ZNO 540 swap, Documented;

[Coffinspire15]

Originally Posted by Dabandit1

Picture is worth 1000 words

Your shocks are still mounted to the links though. It does clear it by a mile but I believe Jackalopes shocks are mounted on the axle. You are using a different motor and you fabricated your motor mount out of a stop sign correct? Which is 16ga steel I believe. I think the ZNO kit is twice to three times the thickness. Which I suppose is a trade off from completely fabricated your own set up and purchasing a pre-fab kit. Your links are awesome though. You may have mentioned it before but how did you bend them?

[The Jackalope]

Originally Posted by Dabandit1

Clock that motor up high enough to clear your links,by moving your upper links towards the back of the chassis or by getting longer ones.

I dont use a zno kit but my motors clear by a mile,put your shocks back on your lower link infront of your motor to clear and get them closer to vertical so they can function properly.

My odd-looking link and shock setup is the result of several months of fine tuning and driving to find a winning combination. Just undoing it all for the sake of more torque doesn't necessarily make a better rig, so . But seriously, thanks for the tip. I'm just working out the bugs, slowly, seeing how much I can keep of my design. But I'll cover that in my build thread once I'm done the 540 swap

Once again, I really don't like the way the truck acts with shocks mounted on bent links. They flopp about, giving the suspension a "dead spot" IMO. I'm Stubborn, so I'll try a few other things first

[big daddy smokes]

keep it up buddy you are helping me think of new things to try in my tuneing.

[The Jackalope]

Allright. I got the back axle figured and done!
I found a mod that allowed me to still have my lower links mostly beside my motor instead of an S curve under the motors like most 540ers so far.

I built a new mount for the upper links. They are made from the stock chassis where I cut the belly out of it. Then I bent the uppur links slightly to clear the motors



The technical crap;
You may notice, that when your truck articulates, The upper link mount on the axle becomes the fixed pivot point. That means that everything below that point moves to the left or the right of the center line of the truck. The lower that pivot point is on the axle, the less side-to-side movement it will have. Since the motors are the issue here, if you move the mount where the 2 upper links meet, as low and as close to the motors as possible, the motors won't move as far from center during articulation.




The motor was still hitting the shocks after this and binding the spring. But it would work fine without the spring, so I took em off, and threw some heavy little springs on the shaft. I'll probably make them internally sprung soon. Now just the end bell of the motor hits the shock body right around a beer-can iof articulation. I was hoping for a bit more, but thats acceptable!

I think the 4mm lost to the big boy plate would have made all the difference here. I think that with shorter motors, this should work just fine with the standard axle mounted shock mod (mine are mounted a little higher with a custom plate)

[The Jackalope]

This was just MY take to make this work, but some people are fine with the shocks mounted to the links, and the links in an S shape. Like dabandit1 posted above.

Can we get a few pics here how you guys did your links for 540's?

[The Jackalope]

I ran a couple tests with the 540 45t and a 10t-pinion on the back axle, While I still have the 390 70t with 8t-pinion on the front axle.

With no load (holding the truck off the ground) Both axles have nearly the exact same wheelspeed. but definitely more torque on the 540.

*so the RC4wd motors did come with bullet connectors pre installed, but they are smaller than the ones on the stock motors. for the time being, a quick little sqeeze with the pliers and the esc wires fit them just fine.

[The Jackalope]

All Together, and running again.

Carefully bent the wire contacts on the motors to clear the lower links and the shocks during flex. they clear by a mere C-hair, but they do clear. I added some more shrink tubing on them to prevent shorting.

MY setup has clocked axles for a bit of steering castor. 16% front, 9% rear. Different setups will get different results.

Here she is complete!

[The Jackalope]

FIRST RUN

I started the motors up real slow, and ran them through a full throttle curve, just to make sure they were running okay. a few sparks at first, probably residue from my BREAK-IN. Then off to the rocks.

Everything seems to be running exactly as it should.

WHEEL SPEED is coming out identical to that of the stock 390 70t motors. These are the RC4wd 540 45t. I am running them on a 2s 2450mah lipo battery pack. If you plan on running this combination, but want more wheelspeed, I would try the 35turn motors instead. Or go with a 3s lipo system.

