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FTX Outlaw Owners


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hi all, I have read tons of pages, and have one thing to say to you: gearing. You need smaller tyres, or a way to go lower than 17t on the pinion. Sorry, the outlaw is geared for speed not stealth. Mine has been fine. One thing you may consider is a sensored brushless motor of low Kv.

I will be back soon, I have an Outlaw project on the go that you might be interested in.

CarlB (see me on YouTube)

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14 hours ago, Italian plumber said:

I bought a brushed system in the end. FTX 550 15T + Hobbywing 1060. It's much more fluid and I can drive it inside the house. Will see how it is outside, when it stops raining.

😞 sorry to hear that, brushed motor will not last long outside or going slow, ours lasted 20min off road before it smoked, goodluck tho

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On 05/01/2023 at 12:25, Redback said:

😞 sorry to hear that, brushed motor will not last long outside or going slow, ours lasted 20min off road before it smoked, goodluck tho

I didn't experience that at all, both with 2S and 3S. Motor hot to the touch but not too much.

 

I also tried with smaller wheels and it's super fun!

 

Obviously it lacks the hard punch of brushless but it's much more fluid and driveable.

 

This by driving it in a parking lot. For offroad I'll put the brushless motor back.

 

Actually it's too fast on 3S so I'll see if I can build a motor mount for a 13T pinion instead of the 17T. It should be a mod 0.6 gear.

 

@RedbackI've seen your topic on gearing the Outlaw with the GMade gearbox but I don't find myself comfortable doing such an extensive mod.

Was there a reason why you didn't try modding the motor mount?

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6 hours ago, Italian plumber said:

@RedbackI've seen your topic on gearing the Outlaw with the GMade gearbox but I don't find myself comfortable doing such an extensive mod.

Was there a reason why you didn't try modding the motor mount?

You cant put on a smaller pinion as the motor hits the output shafts, you cant get bigger spur gears to compensate for a smaller pinion, so sadly your hot out of luck.
13t - 35t,  dewalt drill motors they all will melt on the outlaw gearing, smaller wheels on road will work  sure, but thats not what the trucks for its more of a rock racer but has the gearing of a 1/10 buggy or on road car 😞

Whatever puts a smile on your face and if thats the case dont worry about it.
We tried many things, different motors etc, axe 550 r2 was the best but still geared to high for a crawler system.
End of the day i wasnt comfortable doing the mods at the start but it was that or chuck the truck in the bin. 3 years later the gmade transmission is still fine, when before the outlaw was eating spur gears every outing.
 

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15 hours ago, Redback said:

You cant put on a smaller pinion as the motor hits the output shafts, you cant get bigger spur gears to compensate for a smaller pinion, so sadly your hot out of luck.
13t - 35t,  dewalt drill motors they all will melt on the outlaw gearing, smaller wheels on road will work  sure, but thats not what the trucks for its more of a rock racer but has the gearing of a 1/10 buggy or on road car 😞

Whatever puts a smile on your face and if thats the case dont worry about it.
We tried many things, different motors etc, axe 550 r2 was the best but still geared to high for a crawler system.
End of the day i wasnt comfortable doing the mods at the start but it was that or chuck the truck in the bin. 3 years later the gmade transmission is still fine, when before the outlaw was eating spur gears every outing.
 

You're right about the motor, it's too close to the front output shaft. I just wasted 5 pounds for a 12T pinion and a mount to mod ☹️

 

How about higher turns motor? I can't see 15T working offroad with the 17T pinion and stock wheels, but maybe adding a 21T motor has a similar effect to adding a smaller pinion. EDIT: I just noticed you went up to 35T and they just melt? Did you put a cooling heatsink and fan in place, adding thermal grease? That's my plan for the 15T.

 

I don't really like sensorless brushless. The stock ESC and Brushless system (Etronix Photon 2.1w 45 amp ESC + Etronix 4 pole 2950Kv motor) has a minimum speed of 2000 RPM. Lower than that, it shuts down. This means quite a punch at startup and when releasing the throttle.

The brushed motor fluidly delivers torque from 0 RPM. It's fantastic but limited to onroad as it is now. I wish there was a better ESC for sensorless RC cars, like the VESC project does for electric bikes.

