Wes's U4 Wraith

[WesTX]

Finally getting back into the hobby and picked me up a Wraith (well, itll be here tomorrow). Already have bought the following items to start the upgrades, a lot of them I bought used from members here. Will continue watching the classifieds to get more upgrade parts at less than retail.

Electronics:
- Holmes Torq-Master BRXL ESC - Installed 10-19
- Holmes Crawlmaster Pro 540 - 13T/2250Kv Motor - Installed 10-19
- Savox 1267SG Servo - Installed 10/20
- Axial 25T Aluminum Servo Horn for Steering Servo - Installed 10-20
- Castle External BEC set at 7.0V
- VP Rigid 5" Silver Light Bar
- Stock Lights - Stayed on the car, will be wired to hub and into separate battery
- China LED Light Kit with hub for all lights, to be used as rock lights.

Suspension:
- Used VP Ti Links - Front Uppers and Lowers, Rear Uppers
- Custom Rear Trailing Arms with Dual Shock Mounts
- DMG Front Shock Hoops - Installed 10-20
- BGR Rear Shock Hoops - Installed 10-21
- VP CMS and Panhard Kit (going to run a 3 link Panhard front for better go fast steering) - Installed 10-20
- Proline Slash Rear Shocks - Front and Rear
- RC4WD Rockcrawler 110 mm Shocks with Springs Removed for rear secondary shocks
- VP Shock Mounts on Axle
- VP Limiting Straps
- Axial Front and Rear Sway Bars
- DCW Skid Reinforcement and Upper Link Risers with Adjustability - Installed 10-19
- Custom plates for rear trailing arm mounts inline with DCW Upper Link Risers

Axles/Drivetrain:
- VP Stage 1 Kit - Orange
- VP Diff Covers - Silver
- Dlux U4 Axle Truss's
- BeefTubes Axle Sleeves
- Axial HD Gearset Front
- Axial UD Gearset Rear
- Axial Universals
- Axial Rear Shafts
- Gripfab Locker/Spools
- MIP Driveshafts - Installed 10-22
- AMF Aluminum Diff Protector
- 56T/32P Axial Steel Spur Gear - Installed 10-19
- Traxxas 14T/32P Pinion Gear - Installed 10-19
- Hot Racing Beefed Up Transmission from SuperShafty.com - Installed 10-19
- FastEddy Bearing Kit

Wheels/Tires
- Wheels - RC4WD Raceline Beadlocks - Installed 10-19
- Tires - Pit Bull Rock Beast 2's - Installed 10-19
- 2nd Set of Wheels - LockedUpRC Adversary Wheels
- 2nd Set of Tires - Swamper TSL XL's
- Have misc sets of other tires and wheels for this for playing with different surfaces, etc.

Body
- AMF Aluminum Hood - Installed 10-24 with cuts for shock towers
- AMF Aluminum Skid Plate/Belly Pan - Installed 10-21
- AMF Aluminum Side Panels - Installed 10-21
- AMF Half Roof Panel - Installed 10-22
- Freqeskinz General Lee Graphics
- Carter Fab Front Inner Fenders
- Carter Fab Rear Inner Fenders
- BGR Fab Front Bumper - Installed 10-20
- BGR KOH Cage with V2 Trailbar Rear Bumper - Installed 10-21
- Crawler Innovations Delrin Electronics Tray - Installed 10-19


Ill post some pics of it once I get it in and start getting the parts in and get it put together.

I am a newb all over again after being out of this for a few years, so tell me what I am doing wrong!

Wes

 

[Rockpiledriver]

You'll want to ditch the 3-link. It will have strength issues as well as bump-steer. 4-link is best for go fast.

 

[WesTX]

Interesting, i would have figured with the panhard (if set up correctly) it would remove the bumpsteer based on what I have seen with 1:1 rigs that have mechanical steering linkages rather than a full hydro setup.

Good to know, glad I will have the parts to go either way and play with it.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Got a TON more stuff on the way, see post 1 for updated build list.

Wraith will be here today and Ill run a few packs through it before tearing it apart to rebuild it. Want to have it built before I go on vacation next weekend (24-27) so I can play with it on vacation. Will post progress.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Ran the stock setup this afternoon for a few minutes in the parking lot and grass around the parking lot at work. Holy cow popping up a curb it flips over backwards in a hurry due to no weight over the frontend. The battery needs to move quickly!

The cage is also super scratched up already from flipping it and trying to right it with wheelspin multiple times. Looks like a DmG Stiffy kit is in order. PM already sent regarding that to DmG.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Played with it a bit more this morning in a field with some jumps and water/mud holes. Good fun and I see tons of ways for improvement. Too high so it flips in a turn too easy, too little weight in front so it pops up and can flip over when coming out of a hole/ledge.

Also got a TON of parts in. Still waiting on a lot of stuff too like body panels, Castle BEC, 4link risers, Hot Racing Transmission, front bumper, Spur and Pinion, Limit Straps, Front Shock Hoops, CMS Kit with Panhard, Titanium VP links, Servo, HD Driveshafts, A couple of other sets of wheels and tires.

Hopefully I can start to get stuff together this weekend, only really have time after my daughter goes to sleep. Going to try to get as much stuff together as possible before next weekend when I am on vacation so I can take it and play on the rocks in the hill country of Texas.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Got most of the rest of my parts in today, now just waiting on VP Ti links, DmG front Shock hoops, CMS & panhard Kit, and Castle BeC.

Tore it down tonight. Got the interior out, Esc and receiver out and prepped the new transmission and motor to go in once I get the old ones out. Lots of fun.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Got some good work done in the evenings this weekend. Tore the car most of the way down and started putting in new stuff and figuring out where I was moving stuff. Got the front battery tray in, ESC and RX moved to the rear with a custom mount. Got the DCW upper link mount and skid stiffener in. Wheels and tires are all mounted up now. Figured out the RC4WD Raceline wheels will not work with VP SLW hubs, so cant play with the offset at all.

