The leap of faith .

Well I bought a no name brand R.C. again 

I haven't received it yet but it's paid for and should be on it's way shortly .

 I bought the brushed version of the ZD Racing  ZMT-10.

 Because I couldn't find anyone who had the brushless version in stock.

Now parts for this where scarce and hard to find but thanks to Hobby King parts will be easier to get if needed since they Introduced there rebranded version , The Turnigy Stadium King 2wd 1/10th Scale RTR Truggy and a long list of replacement parts.

Look at the truck

parts

Brushed 2WD Electric 1:10 Scale RC Truck

4 Wheel Independent Suspension. 

2.4GHz. Digital Transmitter/Receiver.

Pistol-Grip Radio with High Torque Steering Servo.

Powerful Brushed 540 Electric Motor.

7.2v 2400mAh 15c NiMH Battery.

Full Ball Bearings.

150 Amp Brushed ESC.

 Specifications:

Length: 483mm

Width: 311/338mm

Height: 173mm

Wheel Base: 291.5130mm

Gear Ratio: 7.8:1

Content:

              1 x 1:10 Scale Brushed Truck.

              1 x Battery 

              1 x Pistol-Grip Transmitter

              1 x  Manual/Accessories

Now the one thing that sticks out to me is that this seller list full ball bearings in the truck and from what I have read the hobby king version has bronze bushing's.

It has also been said that these trucks have metal transmission  gears .

It has been rumored that a lot of Traxxas part's will fit this truck and I plan to see if this is true.

When I do receive this truck I plan to do a complete tear down and test ever part to check for compatibility. 

So look forward to that .

Well Ive had a busy week.

I can't wait till the holiday's are over . Everything is always rush rush rush but I have added a contact me form on the top right side and should be adding more to this blog and my YouTube page this week . 

Talking about old monster trucks

Well I thought I would talk about some of the trucks I own and have owned.

Kyosho Big Brute

 Well I bought this truck of Ebay and it looked hideous, sadly I didn't take any pic's of it when I fist got it . Personally I found the truck easy to work on but the handling left a lot to be desired . I like my monster trucks to have a soft plush suspension but when I got the shocks tuned for the ride I wanted the truck would lean and then flip. I still liked the truck and hope to own one of it's siblings either the USA-1 or Double Dare.

Traxxas Stampede 

Well I still have my number two and just got my number three not long ago . What can I say I have never been disappointed with these trucks  . With the newest versions that have been released all I can say is wow if I can destroy the new transmission gears I am doing something wrong . I am also glad to see the new slipper clutch design it should cut back on slipper maintenance and make torque control more consistent.  If you have never owned one you should buy one this is definitely a truck everyone should own at least once .

Varicom Big Grizzly  

These trucks are somewhat rare and are well known for breaking more than anything . This truck is about to leave me and I can say I have had nothing break in the 5-6 time's I have run it.  Stuff  does likes to work loose and the plastic for the shock's must be terrible since mine only had one good one left . I will say that if you do run this truck don't get to excited about it to be honest the truck is under powered with just a single 540 motor and I can't imagine the frustration some people must have had about run times.  With a 3000 mah 6celll pack and a johnson silver can motor I could squeeze out maybe 8 min's of run time .

Tamiya Clodbuster


Well I haven't owned this truck long but I think it's going to be in my collection for a long time. I mean what can I say about the king of monster trucks . This truck has been a hit since it came out over well over 20 years ago and it's doubtful it's going to disappear anytime soon  . If you have ever thought that you might like own one pic one  up, just do it I picked mine up of Ebay for a hundred buck's and let me tell you , Im going to get my money out of this truck.

                                   

Going fast for cheap In the RC world. Part 2

Ok you now have a bunch of cheap batteries ,a high volt ESC,and a motor, and are now looking at your car going how am I going to get these batteries to all fit . Some car's you have to get creative on other's its a piece of cake .

I'm going to use Traxxas vehicles as examples.

On a stampede you can mount one battery on the under side if you want to lower the center of gravity and a second battery in the original position for 2 pack action by using reusable zip ties like this .

If you want to cram 3 packs on the chassis you can do this plus one on the bottom  .

On a Traxxas Rustler, Bandit , or Street Sport you can do 2 side by side also.

This also works on a lot of other chassis.

