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Brainwashed

So I got up and started getting it programed. Well the first problem I ran across is since I removed the on/off switch for the ESC (due to the BEC its not needed) when I try to program the BEC--it wants to power up the ESC due to how its wired..

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I went and added a connector on the power/ground side of the BEC to seperate it from the rest of the wiring.

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SO once that was done I went and programed the radio to the ESC and I had to reverse the forward/reverse on the radio. Well I started programing the FXR with the hotwire and I just could not get the drag brake to work properly. Well since the ESC is unable to program it to reverse the motor polarity (like you can with the novak goat) I had to go and swap the wires for the motors to get everything jiving correctly.

So I have to still tweek the specs for the ESC but its getting better.

So I played with it on my course for a while and went and changed the pinions front is now a 13 and the rear is a 11. I can't tell how much stall is "ok" but I am getting used to it..

I think my wheels are too heavy since I just threw them on--rears are 9.8ouz and the fronts are 15.7 ouz
 
So I headed for my favorite local spot--a place I have spent countless hours with my shafty. So this gave me something to guage the rig on. Well I was indeed impressed--but its going to take some getting used to with the clod stall. But I was able to make every line I had with my shafty, granted a couple I had to work harder--but that might have been because I do indeed have too much weight in my wheels..

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I will have to say I am impressed with the wheel speed I am getting with the 2 cell lipos I am running..

Now one thing I did notice and I am not 100% sure this is normal. But when you are in dig--you don't have the power you do when in 4 wheel drive..

Well I had to quit when I found one screw missing from my knuckle and put a slight kink in my servo horn and also the bolt that holds the tire rod/draglink on.

But I did shoot some video and will try and get something thrown together.
 
Ok so I am still tweeking it. I knew I had too much weight in my wheels. Here is how much I pulled out of all 4.

11.7 oz

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The rears are now at 7.8oz

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The fronts are now at 11.4oz


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So one thing I wanted to do was give some motor protection. Well I looked at lonewolfs axle shield--but I just don't feel you need to have a full skid on the axle--plus you loose ground clearance and I have seen these axles just slide over rocks anyways.... So I had gotten a few ideas from RCC. Well the wife came home with a new container and I was sitting here looking at the lid--well I got a ll ninja like and swiped it,lol

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Well the material feels perfect....

Now came the hard part--making it round and of course I aint got no heat gun. But I do have a torch nozzel for sweating copper pipe.

So I cut it into 2" wide strips and 3" long. So all I did was start out with a larger diameter piece of tube than the motor dia and started heating it and closing the zip ties.

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So it started to take some shape..

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So next step was to repeat the process on a piece of 1" dia tube. Here is what I finally came up with.

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I decided to drill holes and loop small zip ties thru the holes to hold it into place. Will see how well this holds up.

But here is the end result

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SO just a little update. I have been playing with this thing every chance I get. I did find my servo fix didn't do the job 100%--so I upped it one more step and this seems to be doing the job--took a good hard smack
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Now thats some beef and holond up quite well now. I am however still concerned with hitting the servo horn hard enough to damage the servo--so I am still looking at other options..

I found I was having a glitch when I would run the servo back/forth pretty fast. I ended up pulling the BEC power from the reciever and going directly to the servo and using the ESC power for the reciever and dig switch--that seems to have fixed it.

I am still tweeking the ESC and getting it better tuned to my needs--but I am still unsure if my clod stall is "more" than I want. I went and swapped the front pionion for a 12t so running a 12/11 combo and I think it helped a tad. But I am still concerned my voltage is just too low and causing more stall.

I also pondering the idea of maybe the link geometry is causing some...
 
Ok so I looked at the steering again and re-evaluted it. I came up with the conclusion that having the servo horn up where it was--was just asking for trouble on hard flips and tumbles. I didn't want to risk damaging the servo so I pulled the mount off and redid it.Here is what I came up with.

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I am still unsure of the tie rod placement. If the tie rod goes below the arms then its lower and more likely to get hung up--but it will protect the servo horn. If I run it on top--I retain the clearance I had but the horn is there to be hit.
 
I would leave the spacer's then lay it back down like you had it but point the servo horn down.

How often do you get hung up on your tie rod?
 
Well here is how the steering turned out. I am pretty sure I will redo it again but for now it works pretty good and still higher than my tlt was. So I took it out at lunch today at my local play area near work. Lines I know my tlt would get stuck due to steering--I didn't have any issue I could not drive thru..

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Well I had my first comp with the new rig and I must say I am very pleased and adapting pretty good with the new setup. But for how short of a time I really had with it--I was able to pull off a 5th place out of 36 drivers with one course a perfect score where 2/3 of the field had DNF's.... I also beforehand went and swapped my tie rod on top of the knuckles and I also had zero failures with it..

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I my new updated front axle parts today. Perfect timing as I am going to revamp a few things and I want to tear both axles down, inspect and lube them up..
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So since I had to tear the front apart for the upgraded knucle parts--I figured I would go ahead and tear both completely down to see what the internals look like and also lube them up with my special lube I made. For those who haven't had a bully completely apart--simple setup.
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Well, me being me I wanted to improve the rig some more--tinker and try some new things. One thing that the rig did not do what I was hoping--sidehill quite as good as I was hoping. So I had been contiplating the lipo on the rear axle--well the G3 1100MAp 3 cell packs I got not only fit into the chassis very nicely--they also fit the rear housing beautifly. So I went ahead and built a battery holder. what I did different from the ones you can purchase--I built it with a lip at the outer edge to help protect the lipo. With my olt TLT shafty I had the lipo on the front axle and on aggressive courses the lipo did take some dents--this shoul help with this.
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Damn thing could not fit any better. I was going to order some G3 1800MAh packs--but with the good run times I am getting with these and how well they fit--I am going to order a couple more of these 1100 packs
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