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PRP Swift

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For those of you considering replacing dogbone pins; I have achieved this quite successfully to keep the Swift going. The biggest problem is acquiring a 3.1mm diameter pin of suitable hardness to replace the worn one. I have cut down the shank from a drill bit and also used a 3.1mm diameter pin punch. Both work. I am also using Mugen outdrives in the front and rear diffs which are lasting appreciably longer than stock items. These only needed the length reducing with a grinder to work perfectly. However I have been unable to find suitable replacements for the centre diff outdrives yet!!! Hope this helps.
 
hey steve, if your looking for a harder pin. try ordering 3mm guage pins with a + tolerance. guage pins are made 2 ways, with either a + or a - tolerance. this means that the pin is as close as possible to the nominal dimention, but since nothing is perfect, the + or - lets you decide which side of the dimention you want the size to err on. so your 3.1+ may actually measure 3.102mm and a 3.1- may actually measure 3.099mm. you can order these from any manufacturing supplier and they will be about 62Rc in hardness (aka, they will last a very long time). with them being that hardness, they will probibly compliment your mugen outdrives quite nicely.

on another thought, have you tried the mugen center diff outdrives and just use mugen brake disks instead of the swifts? where is the compliance issue with the center outdrives?
 
Hi Corradopsi,
I have checked the mugen centre outdrives alongside the stock Swift items. The discrepancy is in the total assembled length from outdrive to outdrive, i.e the Swift centre dogbones will be too short. With too many parts to change to reach a solution it is simpler to continue with Stock Swift items in centre diff.- When we can get them!!!
 
CorradoPsi said:
actually cameron said that the towers were made by a company called titan tech. however i havent been able to come up with anything on them from searching the internet. does anyone have a link to thier homepage?
Click to expand...
I stand corrected. Sincere apologies.


Steve B said:
Hi Corradopsi,
I have checked the mugen centre outdrives alongside the stock Swift items. The discrepancy is in the total assembled length from outdrive to outdrive, i.e the Swift centre dogbones will be too short. With too many parts to change to reach a solution it is simpler to continue with Stock Swift items in centre diff.- When we can get them!!!
Click to expand...
My centre outdrives are wearing OK at the moment. Compared to the front/rear diff outdrives there's a lot more material around the slot where the dogbone sits and they spin faster and thus have to transfer less torque.
 
Yeah, I haven't tried to punch the pins out yet because PRP sells just the bone part and it's only 7 bucks... so that is well worth the trouble to me. But again, that is just me... it may be worth it to someone else to make their own since the ONLY part of the bone that gets worn is the pin. At least it's the first thing to get worn.
 
CorradoPsi said:
actually cameron said that the towers were made by a company called titan tech. however i havent been able to come up with anything on them from searching the internet. does anyone have a link to thier homepage?
Click to expand...

They sell Titan Tech shock towers at www.pegasushobbies.com. They don't have them listed on thier website so you have to call them up. Just ask for r/c cars and someone from the r/c department can tell you if they have them in stock or not. And, I believe they do mail order as well.
 
CorradoPsi said:
on another thought, have you tried the mugen center diff outdrives and just use mugen brake disks instead of the swifts? where is the compliance issue with the center outdrives?
Click to expand...
Just wondering... what is wrong with the swift center outdrive and brake setup? I haven't had any issues what so ever with it so far. The brakes seem to fade a bit, but as soon as I re-set everything up with a much higher torque servo, all is well now. After the high speed, high torque throttle servo, the brakes are not an issue at all and the center outdrives have never been an issue.
 
i only said anything about it, because they asked about replacements for the center outdrives. simple as that
 
Gotchya... are people having issues with the center drives? I was looking at them the other day and they seem just fine.
 
Swift Buggy Owners!!
Views: 27,800 Posted By xtribe00
I lost a few of the pins that are housed in the...

I lost a few of the pins that are housed in the CVJ's. So, I went to the LHS and purchased one of those long metal rods that, I believe, plane guys use for their servos. It is made of spring steel...

$1.75 later I can cut pins for days....
 
Ah... yes, the reason you lost that is because you need to change the way your CVJ is setup. The problem is that when both set screws on that pin are applied, even pressure is applied from both sides. The factory "lock tite" that they use is very brittle and as soon as a lot of vibration is applied, the seal is broken and the stuff is as good as mud on your buggy. Since they both let go at the same time, and even pressure is applied to begin from both sides, the pin will drop straight out. You need to take all, and I mean ALL 6 CVJ's apart, and put ONLY 1 of the two set screws back in, and use the blue 242 Lock Tite or equivalent. You won't lose another pin after that. Unfortunately, this has been covered in this thread over 25 pages ago... wouldn't expect anyone to sift through to find it, that's for sure. There IS a thread in this forum that I believe is titled PRP Swift Things You Should Know... or something to that effect... maybe 3 or 4 pages back... that will tell you how to get your Swift up to par in all areas. Good call though on the spring steel rod... good to know for sure.
 
xtribe00 said:
Swift Buggy Owners!!
I lost a few of the pins that are housed in the CVJ's. So, I went to the LHS and purchased one of those long metal rods that, I believe, plane guys use for their servos. It is made of spring steel...

$1.75 later I can cut pins for days....
Click to expand...

The RC aircraft control rods that a LHS round here sells are fairly soft and they tend to rust.

