luke662 Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) As there seems to be a few people with Vantage projects and ideas i thought i would make this a owners thread rather than a thread about my build. As i am now nearing completion of my project I have edited my posts to tidy up the thread a bit. Hello Folks, I bought a FTX Vantage a few weeks ago and I Edited May 2, 2012 by luke662 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUBZN1 Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Very similar in some respects to the lrp blast I put brushless in mine on 3cell with 5000mah Was way too much for it and destroyed diffs but was extremely fast and fun 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) I have heard the Blast and the Vantage don't fair well against daft power. I'm sticking to 2 cell LiPo's for now as the power is plenty enough for me. Eventually i will do the rear box but for the moment it's running really well. I noticed earlier that the plastic Hex Hubs actually began to melt and grind into the bearings. As mentioned above I have cleaned them all out now. I have some Alloy hex's on the way. I didn't go with the FTX ones I went with some 4mm offset ones from ebay that were half the price. I'll update when they are installed and if they work post a link to the ones I bought. Last week I installed the Carbon top plate to stiffen up the chassis. For people wondering if it will save lots of weight...NO. There is barely any difference in the weight of the stock and the carbon one. The chassis does feel a lot more rigid now though. Edited April 11, 2012 by luke662 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUBZN1 Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 They do t fair abuse too well so I went to a hyper 7 1/8th as it stand up to do much more Although that being said , I've still got my blast =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) I've had bigger models in the past. I converted a MGT to brushless quite a few years back. The bigger ones just don't do it for me any more. Edited April 11, 2012 by luke662 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUBZN1 Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Some pics of my set-up 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post luke662 Posted April 7, 2012 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) I have found with the shocks mounted to the furthest whole on the wishbones and the tallest point on the shocks, with the sway bars, that the car is far more stable. It doesn't flip unless you do something really quite stupid. The rear shock tower snapped the other day and I have ordered some Lexan to make some new ones. I will post pictures of them when they are done. Edited April 11, 2012 by luke662 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martleeds Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 I ised mine for indoor racing originally, however the first time i took mine out for a bash, i broke the rear shock tower, snapped the top chassis brace and bent the prop shaft, also running a 60a 9t ezrun on 25c 5000mah 2s, i cooked the motor, but amazingley it still runs, its living in the loft at the mo, until i can be bothered to fix it Spares are mega cheap, yet hop ups, such as carbon chassis and top brace are sill money, i think yer better off running it stock, and replacing with stock, as the total repair bill for mine is less than 6 quid (not including motor lol) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martleeds Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Some pics of mine while it was shiny 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 I haven't been doing RC for a few years and thought I would buy something cheap to see if I still enjoyed it. Unfortunately, near me it's only Touring Car racing so it's just me on my todd messing about. I don't want to put much money into cars to only get bored. The carbon to plate was 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) Hex adaptors arrived and they work perfectly. these are the ones i used. http://www.ebay.co.u...#ht_1628wt_1037 I was quite impressed by their quality given the price of them. I also stripped the anodizing from the motor mount,alloys posts and drive shaft today. I found some really old oven cleaner under the sink. The motor mount i cleaned up was actually from my spare parts car. It is a brushed version of the Vantage and it for some reasons weighs a lot less than the brushless motor mount despite them being the same shape and design. Here are some pics of it. Edited April 11, 2012 by luke662 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhum51 Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 I'm sure gonna follow your thread! today i broke (again) my rear shock tower and that was after 5 min run in the grass! i have the rear tower designed on CAD now I just need to verify the position of the fixing holes from a 1:1 print. i will be adding a 2mm ish plate to the existing plastic component. plus i'm modifying the top of the component where i will be bending a portion of it to protect the tower when the car overturns. Let me know what you think of the principle... i'm thinking of stainless steel material... i have access to s/s more than lexan! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUBZN1 Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 Bit heavy is stainless The shock towers at a weakness tho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhum51 Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 yeah, heavy but for bashing i wont mind the extra weight! i saw the sway bars on yours... do they make a difference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUBZN1 Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 Thing is , if it's over kill , it will break the diff cases Erm I don't honestly know as it was that fast I spent more time rebuilding it ha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 8, 2012 Author Share Posted April 8, 2012 That's pretty cool work there Mate. Though I agree SS would be a little over kill. When you reinforce something. The shock then passes up the line. This is why things like alloy arms tend to do more harm than good. If you can get something with a little give in it so that the shock is contained and absorbed that would be better I think.When my lexan sheet arrives ill let you know how it goes and you can try that maybe. I took the car for a bash at a bmx track yesterday and nothing broke even with the girlfriend having a go so I think after the lexan towers it'll be upgraded as Much as I want. Excuse typos I'm on