing well also, but it is time for a refill, all of them do seep, but VERY slowly. I haven't added fluid since November.
The right rear shaft keeps pulling out of rod ends, I swapped in some trimmed Dubros today and it pulled again, even with blue Loctite that set overnight... I blame me, should have taken the time to clean the threads with a wire brush instead of a shop rag. I used cyanacrylate this time, bet it doesn't pull now.

The rovers are worth their weight in gold. As are the Nova single stage foams. It is so cool to be able to just do what Eddie says and have it work right, right from the get go. Crawler Innovations knows tires and foams like noone else.

Things I'd like to change:
I'd love to drop some weight. I think one of the best ways to do this would be switching to lightweight delrin wheels. For the rear at least, maybe the front also. Open to suggestions on this please?
I could drop a few grams by switching to 2s, but I dont think the reduction in power would be worth it. Unless someone can show me a 2s system that can crawl w/o stall and still jump twice the wheelbase, I'll stick with what I have.
Less rotating mass is an area I need to improve, knuckle weights would be good to have. More steering angle would be nice too. I do have the aluminum knucks maxed out, but I think the CVD's would allow a few more degrees before bind.
I might actually have room for a lipo on the front axle now that I am running hex wideners. I need to fab a tray to see, would probably need to drop to a smaller mah 3s also.

Onto some pics.
The biggest changes came in the front axle. MiniRevo OD pinion, BTA with flipped servo, rotated pinion up, increased caster.
I rotated the pinion up about 20*, then rolled the C's back around 45* to compensate. Shaved the servo mounts to bring the servo back to level and give me room for the horn to swing. I'm running RCBros servo plate and rear buggy 4link plate. I like the increased triangulation they allow in both areas. I'm not a fan of running the uppers straight, also don't like to tie them into the leading edge on the underside of the servo plate. I find it limits downtravel unless you lean your servo forward, turning it into a bumper.
This caster mod is huge. Especially when combined with the wide hexes, you can literally reach out and grab a ledge to pull up. Clears the shocks at full lock better also. You can see the housing is warped inside the knuckle bore, make sure you drill it out to true the bore of the housing for shaft clearance if you do this mod.
And Finally... for those of you who stayed with me this long... LOL, a pic:

[shelljeep]

Here are a few shots at different angles.
You can see that I'm running RCBros orange in the rear and Dtrax white up front. I just installed the oranges tonight, need to test and tune. I was running a blue to fight TT and a white in back but I didn't like the huge difference in spring rate. I run asymmetrical upper link positions to dial out TT also, so I think I can make the orange springs work. They are stiffer than the whites but way softer than the stock blues.
Right at a 2" belly at ride.
Figured I better take some pics of the new skins before they are hash. 10 minutes on them and I can already see the new wearing off.
BTW- 25* weather is hard on lipos.





Here you can see the lipo tray on the rear links. I used to run it up front and had the esc and receiver under the roof panel. The lipo would limt travel since the forward chassis brace would rest on it. And it was a PITA to change lipos. After weighing components, I found out the esc and receiver weighed exactly the same as the lipo. So, moved the lipo to the rear, and esc/rx up front. The net effect slightly lowered my cog since I don't have anything attached to the roof, and changed my front/rear ratio by less then an ounce. I can live with that.

[shelljeep]

About those hexes. After 10 minutes today, I'm thinking why the hell did I not do that right from the beginning. I was worried the increased scrub would be something I had to deal with. No man... It is something I can USE. And I don't know what to do with myself, not having the tires in the shocks all the time. They are gonna be a big deal, hugely helpful. I'll try to get outside tomorrow before the sleeting and shoot some video of what I'm talking about.

Here's a closeup of the electronics placement. Everything clears at full stuff and full articualtion. The micro rx helped. I need to post up the details on the BTA but I need to gussy up the draglink a bit and shorten the tierod a smidge to get my toe exactly right. I may go with bent turnbuckles for the steering links in the final revision.


