It's been a long time coming but I am finally getting around to switching over chassis' from the Zero to the Smash. This chassis has been out for a little while now but quite honestly, the Zero was working well for me and my comp season winded down in April so there was no real "need" to switch chassis' until now. I wanted to get this up and running before heading out to Nats in a month so I've got a little time to mess with it before then. Thanks to Marc and Nick from Chaotic Crawlers for their continued support and making great products for us to enjoy."thumbsup"
The first thing I am excited about with the new Smash chassis is the extra ground clearance I am getting. I'm sure that the few things I was getting up on with the Zero will now be a cake walk with the extra room underneath. I'm at 3" front and 3 1/8" rear clearance with a pretty soft preload on the shocks. I could barely get 2 3/4" all around with the Zero and that was with as much preload as I could do.
The second thing I am excited to see is how well one of these lighter (yes, I know there are much lighter rigs out there than this) will do for me. I was very surprised to see it come in at 3.8 lbs (1734 grams for the Euro conversion) when my Zero was at almost 4.3 lbs. I did change out the Aluminum SCX shocks for plastic, VP tranny cases for plastic and I went from VP SLW drilled out rims to Carbon Fiber glue ons. I still have "heavy" motors in there and a lot of extra wiring that could go away but that will wait for another day.
I am basically going with the same setup that I had on my Zero. I figured I know what that could and couldn't do so it gives me a basic starting point to jump off from. I did replace the rear, VP axle mount with the stock plastic one for two reasons. First, it was in the same location as where I was running the VP mount and second, I stripped out the VP mount and they are tough to come by at this point.
Along with changing out the Aluminum SCX shocks for plastic ones, I also put in the axial machined pistons to see how they did. So far the bench test feels great with them. Very smooth and free flowing. I'm still running Losi Mint T silvers up front and Losi MRC silvers in back. The shocks are not limited internally as of yet. I do have a 4mm spacer in the rears (externally).
I am running the exact same knuckle weight I was with the Zero but I can add a bit more if needed. Currently at .70 oz per side.
I've held off the whole Carbon Fiber wheel thingy for long enough.:roll: I had so much invested in SLW wheels that it sucked to give them up. Our club president posted these for sale and I decided to give them a try. I'm not sure who makes them but I liked the design enough and the price was right so I pulled the trigger. My CA glue was open a bit to much so it got a little sloppy but it is what it is. I did lose about an Oz and a quarter per wheel which was very surprising.
Mike from Wicked Monkey Designs is making me a new set of skins but like a dumbass, I deleted the pictures from my email:x. I went with an understated, carbon fiber theme with just a few logos to keep it simple. Feel free to post them up Mike, if you get a chance. I can't say enough how great Mike is to deal with and how he nails the designs with just a few emails back and forth. I highly recommend getting in touch with him if you are in the market for some new skins."thumbsup"
I do need to wait for HiTec to send me back my servo before I can start testing things out. Hopefully next week sometime that will happen and I can update things then. I'm more than confident that I will be very happy with how the Smash performs leading into Nationals.
The first thing I am excited about with the new Smash chassis is the extra ground clearance I am getting. I'm sure that the few things I was getting up on with the Zero will now be a cake walk with the extra room underneath. I'm at 3" front and 3 1/8" rear clearance with a pretty soft preload on the shocks. I could barely get 2 3/4" all around with the Zero and that was with as much preload as I could do.
The second thing I am excited to see is how well one of these lighter (yes, I know there are much lighter rigs out there than this) will do for me. I was very surprised to see it come in at 3.8 lbs (1734 grams for the Euro conversion) when my Zero was at almost 4.3 lbs. I did change out the Aluminum SCX shocks for plastic, VP tranny cases for plastic and I went from VP SLW drilled out rims to Carbon Fiber glue ons. I still have "heavy" motors in there and a lot of extra wiring that could go away but that will wait for another day.
I am basically going with the same setup that I had on my Zero. I figured I know what that could and couldn't do so it gives me a basic starting point to jump off from. I did replace the rear, VP axle mount with the stock plastic one for two reasons. First, it was in the same location as where I was running the VP mount and second, I stripped out the VP mount and they are tough to come by at this point.
Along with changing out the Aluminum SCX shocks for plastic ones, I also put in the axial machined pistons to see how they did. So far the bench test feels great with them. Very smooth and free flowing. I'm still running Losi Mint T silvers up front and Losi MRC silvers in back. The shocks are not limited internally as of yet. I do have a 4mm spacer in the rears (externally).
I am running the exact same knuckle weight I was with the Zero but I can add a bit more if needed. Currently at .70 oz per side.
I've held off the whole Carbon Fiber wheel thingy for long enough.:roll: I had so much invested in SLW wheels that it sucked to give them up. Our club president posted these for sale and I decided to give them a try. I'm not sure who makes them but I liked the design enough and the price was right so I pulled the trigger. My CA glue was open a bit to much so it got a little sloppy but it is what it is. I did lose about an Oz and a quarter per wheel which was very surprising.
Mike from Wicked Monkey Designs is making me a new set of skins but like a dumbass, I deleted the pictures from my email:x. I went with an understated, carbon fiber theme with just a few logos to keep it simple. Feel free to post them up Mike, if you get a chance. I can't say enough how great Mike is to deal with and how he nails the designs with just a few emails back and forth. I highly recommend getting in touch with him if you are in the market for some new skins."thumbsup"
I do need to wait for HiTec to send me back my servo before I can start testing things out. Hopefully next week sometime that will happen and I can update things then. I'm more than confident that I will be very happy with how the Smash performs leading into Nationals.
