RTR to Ideal Rig - in 5 moves

[macman809]

Trying to get everyones ideas for overhauling a stock RTR to ideal rig in five phases.
What do you tackle first, second, third etc.. You get the idea, thought that this might help anyone that has started with a RTR navigate the murky world of after market upgrades and fixes to many of the stock imperfections. It saves some pain and money in addressing issues that need immediate attention as supposed to the more subtle fine tuning options.
How would list your order of upgrades?

[Phildirt]

Depends on the truck. Some don’t require much at all, others a complete makeover. Some RTR are good with a servo and tire swap. Also depends on how deep your pockets are...


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[AnimalHippie]

A Good Servo, ESC, tires & foams, beadlocks, high clearance bumpers, axle weight, RX/TX that's the order I went with my rig. It's a performance based rig. Body and looks were last. I am very happy with how it crawls. I really enjoyed putting one or two things on my rig then testing and getting a feel for how each thing changed the performance. That helped me get it to be very balanced and predictable.

If you were going with a more scale based build then the order might be a little different.

There's also allot of free mods that can be done to help along the way. A good RX/TX makes more of a difference then you may think. I know that was more then 5 and a bit of a story, but that's me. Have a great day!!!

[OSRC]

Agree with PhilDirt - really depends on the truck. Some are "better" out of the box than others. I always run a truck bone stock first just to get a feel for it before throwing money at it.

Well, sometimes I just throw money at it for the sake of throwing money at it. OK, most of the time...

I think most people would agree that the steering servo is usually item numero uno on the list. Tires/wheels being a close second.

[MOguy]

Budget?

Comp (and what class) or trail (what type of trailing)?

Budget?

Scale or performance?

Budget?

What truck are you starting out with?

Budget?

What do you like about it?

Budget?

What don't you like about it?

Budget?

[ferp420]

on top of what everyone else has sead already i would order a set of bearings not realy something that needs to be done but its nice to have a set on hand when they do go

[Benp]

I agree with what’s been said already, especially the driving it stock for a while first to get a feel for it.

I’ll add that the stock Trx4 canyon trail tires do very well with minor mods.

I cut mine and they do not hold me back on my slick granite compared to my other Hyraxes and Landmines.

I’ve left them on the stock rims and foams and rotate them in once a week.

[Greatscott]

Without better context, your question is impossible to answer. The two biggest things that are needed is what rig and what it will be used for.

One thing I can say, no matter the rig, no matter what it is used for, the top item should be wheel-time. Without a significant amount of time running your rig, all other factors are moot.

[macman809]

I take your comments and what everyone is saying all makes sense, I know it was a broad brush question without specific parameters, plus there are multiple facets to each choice. I suppose for sake of discussion the question should have been what were the first five things you fixed on your own RTR rig.

For example my RTR was an Axial Honcho.

After driving the rig, the first thing that screamed to be changed was tires, but this lead me down the rabbit hole with not only new tire choice, but also beadlocks and foams which was an adventure in itself. So that could be item 1 or item 1,2 & 3.

subsequent choices where dictated my circumstance so broken plastic idle gear lead to new metal gears for the transmission, broken steering servo lead to new servo, burnt out motor lead to new motor.

After that came new metal link kit, great but this showed up issues in the steering which lead to new knuckles so my list would read

1 Tires
2 Steering Servo
3 Transmission
4 Motor
5 Link Set/Steering

What about you guys?

[Phildirt]

I think the thing these days is building a kit unless it is a rig not offered in kit form, not a lot of guys in the forum from what I can see are buying RTRs because they know better.

But re-building an RTR is pretty much the same thing as building a kit minus you already have a body and didn't have to assemble the transmission. So take pretty much any build blueprint and lay that on top of said RTR. I don't think all changes are truly upgrades (how often do plastic links break?), I would classify them more as 'changes'.

So you are looking at electronics (esc, tx/rx, motor, servo and micro servos) and running gear (wheels/tires/foams). It really just depends on what is bugging you the most, or what fails first. Usually that is the steering servo on an RTR, although the one in my Deadbolt is hanging in there still.

Saying all of that to say I don't think you can really tell someone 'here is the exact order you should go in' because there are just too many factors. What did I do to my Trailwalker RTR?