Now that you got a Idea  on what to do with the batteries we need to stiffen the suspension normally  some vehicles come over dampened to begin with so you may just need to adjust your ride height other's will need stiffer spring and shock oil. What you do is up to you every one likes there car to ride differently and there is no such thing as a perfect set up . 

Now if your wanting to step it up a notch a motor swap is going to be in order .

my primary recommendation is the Thunder Tiger Super 19 Turn 550 size Brushed Motor  parts #PD9221

 

It has replaceable brushes and spring's and the brush shunt's are removable on the one's I have seen so the commutator can be turned on one of the old stock  motor lathe's.

Now why is this stuff important because it will all prolong the life of the motor make it preform better .

With 3 /6cell packs the motor will see a nominal voltage of 21.6 as a byproduct the motor will  be turning at a much higher rpm than stock because of this higher rpm it may be a good Idea to run stiffer than stock spring's .The reason for this is to keep the brushes from bouncing and loosing contact with commutator when this happens you will loose peak rpm and power it also causes arcing that damages the commutator . If the commutator is turned in a lathe the surface will be made smoother and decrease the chance of brush bounce and may decrease the spring tension needed .

Some other high volt options are are high turn mod motor's and even some crawler motor's . like the one's shown below but for long life and max performance these should have the commutator trued with a lathe and maybe new spring's 

Now you maybe wondering why I said high turn mod motor's . This is because the less turn's a motor has the higher the peak rpm will be . When the peak rpm climb's so does the maintenance mostly due to brush bounce and brush wear . 

Now If you have the cash and time and want the best of the best I recomend keeping your eye's peeled for these guy's  Trinity Monster Maxx (Mild, Wild, and Pro) and the Reedy Badd Maxx Mild motors. The Monster Maxx Milds are 21 turns, the Wilds are 19 turns, and the Pros are 17 turns.  The Badd Maxx Milds are 19 turns . These motors are fully rebuildable .

More soon .

Going fast for cheap In the RC world. Part 1

If you have a tight budget but have a need for speed this info might be for you.

If you tell people you wanna go fast in the RC world most people scream buy THIS LIPO BATTERY AND THIS BRUSHLESS SYSTEM . I tend to take a more conservative approach. Instead of dropping $100 dollars on lipo batteries and probable just as much on brushless system , then even more on a battery charger and other part's why not just recycle stuff that other people don't want .

I'm going to start like this what if I told you that you could buy a ESC that was rated at 24 volt's and a max currant rating of 350 amps and was made buy a well known manufacture for less than $20 dollar's .Sounds crazy don't it well that just what I bought . Now I know I forgot to tell you that this ESC is used and that it will only work with brushed motor's but I seen you drool a little when you where reading those spec's but the fact is any car is fast when you start running those kind of power level's .

Now if your still with me the video below is me talking about the ESC I bought but many more just as powerful or even more powerful are out there some can be seen in the link's below.

http://www.teamtekin.com/archive.html

http://www.teamnovak.com/products/esc_specs/discont_specs/index.html

http://www.teamnovak.com/products/esc_specs/rev_specs/index.html

Now if still interested in this don't rush out and buy lipo's even though they do have great quality's . The fact is a lot of brand new NIMH battery pack's are being tossed in the trash or sold on Ebay for next to nothing so these can be picked up cheap. If you get a couple of matching pack's your almost ready to go all you have to do now is buy or make a adapter harness that will connect 2\ 6 cell or 2\ 7 cell  or 3\ 6 cell packs together in a series .

2 pack harness 

second example

3 pack harness

You got to be wondering about motor's . Well that's pretty simple if it's brushed you can use it but you must keep a few thing's in mind if the motor was not designed for the voltage you are running it at . It will wear out faster than if it was run at the proper voltage designated by the manufacture. So to start I recommend one of the following there normally easy to get and are generally pretty cheap if not free and work great at 14.4 to 16.8 volt's .


The traxxas 550 titan from the E-Maxx and E-Revo lots of people replace these when they still have plenty of life left in them .

Pull a motor from a old cordless drill lot's of the 9.6 to 12 volt models use 550 motor's that work great .

Pull a motor from a old child ride on toy like a Power Wheel's car most of these use 550 motors and are junked with usable  motor's

Old portable air compressor's some time's use 550 motor's

Well look forward to more soon .

ZD Racing 1/16 scale car's

Several month's ago I bought a couple of cheap 1/16 scale cars off of Ebay little did I know that I would come to love these little guy's . Despite there flaws "and they have several" these have become some of my favorites .Now because of there flaw's I find it hard to recommend these car's to anyone who isn't a veteran of R.C. car's because they lack part's support even though part's that fit these car's are all over the web . You just need to know where to look . 