CLOD STALL is virtually non existent. Lots of eternally churning torque to both axles. The rear axle continues turning at the same speed as the front, unless in a SERIOUS bind. but then it saves your drivetrain by stalling when it needs to. Many more obstacles are easily conquered without loosing traction at the front wheels. Unless of course all 4 wheels break loose and spin.

TORQUE is excellent. The rest of the drivetrain may need some attention because of it. On a short run, I had a dogbone axle slip out of its hub, and one of my 12mm hex's slipped on the hub in a hard bind. (3 wheels turned, one stayed)

DRAG BRAKE is a Massive improvement. You let off the throttle, and you stop! If you have traction, your not going anywhere, no matter how steep you are.No roll.

TEMPERATURE of the motors is still hot while running, much like the stock ones. I don't know if there are motors on the market that don't get hot, but I'd love to find out!

SLOW SPEED crawling is still about the same. These motors aren't any more sensitive/slower/smoother then the stock 390's were

[eggie]

maybe aluminum heatsinks will help dissipate the heat?

[It usually runs fine]

Originally Posted by eggie

maybe aluminum heatsinks will help dissipate the heat?

Waste of money. Very good write up jackalope. My motors got hot after going to 3s.

[DinoCrawler]

The setup looks great. You really won't notice a difference in slow crawling untill you upgrade your ESC. The stock units work fine but they don't have as many steps in the throttle curve. So it tends to leap at the bottom end and jerk a little at really slow speeds.

As far as the motors getting hot, how hot are they getting? Do they remove your finger prints when you touch them or are they just above warm? I haven't really had the problem with mine and I use 3S on everything. Of course it's all based on your scale of hot.

Great detail on the write up.

[The Jackalope]

IN CONCLUSION

The "ZNO BIG BOY 540 KIT" Is a good buy in my opinion. I would definitely recamend it to other drivers. It does exactly what it claims, and opens up so many different motor options for our RS10. Installing the kit itself was easy (the pre-made version) and the motor mounting screws were provided. That being said, this is not just a bolt-on-and-done mod, and if you think it should be, better get a different hobby! 540's will take up more space, and have much more power, so you will need to upgrade the rest of the rig to match

I give this product 4 out of 5 stars, leaving room for product improvement as our modifiers progress.

suggested shopping list

-quality motors
-8 or 10 tooth steel pinion gears for 1/8 inch motor shaft
-modified links to clear motors
-steel gears in differentials

[The Jackalope]

IN CONCLUSION RE MOTORS

The RC4wd 45t sealled can motors, costing a mere $9.99 each. They are exactly that. a $10 motor. nothing more. Yes, my redcat now has more torque, no more clodstall, and excellent drag brake. But they have long cans, aren't servicable, and require some serious break-in due to an oddly shaped brush surface. They are identical in construction to the stock 380-390 motors, have the same brushes, and are probably the same manufacturer, just bigger.

My end results have been good, But you could probably get as good and better results for a pair of $20 rebuildable motors, requiring very little break-in, and have shorter cans.

I give them 2 1/2 stars out of 5. They are a weekend project to make them good!

[It usually runs fine]

Bravo, thanks for taking the time man.

[DinoCrawler]

You are exactly right, a $10 motor is a $10 motor.

Now that you have made room for these large cans anything else will work with room to spare.

[The Jackalope]

(bump)

-Anyone got pics of their swap?

-what 540's are you using, and how long are the cans?

-more ideas to clearance the links/shocks?

[FATBOYrs10]

hey how thick is that adpt plate, thought of doin this, i've seen it done with and without the plate-i just dont like how the motors get so close to links and tires
and oh yeah, THANKS 4TL

[The Jackalope]

The plate they use is 4mm thick, On Top of the plastic face of the motor mount. I covered that in post #17 this thread. That 4mm makes a big difference. I would like to see how the plastic homemades are standing up to the torque.

[The Jackalope]

CRIPPLECREEKCRAWLER just did an Excellent write up for installing the DIY version plates from ZNO. I referenced it in post #10 as well for those looking for a step-by-step to install these.
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/redca...-overload.html

[malvesjpx]

Great Topic!!!

my RS10 XT arrived, I used for 2 minutes and started playing with it, I have made new links and a skid plate for it. 540's could be a good upgrade, thanks for taking your time and showing the built thread