Updated the original post list with what has and has not been done to this point. Looks like Ill have most of it together as far as I want to before my vacation this weekend. I am going to hold off on all of the axle work until we are back as I am thinking about ordering some GCM aluminum axle housings. We will see how much of a beating these plastic stock housings will take and spread the cost of those out to next month. Still waiting on the VP Ti Links as well as the DMG front shock hoops and CMS and Panhard kit to come in, so those may have to wait as well.

Took some pics this morning on the way out of the house to go to work but they are really blurry for some reason. Will take more pics tonight and get them posted up.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Pics from this morning after more work last night. Went to install the VP Chubs and Knuckles only to realize what I bought here on the forum was for an AX not a Wraith. Oops, now to order new stuff and sell what I have.

Note: I know the stock steering linkages suck. They are temporary as I am waiting on some VP Ti stuff from a member here. Just using them for now to get parts installed/mocked up.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Hopefully someone is reading and/or looking at this that can help me out.

I plugged all of the electrical stuff in this morning (ESC, Servo, Rx, etc) and the servo immediately goes hard left and is binding and still straining to turn further. I unplugged that and applied some throttle on the TX and got nothing from the motor. Any clues as to what is going on? I have not yet installed the external BEC to give the servo more voltage than the 5.0V the HH BRXL ESC puts out, but wanted to at least check that things were working this morning and was not met with a good sign.

Any ideas?

Wes

 

[Jwill]

I would check tx settings rebind and then recalibrate your tx to the esc.

 

[Heckler]

Did you calibrate your ESC with your radio?

 

[WesTX]

I guess not, I guess best thing to do is pull Axial manual on the RX/TX and sort that out?

Sorry Im a newb on the RX/TX stuff.

Wes

 

[zjguy721]

Disconnect the servo horn from the servo. Then fire everything up, zero out all your steering adjustments on the radio. Make sure you have the steering plugged into channel 1 and ESC into channel 2. Once the servo is centered, then hook up the servo horn and see what that gets you.

 

[WesTX]

Disconnect the servo horn from the servo. Then fire everything up, zero out all your steering adjustments on the radio. Make sure you have the steering plugged into channel 1 and ESC into channel 2. Once the servo is centered, then hook up the servo horn and see what that gets you.

Going to try to do that at lunch today and see if that sorts out the servo. Noticed in the pic above I put the servo in backwards, wanted the servo horn to be on the same side as the panhard frame mount. Will have to swap that as well.

Still doesnt tell me much for the ESC/Motor, the RX and TX are still bound, but Im not seeing any method of calibrating the ESC to the TX in the Axial documents. Sorry Im a dummy on this stuff.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Got the servo sorted out, also got the VP Ti links in at lunch today after a mail issue and went ahead and put the steering links on while I was working on the steering. Much better!

Still have no clue on the ESC, motor does nothing. I am going to remove the motor and tranny tonight and see if the motor will turn without being hooked up to the tranny. That will give me a chance to put the MIP's in at that point as well.

Heres more pics. Obviously I got the BGR cage and rear shock mounts installed. Still havent put the rear Gmade shocks together so once I get that done Ill get them mounted, until then its the stockers. Also need to cut the old plastic stuff out of the cage in the rear to complete the fastback look, etc. Also need to cut down the RX mount so it doesnt hit the cage and put it back in.

Starting to really look good, very happy with the looks thus far. Once I get it all sorted out I will sort out some form of interior, currently not super concerned with it as Im not really overly concerned with it looking perfectly scale.

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer on the ESC/Motor situation.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

I'm an idiot, simply reading the directions from Holmes for the ESC would solve my problems. Ill do that in the morning and hopefully be functioning correctly.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Got the ESC sorted out. Should be making its virgin run since tearing it apart at lunch today. Then still have all of the axle work to do once I sort out which direction I want to go there as well as get the hood cut.

Will get some action pics later when I go outside to play with it.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

Played with it a while at lunch, dealt with a ton of little issues on the first run.

- Didnt tighten set screw on front MIP good, pin fell out and lost pin so ordered a rebuild kit to replace.
- Slipper clutch nut keeps backing off, need to apply locktite
- Pinion gear is too low of gearing. Since the hot racing tranny came with a 61T pinion that was set up for their slipper clutch I left it. So now the 12T pinion brings the gearing down to 5.08 which means it has torque like crazy (when the slipper isnt just spinning due to the nut backing off) but top speed is lower than I would like. Ordered a 14T pinion to try to get some of the top end back.
- ESC is set at 100% brake. So when I let off the gas the back tires come off the ground because the brake slams on so hard. This wont be good for motor life! Ordered castle link USB setup to program the HH Torquemaster BR-XL ESC to adjust this.

Here is a pic in the rock pile that runs along our building, lots of fun running this thing through it. Need to work on shock tuning a bit more, maybe run the 3 hole pistons instead of the 2 hole pistons and some lighter shock oil to provide more damping, right now the shocks dont have the compression and rebound speed they need. The rears still need to be assembled as well.

I got the hood marked for cutouts as well. Made a paper template and trimmed it until all cleared well then transferred to the aluminum hood. Hopefully I can work on that tonight.

Wes

 

[WesTX]

This thing flat out gets it now, spent some time playing this morning. Still need to program the ESC and cut the hood along with installing the BEC. Lost a bunch of screws in the wheels for some reason, so gotta pick up more of those as well. Was too dark to get pics this morning of playing in the rocks, hopefully I'll have more playtime at some point today

Wes