Here's an undershot showing the lower geometry this chassis offers. I have spent a total of maybe 60 seconds filing things to get them to clear, that is GREAT! YTC!

And some gratuitous flex shots. I could use some limiters I bet, but it doesn't really try to drive over itself so it has never turned into a priority. Maybe I just run easy courses.

[shelljeep]

One more shot of the minijuice next to my SC8T basher truck. Might be kinda gay, but I'm wanting all of my rigs to match this year.

[irok22s]

I think it looks great. Its nice when everything matches.

I for one can not wait for the mini juice to be back in stock. Waiting patiently as possible.

[rs4race]

Nice rig. I'm curious about rotating the c's. What does this entail? What are the benefits? Thanks! Keep the updates coming.

[Erik D_lux]

I like that paint job a lot!

For some weight ideas:

Looks like that battery is a bit big??? How much does it weigh? I was looking at some of the TP batteries. Pretty small and light

http://www.rctoys.com/rc-toys-and-pa...LIPO-BATT.html

The front and rear trays could use a lot of holes

Removing the case from the RX saves about 5g, maybe think about shrink wrapping the ESC too?

Wheels definatly could go. They would really go sick with my knuckle weights. Want to do some trading

I would like to know the weight on the links/steering. I bet you could shave quite a bit with some small diameter TI.

Looks like you could drill a lot of holes in the motor plate, maybe trans.

Somebody really needs to figure out a lighter driveshaft. I am looking at adapting the LNC shafts somehow but not sure yet.

Its a matter of time before I get the Juice. I really like it.

[shelljeep]

Thanks guys.

Originally Posted by irok22s

I think it looks great. Its nice when everything matches.
I for one can not wait for the mini juice to be back in stock. Waiting patiently as possible.

My stuff went through some stretches where everything looked pretty ragged out, not Dlux ragged out(), but pretty bad. I'm trying to avoid that if I can this year. Yeah, I was jonesing for a good bodiless option for the MRC so bad that I tried to talk Jeremy into a preorder before they first came out last fall.

Originally Posted by rs4race

Nice rig. I'm curious about rotating the c's. What does this entail? What are the benefits? Thanks! Keep the updates coming.

I've done it 2 ways. If you look at the axle housings with the C's off, it forms an oblong square. I've taken each corner and sanded a flat onto it and used that to locate the c's, and I have also rounded off 3 of the shoulders and left one mostly intact to locate to C's. I think the "4 flats" method is best.
When you redrill for the C's, make sure they are slid TIGHTLY onto the housings. You may need to sand down some webbing that is on the housing at this area. I actually used a small vice to hold things together for me as I drilled. If you don't get them far enough onto the housings then you are stealing spline engagement for the inner shaft at the locker which will cause you to strip the locker eventually. Ask me how I know.
As I mentioned before, make sure you retrue the housings inside the C with a drillbit so it doesn't put the squeeze on the shaft as it rotates.

The benefits are better turning ability, and you can use a tire to "step" onto something, to kinda reach out and grab it. It seems to alter/accentuate the scrub effect because as you turn, one tire rotates back and slightly downward, and the reaches forward and slightly up. Using the hex wideners makes this even more pronounced.

[shelljeep]

Originally Posted by Erik D_lux

I like that paint job a lot!

For some weight ideas:

Looks like that battery is a bit big??? How much does it weigh? I was looking at some of the TP batteries. Pretty small and light

http://www.rctoys.com/rc-toys-and-pa...LIPO-BATT.html

The front and rear trays could use a lot of holes

Removing the case from the RX saves about 5g, maybe think about shrink wrapping the ESC too?

Wheels definatly could go. They would really go sick with my knuckle weights. Want to do some trading

I would like to know the weight on the links/steering. I bet you could shave quite a bit with some small diameter TI.