A better solution for me is actually to use bicycle spokes. They are made from some kind of stainless steel alloy and are quite hard. One end is threaded which is quite useful for the ball cup on the throttle control rod or the adjustable brake rods on the Swift.

I got a 12 gauge (SWG) spoke for a BMX to make a new exhaust hanger for my Swift. 14 SWG or thinner would probably be better for throttle and brake control rods.

The spoke I got cost 0.50 GBP so you guys in the U.S. could probably get a bunch of them for a dollar or so. I guess that your spokes will be measured in AWG not SWG too.
 
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I just wish that PRP would get all of their ducks in a row and take care of these known issues. I know you guys are working hard to resolve these issues, but the fact of the matter is that these Swifts are still hitting the shelf with issues. It's going to slowly wear on the Swift name. It already has because of how big some of these issues are.
 
I emailed the above statement to the factory in China. Things move glacially over there for this car.
UPDATE:
Of course, we just got a shipment in a little bit after I typed the above statement, and it looks like CVJ bones w/ the new pins came in (we need to test them to be sure). Still no outdrives, but they should be here in 1-1.5 weeks as production has finalized on those.
 
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Good news. Thanx Cameron. Keep us posted. I still need to get some outdrives and updated cvj bones... I have replaced one due to pin wear and 1 because I just plain broke it.
 
hi everyone.

i got my swift not long ago, from schumacher uk, everything seems fine with it so fAR. I know the swift had some probs, but i think i have one of the swifts that were done at the factory, all shimmed up. because i have a white sticker with 2 dots next to some numbers on the radio cover. at least i hope this is what it means. not checked to see if it really does have the washers tho.

anyway i guess ill have questions as time gos by, so see you all later.
 
sounds like your good to go. the 2 dots as i understand it means you have one of the most recent cars that is shimmed up and ready to go. I've been having fun tearing mine up for the last few weeks.
 
Smiffy said:
hi everyone.

i got my swift not long ago, from schumacher uk, everything seems fine with it so fAR. I know the swift had some probs, but i think i have one of the swifts that were done at the factory, all shimmed up. because i have a white sticker with 2 dots next to some numbers on the radio cover. at least i hope this is what it means. not checked to see if it really does have the washers tho.

anyway i guess ill have questions as time gos by, so see you all later.
Click to expand...

Hiya Smiffy!

Welcome to RCNitroTalk, it's nice to see yet another UK Swift owner here. I've had my Swift for about 3 months now and I have another "damaged-repairable" that I have stripped completely and am in the process of rebuilding. If there's anything you need to know about the Swift, post here and we'll all do our best to help you.

SH engine overheating issue:
No rain yesterday (first dry weekend for ages!), so we ran the Swift for only the 2nd time since rebuilding/sealing the engine, with very good results.

I had a great deal of trouble getting it so start and run, in the end I had to lean out the LSN and HSN by a full turn, which is weird because last time I ran it it was on the lean side and running hot.

Performance yesterday was amazing, the car was really screaming along and highest recorded head temperature was 245F on a nearly-empty tank. Performance differences full-tank to empty-tank were also nowhere near as marked as last time the car ran. This was on 16% nitro fuel with a fairly high oil content. I'm now looking forward to cracking open the 25% nitro race fuel.

There are some differences since last time the car ran, I don't which of these had the greatest influence, but hopefully they will be a good place to start for other Swift owners with similar SH engine problems:
  • Ambient air temperature was 60F rather than 70F.
  • New fuel-tank pressure line, 9" long with slightly larger internal bore.
  • New fuel line to carb, 4" long in an inverted "U" shape with a small filter at the top of the "U".
  • Brake modification (see below)
It wasn't all good though, the one-way bearing for the pull-start started slipping, hopefully this is just oil contamination, otherwise it's all the justification I need for buying a starter box.

Brake modification:
I noticed that the brake calipers tend to stick/drag on the threads on the retaining screws. I replaced the mild steel M3x16 cap screws with A2 stainless M3x30 cap screws which I then cut down to about 20mm. The beauty of the longer screws is that the first 10mm or so under the head is plain rather than threaded and the calipers float freely on the plain, polished shank. The screws need to be cut down or they will protrude through the centre diff mount and foul on the spur gear and diff.

I also noticed that one of the brake disks had a severe burr on both sides around half of its circumference. I cleaned this up with a file before refitting. I'm on the lookout for some nice machined disks to replace the stock punched/pressed disks.

The brakes are now really good, even with the standard servo. I'm tempted to try a single disk for the rear brakes as the rear-most caliper is still too near the flywheel for my liking.
 
I hear ya on the rear caliper being close to the flywheel... that is what was killing my engine from a large, rear-biased landing... the caliper screws were gouging the flywheel real bad and killing the engine.
 
WA2FAST, you can try replacing your cap screws with button head screws to gain more clearance, the single rear disk will also work.

as for new disks, I'm working on that for down the road. I've found a guy on ebay that is willing to make me custom 6mm shock towers. i have a print that i drew up for him and still need to email it to him. he's charging me 26+ shipping each, thats for front or rear. the guys makes a lot of replacement parts for Kanai buggies that are a lot like the fioroni stuff. he is willing to work with me to make swift parts provided i can send him blueprints. not too hard for me to draw up. so as i break stuff, hopefully there will be stronger replacements on the way.

oh, and the point of this is that he makes replacement kyosho disks that would be easy for him to alter slightly for use on our swifts.
 

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