New Wraith Owner and Intorduction

[TAMELESSTGR]

Greetings everyone, I just picked up a used wraith on trade. I have been wanting a crawler from some time, we have stadium trucks, but I get boored running up and down the street in front of my house. I am also highly into RC boats having built several from scratch. Switching gears to land for the Fall and Winter.

Couple of things I noticed about my Wraith:
Castle Brushless Motor and ESC
Battery relocated to front (would have done this anyway)
Hot Racing diff covers and steering components (will probably de-anodize them, not particularly fond of the green)
STRC Upper/Lower and Front/Rear links (again de-anodize, should be suitable in short term)
Integy Piggyback shocks (Not sure about these, them dampen well, not sure how well they will hold up or perform, I have some big bore shocks set aside if I want to change)


Planned upgrades:
Incision Spools
Boom Racing front axle shafts
Vanquish stage 1
Vanquish Truss front/rear
Vanquish servo mount
Vanquish rear axles
Beef tubes
Upgrade servo with BEC (Can see the servo struggling with Proline Chisel tires) not my favorite tread pattern, but they seem to do ok, maybe I'll save them for backups


Over time:
Aluminum fabbed panels and fenders
Some body/cage mods
New front bumper
Light bar

Ken

 

[CREEPERBOB]

Howdy Ken,
You've come to the right place for crawling and your Wraith looks like a good start "thumbsup".
Check out the stiicky's by Harley in the Wraith section and enjoy our sport.
Bob

 

[TAMELESSTGR]

The more I research, I think that Hot Racing drag link needs to go, it doesn't seem as strong as the Vanquish which mounts at the end of the knuckle.

 

[MattTheGenus]

Welcome to the club,
Those hot racing diff covers are notorious for being super thin and getting dented over time, just something to watch out for

Good luck

 

[TAMELESSTGR]

Welcome to the club,
Those hot racing diff covers are notorious for being super thin and getting dented over time, just something to watch out for

Good luck

Yes, they are very thin, I will probably look to get something thicker.

 

[tokyo banana]

Welcome! I'm glad to see ppl still buying these.. I felt like I was late to the party a several months ago.

 

[CREEPERBOB]

Welcome! I'm glad to see ppl still buying these.. I felt like I was late to the party a several months ago.

I got my first Wraith, a Spawn about 3 months ago "thumbsup".

 

[TAMELESSTGR]

This Castle Brushless system needs to go, it is not performing how I would expect a crawler to "crawl" over rocks and obstacles. The throttle is very twitchy and I suspect this is too much power and geared incorrectly for low speed crawling. I'm going to put the stock Axial 20T motor and Traxxas brushed ESC in this rig and see if that improves the experience. This rig doesn't need to be fast, I want to go over stuff.

 

[CREEPERBOB]

Yea, it is a "rock racer" by design, and needs to be tuned down for crawling.
I'm running a 45T brushed motor with an FXR esc with a 10 tooth pinion.

 

[mikemcE]

I love my Holmes 3500/ BLE on 3s, geared at 10/56 perfect wheelspeed and creepy for crawling ! Gear it down !

Do you have punch set up ?


Hang up and Drive

 

[TAMELESSTGR]

I started tearing the rig down last night. Pulled the castle system out and set it aside for one of my stadium truck rollers (man those motor leads are soooooo long).
I bolted up the stock Axial 20T motor with the 20T pinion, but I will be ordering a 14T or 15T shortly.
The ESC that came with it is a stock Traxxas XL5 which will have to make due for right now till I decide on a brushed setup from Holmes.

While the front axle was out I swapped in the CVD's I picked up from the board.

I started using HD oven cleaner to de-anodize the upper and lower links that are green (it's just not my color) but it's leaving something to be desired. The links still have a slight color hue to them and look blotchy, so I suppose I will have to sand them down to bare metal or coat them with something. Maybe POR15?

Not sure what to do about the shock color, that has to go too.

 

[TheLetterJ]

Whatever you can't get off with Easy-off, a Scotch brite pad should make short work out of and leave a uniform "brushed" finish.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

Welcome. Nice start to the build! "thumbsup"

 

[ferp420]

That stock motor wont last very long with a 20t pinnion gear on it shibit it only lasted 3 weeks with the 15 tooth it came with and it wont crawl ether you need a 10 tooth or so on that motor to keep it from blowin smoke the brushless sensored motor is the way to go the castle escs are fully programable so as long as its not fry3d you should be able to program the twitchiness out of it i can go from 0 mph to 50mph in theory any way its turn3d down to about 50% and its as smooth or smoother than any brushed set.up ive run and there is no brush ware they last way longer than the brushed motors and to ice the cake the batterys last longer too and just because it can go fast dosent mean you have to runn it all out the extra wheel speed can be alot of fun once you get used to it

 

[Brake Weight]

Holy run on sentence.

But like he said, I'd try to program the BL ESC first. Get a cable if you don't have one and see what it can do. I run a big 1/8 HPI-Castle with a 4068 on my Bomber and even just programming it by beeps it does amazing.

 

[Farabomb]

Yes, they are very thin, I will probably look to get something thicker.

STRC makes great ones. As soon as I pulled those HR ones out of the package I went and ordered the STRC ones. You can make another drag link that goes to the knuckle with some rod ends and all thread. Sleeve it with some SS tubing if the threads really bother you. Pick up a Team KNK screw set as well. They're really handy to have when you start bolting on things.

 

[TAMELESSTGR]

The brushless system is going to be used in a short course truck. I picked up a Holmes Torquemaster 35T and Hobbywing brushed ESC. Will the stock pinion be ok, or do I still need to gear down?

 

[dondraper25]

TAMELESSTGR,

Welcome! I have been in to this hobby for a few years now, and still learn something new every time I log in to this site. Please please please heed the words these guys give you. There isn't a resource on the net better than these forums.

Please don't hesitate to hit me up if you have any questions. Check out our (RC Command) builds, and enjoy!

RCCLTW!

 

[TAMELESSTGR]

Time for some updates:

After several rounds of Oven Cleaner HD and and a scrub, the links were bare. I just sprayed them with Rustoleum knowing they are going to scratch. I'm a little torn, I kind of really liked them in bare metal.

 

[TAMELESSTGR]

Disassembled the Integy shocks. I've come to the opinion that these aren't made of the greatest materials, but the design is nice. This isn't going to be bashed real hard, so I hope they can last a little while because I like the look of the piggybacks. Same treatment for de-anodizing and repainting, still need to refill them with some lightweight oil.