• Welcome to RCTalk! 🚀

    Join the #1 RC community where hobbyists connect, share, and get expert advice on RC cars, trucks, boats, drones, and more!

    • Friendly & passionate RC enthusiasts
    • RC tips & troubleshooting
    • Buy, sell & trade RC gear
    • Share builds & upgrades

Problems with wheels

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

edlarge

RCTalk Basher
Messages
72
Reaction score
0
Points
0
RC Driving Style
  1. Bashing
Hello

So i took out my 3.5 today, and had two issues

1) had very little traction, have set my car up for acceleration with 13/52 gearing :) today however it was very wet ground car park, so wheels just span for about 2 seconds before it got grip.

Question are there any better tyres than standard for tarmac driving?

2) during a small low speed crash my rear tyre cam off and rolled down the road, fairly humorous until i noticed why, the hexagonal space where the wheel fits to the hub was worn away so plastic wore away and then came through the nut that holds it on.

Question, Has this ever happened to anyone else? are there any wheels that may be stronger than the plastic or is there something i should have done to make sure this shouldnt have happened

Thanks all
 
Well, pretty much regardless what tire you run, wet pavement or wet grass will cause an excess amount of spinning. I ran traxxas chevrons for years just because of wanting the spinning on almost all surfaces to some extent. This spinning helps the drive line last longer since there's less shock going through the diffs/axles/trans when taking off. That said, I also ran old school savage tires when I wanted better grip on grass/pavement. When dry, they grab really well. For off road/dirt/loose soil only, I ran losi zombie maxx tires.

As for your rim problem, it sounds like your wheel nut went loose on you which causes the meltdown. That said, I never had great luck with HPI rims. Especially on the savage.

What rims do you have? What size hex's do you have? I'd assume stock on both which would be 14mm hex's. I have upgraded to 17mm hex's and haven't had any problems with either my aftershock or savage since. I ran for a long time on 14mm hex's and never had a real problem with that either until I put in an engine with some power (LRP28), then I was burning out a hex about once a gallon. Got old very fast. That's when I switched both my savage/aftershock over to 17mm hex's.
 
ah ok, everything is stock on the savage with regards to wheels and tyres, do you know what would be a good wheel with 17mm's ot change to?

I would like to get my truck to wheelie, i know some people say that the 3.5 dosnt have enough power but i have seen some do it, so hoping mine will work as well, esp with the gearing i have. so i guess i need a truck that has good grip, off road shouldnt be a prob cause the tyres should grip better on that, but yeah a tyre for on road would be good,

oh yeah meant to say, the nut didnt come loose as it rock solid and i actually can't get it off
 
Well, actually, tires that grip onroad that last, don't work worth a hoot offroad. To have a tire that grips onroad, you go for a street tread with a somewhat soft compound. This gives you a lot of contact area and gives you a stickier tread. For offroad, these will just spin because of the large contact patch dispersing the weight won't let them dig in.

To be honest, if yours is stock and is the older savage, those tires should hook up pretty good on many surfaces. I think your fighting with the water.

Water makes everything very slick as far as RC is concerned. As does cold. Not sure where your located, but 60F on down makes the rubber harder and makes them not grab as well regardless of the surface.

RPM makes some decent 17mm rims. That's what I ran. I recently picked up a couple sets of 17mm splined traxxas wheel/tire sets off ebay. Unfortunately, they have splines in them that you have to cut out to run with normal "non-traxxas" hubs.

These are what I ran quite a bit over the last season and really liked:
2009-0504-SavageLosiPipe.jpg


RPM Revolver 17mm rims with HPI's 17mm hex's and wheel nuts from the savage XL. I had to buy two new normal thread axle hubs though as the new wheel nuts are all normal thread.

This is what I'm running now:
2009-1123-Savage17mmWheels.jpg


They get less unpredictable when at higher speeds than the HPI tires. The sidewalls are shorter so they wander less.
 
Most of my drving will be on grass and off road, but i thought would be good to have a set for off and a set for on road, so i can change them depending on what i am doing, when i am off roading i will be bashing quite hard so a bigger walled tyre is probably better, the wheels would be nice to get some that just fit straight on without having to buy anything extra to fit them. i like both your rims, so which ever is the easiest and most practical for me are what id like to go with. do you have any links to buy them? I'm in the oxford in the uk so a company that ships abroad is always good :)

Thank you for your help much appreciated
 
RPM makes a good 14mm hex wheel. The stock HPI .21 and .25 model rims are very weak in comparison. Also the tires those models came with are really heavy. The newer X tires are a lot lighter and grip better. Lighter wheels and tires=more power to the ground. The truck will lose at least a pound swapping to a better tire.
My favorite all around bash tire for the Savage is the Proline Mashers. Those tires on some 3/4" offset rpm wheels are awesome.
Here's a set of chrome wheels I dyed black with the Masher tires.
Pitboxcleanout003.webp

You need new wheel nuts and hexes to stop the falling off issue. They are probably really worn.
Use E-Bay, you'll find hexes and wheel nuts new and cheap in 17mm or 14mm.
The Masher tires wheelie like crazy on pavement and grass.
 
Oh. Well, you will require new hubs, axles and wheel nuts of you want to run 17mm. It would be more durable if you did. I don't know who ships overseas though. Ebay is where I buy a lot of my stuff.

I just checked and Amain does ship internationally:
RPM rims: http://www.amainhobbies.com/product...r-Truck-Wheels-17mm-Hex-Standard-Offset-Black

HPI 17mm Hex: http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/products_id/6360/n/HPI-Hex-Wheel-Hub-17mm-Silver
HPI right threaded axles: http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/products_id/6336/n/HPI-Axle-8x9x44mm-Black-2 (only need one set to replace the silver ones you have if your running stock axles all around)

HPI 17mm flanged nuts, Z680 is the part #, couldn't find it on their site though.
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXMDC0&P=ML

I'm sure if you email/call Amain, they can get them if they don't have them.

Those wheels accept any standard MT tires like what you have now. They are sold in packs of two, so you need 2 sets.
 
Back
Top