Hiya folks! Long time lurker taking the plunge!

[Foxy42]

Heya guys n gals,

Firstly, confirming for any of my buds from RCU, and for disclosure to this site's moderating team, this is Foxy the car forums moderator from Rcuniverse.com and I'm here to make trouble!

Just kidding of course. It's really great to be here and chat with you folks about crawling, something which is at present very new to me.

So, about me? Well, I'm a British 30-something husband, father of two very small ladies (22 and 3 months), in the hobby since the age of about 8, where I started, as many of us, with a Tamiya buggy from the Hornet era. My legend was the Frog. Since then it's been onwards and upwards. I've been living in Athens, Greece for the last 10 years with my wife working for a big 4 consultancy.

I've been through a lot of different classes and power sources in my time in the hobby, but lately, due to the obvious recent advances, the last few years, I've become a bit of a 1/8 brushless guy.

My pride and joy is my Xray XT8 2009 spec with a RC monster conversion and a few extra bits and pieces, it's a really unique and truly superb car, I'll post some pics if I can. It looks the part and on 6S its a madman who had his meds subbed for some kind of barbiturate. I have a lot of other cool models of course, but we can get to them as circumstances dictate , I'm here to talk about crawlers



So I've considered dabbling in some crawling on various occasions over the years, and for some reason or other, simply never got around to it. Recently, a chain of events started, which leads me here today.

To make a long story short, a friend got an amazing deal on a job lot of scalers, which included 2 Tamiya high lifts, a Hilux and an F350. He asked if I was interested in any of them and I grabbed the F350 for a bargain. Turned out it had been really poorly built and maintained by the previous owner, but most of the important stuff was ok. So I got on ebay, ordered a few bits to make it more capable. That was a month or so ago, and I recently fitted the stuff I bought to it, and I'm very pleased with the result. Here's a pic before and after...it's done for now, but I will go back to it eventually and do some cosmetic stuff like hiding the servo, replacing the mirrors, fabbing a proper battery mount, and some other bits and pieces.




Anyway, I'm happy with it as a scaler, and decided that now I want to start building up to doing some comp crawling, since I found a local club (I think, I'm not sure what they do yet, but hell, I want a crawler anyway), and my anniversary is coming up, so...I talked her into letting me have 500 bucks on the paypal, in order to buy a comp crawler

Now as I say, I've been reading all over and lurked here over the years a few times, due to recent events, I've doubled my research efforts. I now have a fair clue what most are running at the national comps and understand 'some' crawler technical details, and I have the budget for that kind of stuff, but figure that I shouldn't go straght for the throat, hell I've never even crawled before! So, after looking around I tired to figure out what would be the easiest to build and drive, that would serve as a base for any future plans, yet be competent on the rocks as well. So I ordered a RC4WD Bully. I'm pretty sure it has the original bully axles, not the new ones, and the chassis is a bit unrefined, but it comes with wheels, tires and shocks as a default setup, so it should get me on the rocks and building my confidence. I ordered the dual motor ESC that RC4wd sells, whatsitcalled, oh, yeh, the Outcry jobby, and a couple of their 45T 11 buck motors. I have a Savox hi torque servo kicking around somewhere, and I use a Futaba 3PK with a Spektrum Pro module, so I'll fit a micro spekkie receiver in there somewhere. I'm planning to use a mini revo lipo (2200 30C) initially, until I need to get a comp battery.

So, that's enough rambling, here are my relevant questoins at this time, any answers much appreciated...

Firstly, how've I done? That'll be a great little rig to learn on, right? Anyone foresee any issues with the radio? Should I go for sticks (I have no issue with sticks, I used them back in the day), I imagine people do this because throttle control is easier? Can I use my heli radio, a DX5e?

Once I've got the hang of 2 channel crawling, I'll start looking into learning to drive with a dig (I'm totally ok with the fundamentals and techniques of all three types of digs), and was thinking of going with the Novak Dig ESC when the time comes, is that a good idea? Or is a pair of micro sidewinders considered far superior? (works for me actually, I already have a castle link).

Nice to meet you guys, look forward to sharing.

[Fiftygrit]

Welcome, Im not a ford man but that truck looks pretty nice, lots of info on this sight. cheer`s

[johnnyh66]

Welcome to RCC!

[Billy D]

Call the bank and ask for a line of credit. A divorce is cheaper than a RC addiction.

[Foxy42]

Meh, she knew the score when we got together 13 years ago!

Thanks guys.

[Charlie-III]

You have a start on the 2.2 comp rig. I ran (and still have) a 2.2 Bully, the original axles.

Read the Bully specific forum to see cheap & easy mods, steering is 1st.

You will likely want to run 35T motors (Holmes or Br00d).
Dual ESC's (FX-R's, CC Micro Sidewinders, new Holmes mini's) with a radio that does throttle mixing is the final choice. I would NOT get the M2 dig ESC. I had one, never got it to work as well as I wanted. Nice idea, poor execution.

Sedonas are a good all around tire, the new Voodoo's seem to be the "next replacement" but I have not run them.

Drive the beejeezers out of the Bully, get rock time, then decide what to do.
The new Bully axles may be the way to go, or get a pair of XR-10 axles and do updates.

I thought my modded Bully did well until I started to run an XR-10 rig......WOW, what a difference. But you don't spend a lot of time fixing a stock Bully.

[Foxy42]

Thanks for the info, much appreciated. Seems that all I need to do for the steering, is add a few more degrees with the v6 XVDs, and move the draglink up and out of the way, and ideally, at the same time, sandwich the servo vertically between the axle and the front motor (I'm aware some grinding is required). Would that about cover the required steering mods?

Due to the fact that I'll be going vertical servo route (I think), I think I'll be better served by sticking with high turn motors and using a larger pinion to get the same wheel speed, and also grant some extra servo clearance.

Question: What batteries are the norm? I've noticed people talking about using 4S and 3S on these motors. What kind of runtimes are folks getting from 600-850mAh? I realise runtime in a comp crawler only needs to be 'enough to get round the course', I'm just curious how long they 'could' last with a 3.1vpc cutoff?

Lastly, what are people's thoughts on the stock billet alloy wheels on the Bully ARTR? Are they weighty enough for the beginner?

Thanks again for the help