Looks like you could drill a lot of holes in the motor plate, maybe trans.

Somebody really needs to figure out a lighter driveshaft. I am looking at adapting the LNC shafts somehow but not sure yet.

Its a matter of time before I get the Juice. I really like it.

I didn't know you were online I talked smack up above, I thought i was leaving a grenade for your morning coffee!

Thanks man, I really enjoy painting. I'm actually taking one of my 2.2's back to bodied so I can do more of it.
You sir, are full of good ideas.
Small diameter Ti sounds great!
The lipos are 370's that weigh 1.4 oz, so 39-40 grams?
Those driveshafts are overbuilt but they are the best option I have seen. Stock driveshafts break waaaay too easy. You are right, we need a lighter strong option.
PM me what you have in mind for my blingy wheels.

[TC09mini]

Wow, thats a tight fit with everything up front. I've been playing with a couple BTA plans, but nothing is really seems to fit right. Are you getting any drag on the drag link being below the drive shaft and links?

One thing I'd recommend right away to loose a little weight is forget the wheel wideners on the back. I haven't seen too many people running them on the back and it will make clearing those tight gates better anyways.

Also, I'm assuming no, but from the pictures it seems like you might be limiting your front travel with the RX where it is. Its been a tricky one for me to find a good place for the damn thing too. currently I've got mine on the tranny, but its not ideal.

Looks really good Shell! Sorry about this weekend. The final semester is killing me. Hopefully you can make it next weekend.

[shelljeep]

Yeah, things are tight-tight up front. The draglink is 3/4 of a U in order to clear the shock. I habe been fooling around with anf fine tuning it for a couple months now. This is the first revision to get everything to clear and have lock to lock steering.
I've experimented with running Berg offset wheels in the rear of my 2.2's and found that I prefer the wider offset all the way around. The extra stability makes up for the width. I haven't ran the wideners that long yet, to see if I feel the same way about narrow rear/wide front on the mini as I do the 2.2 car.
Nope, rx clears. It's tight, but it clears.
Study up man, and enjoy the 'Bowl, I will try to make it up there next weekend.

[irok22s]

Originally Posted by shelljeep

Yeah, things are tight-tight up front. The draglink is 3/4 of a U in order to clear the shock. I habe been fooling around with anf fine tuning it for a couple months now. This is the first revision to get everything to clear and have lock to lock steering.
I've experimented with running Berg offset wheels in the rear of my 2.2's and found that I prefer the wider offset all the way around. The extra stability makes up for the width. I haven't ran the wideners that long yet, to see if I feel the same way about narrow rear/wide front on the mini as I do the 2.2 car.
Nope, rx clears. It's tight, but it clears.
Study up man, and enjoy the 'Bowl, I will try to make it up there next weekend.

I just ordered 2 sets of wideners last night from tcs. I'm not sure if I will like the wide front and back either but figured what the heck might as well give it a shot. worst case.. Take them off.

Not to hijack ur thread but I wanted to post up a pic of my clocked c's too. Over all it was a pretty easy mod IMO. I did 3mm, overdrive, ota steering, and clocked c's all at once. In this pic I haven't rotated the pinion up yet so it looks a little extreem. Im waiting for my mini juice chassis cause I only want to make new links once ( EDIT: sorry just realized the pic is blurry)

[DareDiver]

Dude shell thats rig is sweet. Cant believe ive been so lazy to not come over and see your entire operation. But once again im offshore, sorry i didnt call yesterday, was in a bit of mood once i got the call. So down on weather now and hopefully be in monday or tuesday, so if your in ill be callling for sure this time....Keep up the good work.

[WeekendWarrior]

Hey what rod ends did you use on the MJ chassis lower links?

[RickM]

Shell-

What did you wind up doing on knuckle weights and wheels? Also did you leave the BTA steering setup? i tried the BTA stuff a million times and finally came up with a good OTA setup the other night. I will get pics up soon.