Edited by Italian plumber
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20 minutes ago, Italian plumber said:

You're right about the motor, it's too close to the front output shaft. I just wasted 5 pounds for a 12T pinion and a mount to mod ☹️

 

How about higher turns motor? I can't see 15T working offroad with the 17T pinion and stock wheels, but maybe adding a 21T motor has a similar effect to adding a smaller pinion. EDIT: I just noticed you went up to 35T and they just melt? Did you put a cooling heatsink and fan in place, adding thermal grease? That's my plan for the 15T.

 

I don't really like sensorless brushless. The stock ESC and Brushless system (Etronix Photon 2.1w 45 amp ESC + Etronix 4 pole 2950Kv motor) has a minimum speed of 2000 RPM. Lower than that, it shuts down. This means quite a punch at startup and when releasing the throttle.

The brushed motor fluidly delivers torque from 0 RPM. It's fantastic but limited to onroad as it is now. I wish there was a better ESC for sensorless RC cars, like the VESC project does for electric bikes.

 

Thermal paste and fans make no diffrence as its the computator brushes that melt. All a fan does it cool the motor magnets and housing, these are not the parts that fail.
There no freedom with the stock transmission, a low kv big 550 can brushless gives smoother low rpm startup, theres people here that dont use sensored and it works good for them.
As we crawl our outlaw we went a different route, 4600kv 550 sensorless motor gives it enough speed to still be fun even through a plastic 3 gear transmission.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 30/12/2022 at 21:02, Redback said:

imo cornering is nothing to do with the motor, all outlaws roll over, you need to upgrade to a front swaybar and stiffen the front springs, also move the battery tray forward and lower to move the CG from being near the moon.

@Redback  - Do you have any recommendations for stiffening the front springs?  Did you replace the shocks in their entirety, or just the springs themselves?

 

I've been trying to find some myself to replace the fronts to make it a bit stiffer.  I swapped out the wheels for a bunch of wider, lower-profile ones, which gives A LOT more stability when cornering, but the front end too easily bottoms out when it gets any air time and it's so soft,  I've even seen it bounce going up a drop-kerb.

 

My next replacement piece will be the rear axle housing, as it snapped off at the points where the arms attach after I caught it on a post.  Any thoughts anyone on the aluminium version, which is 60 bloody quid??  The plastic one is less than 3 quid, so I could buy 20 of them and still be quids in...  Of course, the blue looks a bit nicer...

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19 hours ago, Bananaman said:

@Redback  - Do you have any recommendations for stiffening the front springs?  Did you replace the shocks in their entirety, or just the springs themselves?

 

I've been trying to find some myself to replace the fronts to make it a bit stiffer.  I swapped out the wheels for a bunch of wider, lower-profile ones, which gives A LOT more stability when cornering, but the front end too easily bottoms out when it gets any air time and it's so soft,  I've even seen it bounce going up a drop-kerb.

 

My next replacement piece will be the rear axle housing, as it snapped off at the points where the arms attach after I caught it on a post.  Any thoughts anyone on the aluminium version, which is 60 bloody quid??  The plastic one is less than 3 quid, so I could buy 20 of them and still be quids in...  Of course, the blue looks a bit nicer...

 

I use 1/8th buggy springs on the front, same ftx shocks, stops it being so soft, also sway bar is a must.
Wouldnt bother with the metal axle, your putting forces into more parts that break. Metal chassis is a must.
Also the  rear sway bar is pretty cheese and doesnt actually do much, The ebays ones are better but the sway bar metal is cheese, so keep the bar and upgrade the rear arms to metal ones.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi

New to all things RC so may be asking the obvious!

Son has an Outlaw, brushed version

He put in a bigger motor and stripped the main drive gear so replaced it with a metal version

Have now stripped the pinion gear, any recommendations for a decent metal pinion? Thinking of replacing the current 17t with a 23t, does that sound sensible?

Currently it goes like a rocket, lifts the front and flips ovr on full throttle, so thought a 23t might help that

Thanks

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2 minutes ago, GrahamI said:

Hi

New to all things RC so may be asking the obvious!

