The UPS clad Santa Claus delivered my Yeti XL yesterday. Initial impressions are that this thing is BIG. It is bigger than my original Savage 21 of years gone by. For the size the actual weight is nice. It doesn't feel so heavy that it is awkward to carry like my ~40 pound Losi 5IVE. As far as QC stuff goes I seem to have gotten two "Left" side number wings on the back of the body but no big deal. Having seen one other member post photos of their YXL with Baja wheels and tires we thought we would see how it looked with DDM BILLET SIX wheels. I found that the HPI Savage to Baja wheel adapters #102530 were not a straight bolt on. You need to drill out the center bore to 8mm to match the Yeti XL axle.
The HPI wheel adapters don't use the screw pin, but a conventional cross pin. The hubs are held in place with a locknut so at least a wheel swap won't have you losing pins every time you take the wheels off. I will have to see how these hold up to abuse.
There was a little too much gap between the bearing and cross pin as can be seen on this photo of the front hub:
I negated this by using 3 HPI 96710 washers washers for each side to take out the slop.
The back axles needed a little shimming too. The plastic lockout was a little too close to holding the washer and I didn't want to have it bind so a couple of twists with a body reamer kept the distance properly between the washer and lockout. (Photo taken before reaming)
Here is a photo of the HPI Baja 5B Sand Buster Tires mounted on 6061 aluminum beadlock wheels with 7075 billet beadlock rings. The tires are about the same height. The rear are wider, but the fronts are about the same width. Turned out pretty cool
(spiked wheel nuts let everyone else you know you mean business)
Here is a photo with Pro-Line Trencher tires for the Baja 5T/5SC mounted on Pro-Line Split Six wheels
At first sight you would think these are a LOT bigger than the stock tires, but they aren't. Photo for comparison:
I will get some more tire combinations done other tires like the Hostile MX for the Baja 5B that I think would work out really well on a variety of surfaces.
The HPI wheel adapters don't use the screw pin, but a conventional cross pin. The hubs are held in place with a locknut so at least a wheel swap won't have you losing pins every time you take the wheels off. I will have to see how these hold up to abuse.
There was a little too much gap between the bearing and cross pin as can be seen on this photo of the front hub:
I negated this by using 3 HPI 96710 washers washers for each side to take out the slop.
The back axles needed a little shimming too. The plastic lockout was a little too close to holding the washer and I didn't want to have it bind so a couple of twists with a body reamer kept the distance properly between the washer and lockout. (Photo taken before reaming)
Here is a photo of the HPI Baja 5B Sand Buster Tires mounted on 6061 aluminum beadlock wheels with 7075 billet beadlock rings. The tires are about the same height. The rear are wider, but the fronts are about the same width. Turned out pretty cool
(spiked wheel nuts let everyone else you know you mean business)
Here is a photo with Pro-Line Trencher tires for the Baja 5T/5SC mounted on Pro-Line Split Six wheels
At first sight you would think these are a LOT bigger than the stock tires, but they aren't. Photo for comparison:
I will get some more tire combinations done other tires like the Hostile MX for the Baja 5B that I think would work out really well on a variety of surfaces.
Last edited:
