My brushless revo

[olds97_lss]

I started brushless with the revo. Prior to that, I ran nitro only for 18 years.

My wife got it for me for Christmas in 2016.

I put different tires on it that were some I had on hand that stayed nice and soft in the cold so I could run it in the snow.

I stuck with stock arms/carriers, just to try once again with stock parts... my 2 nitro revo's would suggest this was a dumb move... 3 days after getting it.

And 7 days:

One month in and changed to RPM true track in the rear, RPM arms/carriers in the front:

After reading the issues with running 6S in it, I only ran 4S in it it's entire life. I ran SMC 2S 9000mah packs, which barely fit in it and were super heavy:

I later changed to SMC 2S 7200mah hard case which were lighter and easier on it.

I did upgrade a bit on it, like this rear motor brace:

Which I put a turnbuckle on to the rear body mount for extra stiffening in the rear.

Tried some SRC tires/wheels on it for a while, they did ok, but I did spin a hex in one and they didn't do well with big jumps. The lack of sidewall made them like rocks to land on:

Added alloy rockers after busting the stock plastic ones a couple times:

Changed to some different tires to give me a bit more cushion for landings:

Bashing around in the dirt pretty much nonstop would get me more than 30 minutes of run time on average... those were the days...

Geared for 45mph:

2017 Christmas got me a roll cage to help keep the bodies from disintegrating in 2 bash sessions, and a new set of wheels/tires from my wife:

The larger tires caused some suspension issues though, kept ripping the rod ends off the rear shocks and pushrods, so I made some limiters tied to the arm and rear body mount to help fix the issue:

The roll cage was annoying to work around and it kept snapping my front body mount/tower thing into pieces... so I made a roll bar to support the center of the body. Really wish traxxas made this like they did for the nitro version. My version looks dumb, but worked well:

 

[Exc3l]

Nice rig! Good luck on the Giveaway

 

[olds97_lss]

Now it's late summer in 2019 and I've had the outcast 6S for a while that I started running 6S in it in the Spring of 2019... so decided it was time to update the ERBEv1 to a v2 with a rolling chassis to get the better drivetrain:

I swapped over the parts that I could from my v1, including the esc, motor, servo and spektrum receiver. Also modified the t-bone skids/wheelie bar a bit to work with it. I didn't install the motor brace though, since the 2.0 had a thicker/stronger motor plate.


Wanted to try a different set of tires that were a bit larger than the traxxas tires, but lighter than the trenchers to try and keep heat down, Thunder Tiger MT4G3 tires/wheels:

Had to modify the hexes in the tires as they are keyed like traxxas, but are different enough to not fit. I also wrapped them with kevlar cord to keep them from blowing off the wheels.

 

[olds97_lss]

My MXL-6S esc died on me on my 2nd 6S run. Not sure why, it just stopped working, so I had put my old HPI F360C esc in it from my savage flux HP. The MXL-6S is a rebadged MMv2. The F360C is a rebadged MMv1 which isn't waterproof. I conformal coated it the best I could. It wasn't nearly as smooth through the throttle range as the MMv2 on 6S. I had to play with the throttle/brake curves quite a few times to get it to be driveable.

I had also made a cap pack to try and take some of the load off the internal caps in the esc. It really helped on my MMX in my savage flux with ripple voltage. So figured it would help with this too.

I spun a hex on the tamiya wheels a few runs in on 6S and went back to the trenchers, just geared down a bit to drop temps. I wrapped them with kevlar as well.

I also bent the traxxas rear chassis brace, so I made my own out of some 6061 bar stock from mcmaster.com:

The really thin one is the not racing version, which I could bend in my hands like butter. I never actually installed it. Was a waste of $10.

I kept having the XT90's popping apart since I couldn't strap the wires down like in my outcast, so I made some little clips to lock them together:

 

[olds97_lss]

I had changed the old traxxas/castle 2200kv 4074 motor out for an arrma 4074 blx2050kv. The 2200kv just sounded awful on 6S. Probably bearings going out, but it may have gotten hot a few times as it wasn't too hard to rotate the motor shaft when off the truck, so decided to go with what worked for me so far in my outcast.

Also got tired of the F360C/MMv1's feel/power control and went with a Max6:

Took a bit of finageling to fit it, my center brace was kind of in the way, so I made a plate to raise the ESC a bit and allow me to secure it better to the chassis deck:

The holes are just for the heads of 4 cap heads I put in the bottom of the esc. They lock the ESC into the plate so it doesn't slide anywhere, zipties hold the esc onto the plate:

I jump it a lot higher/further/faster now than I ever did as a v1. Causes things to break a bit more often:

Upgraded the pushrods to some HD ones from traxxas, 8619 on the left, 8618 (stock for v2) on the right:

The ends are a bit thicker/wider, so far they have been holding up better:
8618:

8619:

 

[olds97_lss]

After breaking my 3rd or 4th center chassis tunnel (never broke one on the v1), decided to replace it with an aluminum one:

Also got a set of the stock EXT tires as well as a new probodyrc unbreakable body:

The tires added some much needed width to this thing. On 4S speeds, it wasn't too bad, but on 6S, it tips a looooooot:

However, these tires get horrible forward traction.

 

[olds97_lss]

Changed back to the trenchers, but got some 1/2" offset hot racing hubs for it to retain the width:

I need to change the roof skid on this... the stock I had was too thick and it looks dumb. I have some 1/4" thick stuff to use instead, just haven't worked on it yet.

 

[olds97_lss]

So, it's been 1.5 years now of 6S running with the 2.0 chassis/diffs/trans in it. I have a few ongoing issues I'm trying to remedy.

One issue is the battery doors. I don't know why, but I split them at the seams literally every other bash, they start splitting and just get worse and worse. Not a huge expense to replace once in a while, but 4-5 sets of doors in 3 months is a bit much. Also the wires tend to get tore up when they split and the battery starts hanging out or the wires get pinched before I catch the issue.

My first attempt was to drill holes in the clip area to put body clips in to keep them from popping open:

That kept them closed, but the doors ripping was still an issue.

My second attempt at fixing it was to add some little wings inside the doors to try to keep them from going down on the front/rear ends of the doors when closed:

That didn't work either.

My latest attempt was to add brass (metal of some sort) piano hinges to the doors:

I used some thin SS I had on hand to cover the screw heads inside the doors so they didn't dig into the battery packs. I would have used flathead screws, but the plastic was so thin, I didn't want them to just rip through, so I used this instead to cover button heads:

This is untested, but seems to work ok on my bench.

My next option was to go with integy doors as they seem to be the only doors available that have a mechanical hinge. However, I'm hard pressed to find them in stock anywhere.

 

[olds97_lss]

Another issue is I keep breaking the rear turnbuckles. RPM doesn't make true-track for the 2.0 and they don't intend to. I've emailed them as have a few others. So, since I had the old true-track from my v1, I decided to try modifying them. I found a few videos on youtube to see if I'd need anything else for parts and took a dremel to them.

The people that modified these took material out of the front and back side to use the 2.0 bearings. I found some 8x15 mm bearings for the outside instead, but still dremeled the inside to fit the 2.0 bearing. So will see how this holds up:

The video and a few threads I found on it did say you needed longer pivot balls. I found some for the associated MMGT that appeared to work:

So now I'm running RPM on all 4 corners:

The blue one is because I couldn't find one at the time in black...

 

[olds97_lss]

My final issue is that the VDK pistons don't hold up well to big air. I've snapped 3 of them in the rear shocks. So the last time they broke, I replaced them with #2 stock pistons. After installing the true track, it's not rebounding hardly at all on my work bench after being fully compressed... so I may take the shocks off and see if I have binding before I run it again. If it's not binding (I don't think it is), I'll replace the RC Raven dual rate springs with some heavier traxxas single rate springs.

 

[Studio Deep Dive]

I started brushless with the revo. Prior to that, I ran nitro only for 18 years.

My wife got it for me for Christmas in 2016.

I put different tires on it that were some I had on hand that stayed nice and soft in the cold so I could run it in the snow.

I stuck with stock arms/carriers, just to try once again with stock parts... my 2 nitro revo's would suggest this was a dumb move... 3 days after getting it.

And 7 days:

One month in and changed to RPM true track in the rear, RPM arms/carriers in the front:

After reading the issues with running 6S in it, I only ran 4S in it it's entire life. I ran SMC 2S 9000mah packs, which barely fit in it and were super heavy:

I later changed to SMC 2S 7200mah hard case which were lighter and easier on it.

I did upgrade a bit on it, like this rear motor brace:

Which I put a turnbuckle on to the rear body mount for extra stiffening in the rear.

Tried some SRC tires/wheels on it for a while, they did ok, but I did spin a hex in one and they didn't do well with big jumps. The lack of sidewall made them like rocks to land on:

Added alloy rockers after busting the stock plastic ones a couple times:

Changed to some different tires to give me a bit more cushion for landings:

Bashing around in the dirt pretty much nonstop would get me more than 30 minutes of run time on average... those were the days...

Geared for 45mph:

2017 Christmas got me a roll cage to help keep the bodies from disintegrating in 2 bash sessions, and a new set of wheels/tires from my wife:

The larger tires caused some suspension issues though, kept ripping the rod ends off the rear shocks and pushrods, so I made some limiters tied to the arm and rear body mount to help fix the issue:

The roll cage was annoying to work around and it kept snapping my front body mount/tower thing into pieces... so I made a roll bar to support the center of the body. Really wish traxxas made this like they did for the nitro version. My version looks dumb, but worked well:

Sweet rig! Looking at an erevo 2 myself. Kinda reminds me of my reef tank; always something not quite right yet ??

 

[olds97_lss]

Yep, seems to be the way.

I didn't have any binding with the shocks removed, so I replaced the RCRaven springs with traxxas blue springs. Stiffer springs tend to cause premature wear on the pushrod ends and shock ends, but at least it rebounds to almost level now when I drop it.