Been bashing the Wraith. Dropping off big sand dunes and ledges, crawling the forest with my boy and his Redcat.
Am very impressed with the Redcat Everest. Built well and not as sloppy as the Wraith axles/arms. Installed a 27 turn motor in the Everest and it is much faster with more than enough low end. Need to somehow tune the ESC parameters to match motor.

 

Cleaned the Kaiser body up and I am very happy with it now. Swapped over the bumpstops from the stock shocks and they help with the rubbing a lot. I got the all thread in that I need to make longer front links so my axle is pushed more forward and I should be set.

 

Very nice

 

Came out great. I'm really surprised those tires actually fit that well with it. I made links with all thread on my crawler and sleeved them with 1/4" brake line. Worked great.

 

The rear doesn't rub at all but the front axle is too far back so I'm hoping to center it. I read that using the lower arms for uppers when going 4-link will push it out a bit and i'll make the lowers longer to go with it. If I can get by that way I'll make 4 lower links and leave the top links plastic. My rear lowers are roughed up so i'll be replacing them with metal or the stock spares.

 

Been modifying the Wraith.
Battery forward, ESC to rear. This greatly helps with reducing rollover in turns.

50w shock oil. Big improvement in ride quality and handling, reduces body roll and rollovers.

Hood hinge.
Steeing servo with 280 oz torque.
Metal steering system to replace the stock crap. But tie rod gets in the way of climbing obstacles so I deleted it and ran a link to each hub from servo.

Metal transmission gears (stripped the plastic gears)
Lights in wheel wells.
Rear deck using a tupperware lid.
Carbon black theme (vinyl wrap leftover from XJ).

Picture is the full moon although it looks like sunshine.

 

Dune laps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_fP...ature=youtu.be

 

Got a new buggy. Get a glimpse in the five second video, it's doing a wheelie and spinning tires so top speed is still unknown. I get sandblasted head to toe anytime it comes near. Climbs and carves steep dunes with ease.

$199 delivered.
1/10 scale. Ready to run
Brushless
2s LIPO included
3s capable
Waterproof ESC with fan.
Aluminum parts
Not Traxxas, Losi, or HPI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beTA...ature=youtu.be

 

Made my new links yesterday. Used new lower arms as the front uppers and made the lowers 127mm from eye to eye. The axle is now centered and I can tell that the drive line angle of the front is now better than the rear, might have to make longer upper rear links to correct it. Also made new rear lower links, same as stock length 124mm, as I have bent the plastic lowers from crawling over curbs and rocks. Just need some brake tube to cover the exposed threads.

 

I'm in deep with RC trucks. Been wrenching and bashing them instead of the jeep. Bought a $45 computer transmitter that has 10 model memory and fine tuning of controls, now I can ditch the stock controllers.

Basher bumpers front and rear by T-Bone Racing. They function exceptionally well. PM me if interested in code for 15% off.

The Redcat Tornado went in the ocean and waves were breaking on it. I had to reach down and find it. After taking it all apart and oiling bearings, all is well ( I did have to replace two bearings, receiver was in two balloons).

Lineup
Redcat Tornado 4x4 (awsome performer and very tough).
Traxxas Bandit 2WD with Castle motor and ESC (ludicrous speed)
Axial Wraith (lots of work)
Redcat Everest (Takes a beating without issue)

 

Went up to Pots Mt. this past weekend. Took the crawler with me. Unfortunately I wasn't able to run it. I plugged in the battery and the speed controller went up in smoke. It has served me well for almost 2 years so I would say I definitely got my money's worth out of it. I've decided to do a complete tear down of my rig and rebuild it. Plans this time are new axles, longer shocks, more scale parts, and rear steer on top of what I already have. I also got bored at work a couple weeks ago and decided I wanted a mini Yeti cooler. I modeled one up and printed it on the 3D printer at work. It came out great.

Below are some pics of the last time I was out and actually able to run it. Found a really nice creek to do some crawling around.

 

^ Nice job on the cooler, looks like the real thing.
The ESC in my Wraith stopped working and Axial sent me a new one. Also shredded the plastic transmission gears on 3s battery, reinstalled metal. Been through 2 sets of plastic driveshafts, ordered metal ones.
So now I save the Wraith for the trails and only run 2s batteries, for bashing the beach and dunes I use the buggies.

 

I've been hearing of a lot of cases where the AE-5 speed controller fries itself rather quickly, especially on 3s. I have a new AE-5 I'm going to throw in temporarily and I'll see how it does. I also run an external BEC so that should help it being on 3s.

There's a trick to making the plastic driveshafts last. The center section of them are hollow. Take a piece of aluminum rod and press it into that section. This will keep it from collapsing under high torque situations. I'm currently running this set up for my driveshafts with no issues.

 

My Wraith came with the AE-2 which is not rated for 3s.

That is a good idea for the driveshafts. I did sleeve the ribbed portion of shaft with a piece of the spare driveshaft, leaving just enough gap for suspension compression. It helped prevent twist but the shaft eventually sheared off rather than twist up.

 

Weird that the AE-2 went out so fast. That is what I have been running forever in mine until last weekend when it finally gave up the ghost. It will handle 3s but you need an external BEC. It will overheat trying to drop 12.6V down to 5V for the servo.