Son has an Outlaw, brushed version

He put in a bigger motor and stripped the main drive gear so replaced it with a metal version

Have now stripped the pinion gear, any recommendations for a decent metal pinion? Thinking of replacing the current 17t with a 23t, does that sound sensible?

Currently it goes like a rocket, lifts the front and flips ovr on full throttle, so thought a 23t might help that

Thanks

Welcome, 23t pinion will make the car go faster. Maybe avoid also due to strain on motor, Cant go wrong with RW Racing pinions.

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Something I never noticed before on the brushed Outlaw - the optional torque improving sleeve round the motor can, messes up the gear mesh. It does this by preventing the motor laying flat on the chassis plate. Hope this helps explain why the brushed version overheats so much?

Edited by Carl6x6
spelling :⁠-⁠P
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2 hours ago, Carl6x6 said:

Something I never noticed before on the brushed Outlaw - the optional torque improving sleeve round the motor can, messes up the gear mesh. It does this by preventing the motor laying flat on the chassis plate. Hope this helps explain why the brushed version overheats so much?

That isnt the reason they get hot, It makes no diffrence, the issue is the gearing, doesnt matter what motor you put in, drop in a holmes hobbies motor it will still burn out.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 17/02/2023 at 11:07, Redback said:

That isnt the reason they get hot, It makes no diffrence, the issue is the gearing, doesnt matter what motor you put in, drop in a holmes hobbies motor it will still burn out.

Actually it does make a difference because the mesh on mine was so bad out of the box that the motor struggled to turn with the tyres off the ground, and it didn't go away until I took the sleeve off.  However I agree the gearing is absurdly tall 👍😃. Dunno how it passed QA. Love the car though.

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9 hours ago, Carl6x6 said:

Actually it does make a difference because the mesh on mine was so bad out of the box that the motor struggled to turn with the tyres off the ground, and it didn't go away until I took the sleeve off.  However I agree the gearing is absurdly tall 👍😃. Dunno how it passed QA. Love the car though.

It only made a difference because the sleeve was rubbing on the output cup, just like it grinds away on motor housings. Remvoving the sleeve removed the binding 😉

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi

Need some advice for a new brushed motor please? 

Got my lad an outlaw for Xmas and it's eaten 2 standard motors in no time. Don't really want to buy the same motor again for it to last 20 mins, so any recommendations?

Ps I have changed battery to lipo 7.4V 5200mAh 50C, would that cause the motor to burn out? I did remember to change the setting to lipo btw.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice 👍

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  • 3 months later...

With the current increase of prices of pretty much everything, what is a good motor/esc combo for these?  Not my car but a family member wants to go brushless as a birthday present.

 

Looking for something fairly mild to try and keep the Outlaw in one piece.   Not sure if Hobbywing is overkill but then the cheaper stuff doesnt look as cheap these days.

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Hi All, 

   Just picked up a brushless ftx outlaw or shall I say a money pit haha. Wondering if anyone can help. Since owning it I’ve managed to break the driveshaft 4 times ranging from half hour use on the original driveshaft to about 10 minutes on steel ones and more recently a minute on the one I thought would last years. The pin seems to keep dropping out of the knuckle part which can’t figure out why. The RC probably seen about an hours worth of running and 4 destroyed shafts. Any ideas ?

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Any Help On This?

 

I have had the FTX Outlaw for about three years now and have had many problems, but I can talk about them another time. Yesterday the steering servo just stopped being controlled by the transmitter, I have tested other servos  and they dont work either so it must be something to do with the transmitter but I have absolutely no Idea what, any help would be appreciated, Thanks.

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  • 1 month later...
On 26/02/2021 at 22:23, walkbythesea said:

Ally chassis and Zorro bumper arrived today - such a spectacular upgrade from stock, well worthwhile

Hi Ian I’m looking at the Zorro bumper as well - can you share a photo of it fitted to the Outlaw please? I had similar questions to you about fitting it, where it attaches etc. 

 

Also looking for a skid plate to support the bumper as well - have you had any luck in finding one of those? 

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