a phone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 8, 2012 Author Share Posted April 8, 2012 While looking at the battery on my car I noticed the LiPo battery case had a crack in it. This was caused by a few of the jumps I had done. It can slide about 1cm when knocked hard enough. I decided to see if there was a way of making the battery strap a bit more rigid and keep the batteries a bit tighter in place. From my spare parts buggy I took the Servo saver steering posts (Part No. FTX6240) and put them in place of the plastic posts. They weigh the same as the plastic bits so no weight gain there and they conveniently have the same hex bottom as the battery posts so are a perfect fit. I then put a washer on one post, fitted the strap and put another washer on. This was to make it pivot when I need to get the strap out. I then just took a counter sunk screw head and bolted it down. I did the exact same for the other side. But, what I would of like to of done is get one of them small screws that has a whole in it for a battery clip to save removing the screw every time I want to change the battery but i didn't have one so ho hum. Changing the battery only take about 30 seconds with this setup so I'm not fussed. Now, as you can see from the picture there is a gap between the strap and battery but with some foam battery bay bricks I had kicking about I wedged these under the strap and now the battery can't move at all. Where before the plastic battery posts flexed the new alloy ones don't budge at all. This means that the battery strap is now dead rigid and is actually bracing the chassis and reducing flex even more. I'm thinking of now getting a carbon battery strap. I wasn't going to before but with this mod it will help towards the rigidity of the chassis quite a lot and so I think it would be 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 8, 2012 Author Share Posted April 8, 2012 (edited) I have stripped the paint off the shocks like I did with the motor mount. Edited April 11, 2012 by luke662 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 9, 2012 Author Share Posted April 9, 2012 While fiddling with the car earlier I noticed there was no need for the rear shock tower to be as tall as it is nor the shocks be as long as they are. The only reason I could see was to mount the spoiler. So I decided to try something. I swapped out the rear tower for a front. To mount the spoiler I used the 4 holes that the shock tower mounts to bulkhead through. I needed to use longer than standard screws but fortunately I had some kicking about. I have fitted the rear shocks back on but plan to get some fronts to put at the back. To get the body on was a bit of a fiddle. The front tower doesn't have the same holes as the rear so I removed the bottom half of the rear body post and used a spare whole that was on the shock tower. Doing this meant that i needed to trim the body at the back slightly to get a good fit but I think it looks really tidy and I have just as much suspension travel as i did to begin with. The benefits to this mod that I can think of are... The rear is now the same height as the back so there will be less drag. The same shocks and shock towers fitted to the front and rear. (fewer parts required for overhaul) Less weight as the the front shocks and shock towers are lighter with them being smaller. The shell now fits the sides of the car a lot better. I'll post pictures and list part numbers required for this mod tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 9, 2012 Author Share Posted April 9, 2012 OK, so the parts you will need to do this mod are as follows. Front shock tower FTX6200Front Shocks FTX6202Body mount set FTX6250Longer screws FTX6539 You can use the rear shocks while you are waiting on a front set to arrive which is what i am doing at the moment. You can use the body mount you already have, I only listed it in case you wanted it to be fully reversible if you were not happy with the end result for some reason. The longer screws can be any make, I listed the FTX part number as these are the ones I used and they worked fine. Here are some pictures of the mod. I am still trying to source some front shocks at the moment so suspension travel is currently limited quite a bit. I will of course show a picture of this when I have some installed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhum51 Posted April 9, 2012 Share Posted April 9, 2012 i like the idea of reusing the the front tower.... this would definitely be easier for keeping spares! especially since my rear tower is broken and i only have the front tower as spare at the moment! lol i would be interested in finding out what the consequence is on the handling of the car! the manufacturer/designers have done rear taller for a reason, it would be surprising if it made the handling better! tho good news if it was! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 9, 2012 Author Share Posted April 9, 2012 (edited) I have driven it for a few minutes but with the suspension being limited by the body of the rear shocks, I can't give a fair judgement at the moment. Though to be honest it still handled really well. I have just ordered 2 new sets of front shocks that I'm going to fit and test with. I also got the carbon battery bar to finish my "battery bar mod" i mentioned earlier. I will post an update of that when Im done. How are your stainless steel shock braces going? Edited April 9, 2012 by luke662 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhum51 Posted April 9, 2012 Share Posted April 9, 2012 i'm pretty much done... just need to double check dimension but can only do that on wed. i'll be then emailing the dxf to my mate who should b able to laser cut them for me. the 3d model tells me the rear plate is 33g and the front is 28g. that is with 2mm thick material. i will probably get thinner material from my mate, it will depend on what is on the laser cutting machine at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke662 Posted April 9, 2012 Author Share Posted April 9, 2012 That is really quite impressive design work there. I'm surprised at how heavy the towers will be. Could I nab a copy of the front shock tower please? I would like something I can print out at lay over the top of my Lexan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUBZN1 Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 This is some next level modding going on here !!! Very interesting and well done good sir !!! Very jealous of you're skills !!!!! =D 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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