Below is are link's to review I did on the brushed MT model . 

http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149928

If you already bought one of these car's I'm here to help but if your thinking of buying one Caveat emptor .  


After months of abuse my brushed model has had no problem's except the bearings where sub par  and is the most versatile of the two. I liked this car so much I made a Youtube count just so I could post video's of it . 

Later I did a driving video of it.

I then did a video when I decided to try a 9.6v battery and may have stumbled on to a LVC on the ESC

Soon I'm going to try a 2s and 3s lipo to see what  kinda results I get so check back for that .

Now the brushless model is a little different and I point out alot of the differences here .

But for the most part it's durability  was on par with the brushed model except the diff's at a minimum need shimmed or to have metal components installed . For this you have a couple of options . 

Your cheapest choice is to buy diff components for the Turnigy Monster Beetle from www.hobbyking.com these parts are made from a zinc alloy.

For the front and rear diff's it's easiest to just buy 2 of these .

www.hobbyking.com

For the center you will need 2 of these

www.hobbyking.com

and one set of these

www.hobbyking.com

Plus you will need some material to make pin's for the pinion gears to ride on.

If you want to lock the front and rear diff's and eliminate the weakest link's you will need this kit here.  

                                                            www.hobbyking.com

For the Best quality option you can buy steel parts here. http://www.shop.gotnitroonline.com

For the front and rear diff's it's easiest to just buy 2 of these . 

://www.shop.gotnitroonline.com/Rear-Differential-All-Metal-Gears-32002.htm 

For the center you will need 2 of these

http://www.shop.gotnitroonline.com/M...rive-32005.htm

and one set of these

 http://www.shop.gotnitroonline.com/M...eces-32006.htm

Plus one of these if you want 

 http://www.shop.gotnitroonline.com/S...lcan-32013.htm 

these pin's may not fit if your set up doesn't have two sizes on the original 

pinion gear so different pins may need to be sourced .

Sadly I have not took much video of the brushless 

model but I do plan to .

S

So I will do the next best think here is video (that is not mine) showing a brushless model with a replacement motor with a 3s lipo . the stock car is fast but not as powerful as this little guy.

Play with a propulse

Well a good while back I picked up some 1/16th scale ZD Racing  car's and liked them a lot so I thought I should pick up something in the 1/18th scale size . After lot's of searching I decided to get a RadioShack Propulse of Ebay. I purchased this truck because it had a good reputation for durability and had lot's of parts support due to it being a brother to the Megatech Megapro (There only different in name and bodies) and sister to the Hpi mini recon (There  different in name , bodies , and the chassis are slightly different) .

So far this car has received the Megatech  aluminum shock upgrade and the twin brushed motor upgrade.
Sadly the twin motor set up leaves a bit to be desired . it appears the stock batter can not deliver enough amp's for the motor's under high load so the car some time's shudder's .

Currently I am in the middle of swapping in a brushless system and bigger tires . So check back for that.

Maisto Rock Crawler project

Well I starter this project about a week ago so I will try to fill you in . I had seen these guy's and thought they looked pretty cool . I was reluctant to by one because of all the time's I've been let down by toy grade R.C. Cars in the past  . After seeing ton's of post online about this car I finally decided I wanted one . My wife then bought it for me as a early Christmas present . So far I'm having a ball this little guy is probable the most capable toy grade car I have ever owned . I have already made plan's to improve it's performance . My first mod was to replace the tire's with Team Losi  Mini Rock Crawler Claw Tires LOSB1480  and they did help traction a bit but I think adding weight to the rim's will make a bigger improvement. some other mod including increasing tire clearance to the body .

      

One of my new video's

This video shows some ways to put clodbuster wheels and tires on your Traxxas stampede or ECX ruckus .This will also work on other car's and truck's like Kyosho USA-1 Kyosho Double Dare, Kyosho Big Brute ,Tamiya wild dagger, Hpi wheely king ,Redcat Ground pounder , and ARRMA Granite

I got a blog

Well so this is what its like to have a blog. Well hopefully someone out there will be interested in what I say here. I plan to talk about R.C. Car's and pretty much anything else that tickles my fancy . Expect to see video's posted and other thing's I have done or am doing . Make sure to check out my YouTube channel .