1. Wheels/tires/foams
2. Servo
3. Complete axle swap
4. Miscellaneous heavy brass pieces
5. Panhard mount and a few other upgrades
6. Shocks
7. new body
8. tires/foams again, wheels too

What's left from the original kit? Frame, crossmembers, motor (next on the list), esc

My Deadbolt RTR:

1. RX/TX
2. Wheels/Tires
3. Repeat step 1
4. Links
5. Complete axle swap
6. Shocks
7. Servo horn

What's left from the original rig? Motor, ESC, body, frame, crossmembers

[68rockcrawler]

It's interesting to see how varied the answers are to this question. I see tires listed a couple of times, but I ran stock BFG Bajas on my RTR Bomber for a year and a half, just playing around, not comp/racing. The only reason I changed them out was because the tires started coming unglued which I used as an excluse to buy RC stuff.

Servo was my first upgrade, then just replaced parts as they broke. I burned up the motor being careless, so that was early on. Replaced stock plastic links because they were getting pretty sloppy.

[Phildirt]

Originally Posted by 68rockcrawler

It's interesting to see how varied the answers are to this question. I see tires listed a couple of times, but I ran stock BFG Bajas on my RTR Bomber for a year and a half, just playing around, not comp/racing. The only reason I changed them out was because the tires started coming unglued which I used as an excluse to buy RC stuff.

Servo was my first upgrade, then just replaced parts as they broke. I burned up the motor being careless, so that was early on. Replaced stock plastic links because they were getting pretty sloppy.

I did tires first because the TW comes with 1.55s and I can't handle tiny tires, and the Deadbolt because I don't like glue on tires. Plus they are not very aggressive on either rig, more like an AT. I could see running those Bajas on a Bomber, they are good tires.

[meatmonkey]

A good steering servo tops the list of needed upgrades for any rtr. Other than that it's kinda case by case, both by model and the intended use.

[xagoras]

I'd say:

1) Metal servo horn
2) Drive your rig
3) Drive your rig
....
....
....
Something breaks - replace with something better

[68rockcrawler]

Originally Posted by Phildirt

I did tires first because the TW comes with 1.55s and I can't handle tiny tires, and the Deadbolt because I don't like glue on tires. Plus they are not very aggressive on either rig, more like an AT. I could see running those Bajas on a Bomber, they are good tires.

Good call on doing tires first! Tiny tires are no fun!

[MOguy]

Originally Posted by macman809

I take your comments and what everyone is saying all makes sense, I know it was a broad brush question without specific parameters, plus there are multiple facets to each choice. I suppose for sake of discussion the question should have been what were the first five things you fixed on your own RTR rig.

For example my RTR was an Axial Honcho.

After driving the rig, the first thing that screamed to be changed was tires, but this lead me down the rabbit hole with not only new tire choice, but also beadlocks and foams which was an adventure in itself. So that could be item 1 or item 1,2 & 3.

subsequent choices where dictated my circumstance so broken plastic idle gear lead to new metal gears for the transmission, broken steering servo lead to new servo, burnt out motor lead to new motor.

After that came new metal link kit, great but this showed up issues in the steering which lead to new knuckles so my list would read

1 Tires
2 Steering Servo
3 Transmission
4 Motor
5 Link Set/Steering

What about you guys?

things t think about:

If you are trailing you will be moving often when steering so you can get away with less of a Servo then if you are crawling but you may want more of a motor and ESC for trailing and higher speeds.

Trailing esp in water and mud you may not want to vent your tires so you want better rims. In crawling on dry stuff you may want to vent you tires or rims.

For crawling a $20 brushed motors and a $45 1080 ESC are great, trailing, esp in less than Ideal conditions a brushless system maybe be better.

You can get good servo that does great on the trail for $60 bucks but for crawling you are looking at maybe double and the size of you tires will be a factor.

And here are other things to consider.

[Steve g]

My first 5 (and then some) upgrades on my first rtr (old 2.2 wraith):
1: servo
(I'll call this next one 1B, kinda an original wraith specific upgrade): larger spur and smaller pinion as the stock wraith was way over geared.
2: tires/wheels/foams
3: motor and esc
4: all plastic links to metal
5: aluminum lock outs, c hubs and knuckles
6: front and rear axle shafts, lockers, hd gears
7: transmission gears
I've done much more, but this was pretty much the minimum needed to make it through the day without carrying it back...


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