nr73

Servo speed, I get ya, Never noticed much of a difference with mine, you could get a faster/torquier servo if it's an issue. The Savage XL is a bit of a whopper Needs treating with respect otherwise it will bite. I'd say I play with the Lunchbox and mini savage more just because they need less space, and use a single lipo. The XL uses 2 x 2S or 3S packs, mine are 5000mah so you need to charge those up in advance. The little savage is a riot though, very fast and lairy. The XL needs space to run, as it covers a lot of ground very quickly.

If the sub-walking pace maximum speed is an issue you can swap the can out for a lower turn motor. I've been meaning to buy a HPI Saturn 35T motor but haven't got round to it yet. It's only a

Blitz...Slash...Firestorm...all good choices imho. You are absolutely right about short course bodies helping all the dirt and debris to get deflected into the chassis though. When I had my slash I was continually removing dirt from the chassis tray. I don't think the Firestorm would have that issue to the same extent. The body might last a bit longer too since it's not the first thing to touch down most of the time. I have friends with firestorms and they are very happy with them. It's a solid, fast truck.

Only thing about the slash is I found the 2wd chassis loved to roll. Have you considered the brushless artr slash that was in the sales corner for

I ran my tamiya buggy on sand every day for a week last year while on holiday, stripped it down afterwards to find... No problems at all! Haven't had any rust or anything. The sand was damp much of the time too. That said, the above advice is spot on. I'd add though, that you can buy small aerosols of compressed air which are perfect for blasting the worst of the sand out after a run. you can get four cans off eBay for about

Precisely why I'm undecided about it. It lowers the rise height (good) but losses that bit of travel and articulation (not good). Might undo that mod when I get chance. Plus the linkage mods I did lowered it a bit anyway.

I'd agree. After messing about with 1/10 short course trucks I got a 1/8 savage flux hp and a 1/12 savage xs. They are crazy. The flux hp in particular is superb, it has enough power to launch itself airborne when it's already doing 40mph. Once I got that, my traxxas slash seemed like a kids toy in comparison.

Nice one, so you noticed a real difference there then On mine the front wheels hook up on a ledge much better with the weight of the battery up front. Those elastic bungees are called "quirky bandits", I bought them from asda ages ago but you can probably get them on ebay etc, just do a google. Not cheap for what they are, but they come in handy. Or you could just use an elastic band

Dusty cover fitted to the Sav XS XL5 ESC soldered with deans connector and fitted to me lunchbox

Have you changed the gearing along with the wheels? Haven't compared the size of my fighter rear wheels to those on my lunchbox but I expect the overall circumference is greater.

No, sod all difference really but I was bored one night. What battery are you running? If it's the stock Nimh then that's 300g of weight high up in the chassis. As a test, just wedge it betwixt the shocks and elastic band it there, you'll see straight away the difference it makes.

I have a fighter rx buggy which is probably the same basic chassis as the hornet, what's involved to fit those type of wheels/tyres?

I bought my savage XS secondhand from this fine forum, and so far after 20-30 packs and probably 100 jumps and cartwheels it's not broke a thing. Not even a wheel it has come loose. I believe mine was rebuilt by Bez before I got it, which may be a factor, but it's proving to be a very tough truck. I have kept it on 2s, it's still damn fast on 2s and the drivetrain is showing zero wear and tear.

A quick easy mod that will help a bit against torque twist is to just add another shock preload collar or two on the rear left shock. If you don't have any spare then a couple of cable ties will do. You'll notice that shock has a black spring which is harder in an attempt to help resist the twist, but it's not quite enough on its own. You can always do the shock mod later, which I have done but I'm not 100% convinced about it.

Front shocks and sport tuned motor fitted

I got some of those off eBay, also you can buy turnigy velcro straps off eBay or hobbyking.

Tyres firmer?? I never noticed any difference there. Some people star-cut the tyre foams but I haven't done that one yet. Moving the links inboard does a couple of things. You'll notice after improving other parts of the truck that it gets snagged and hung up where the links stick out the side of the chassis plates. Moving them inside the chassis eliminates that problem. I also found there was a slight geometry change which led to a bit more flexibility as the chassis twists. You can either modify the motor mount plate or fabricate some cross braces, or an entire new motor mount. I cut some 6mm square bar to fit the gap and tapped it to fit m3 screws.

Yep mine are just the standard links that I bent carefully. The axles sit just fine with them modified, and there's less chance of it getting hung up on obstacles especially with the links inboard. If you noticed, I moved the upper links into the inner most mounting hole on the chassis plates which compensates for the bend. The factory default is the centre hole. As has been said though, there a few other things to modify first, the links only make a small difference.

Some piccies of mine:

Hi Andrew. Regarding the steering endpoints.. I'm going to assume you're using the standard Maverick transmitter (TX) here...apologies if this is all stuff you know about already... Lets say you have the steering pointed dead ahead and centred (your steering trim on the TX lets you fine tune the centre point) Then you turn the steering all the way left, that's one endpoint right there - the limit of how far it will go in that direction. If you turned it all the way right you would hit the other endpoint. Some TX's let you adjust those endpoints individually so you can fine-tune things for your specific needs. For example, on my Lunchbox, it will turn about 6% further one way than the other because of the way the linkages and servo sit. So my Flysky TX is set to give every last degree of steering angle but no more. What that then means, is when your wheels physically won't turn any further, usually because they eventually hit another part of the chassis, the servo is not straining away trying to turn them even further. It's set so the wheels will turn just enough to hit their limit, and no further. It's set to something like 62% left and 68% right, so basically if I turn the TX wheel as far as it goes it will only reach 62%/68% of travel left/right. Any further and I'm just wasting the servo's time and effort, and making it more likely I will break something. The maverick TX has a less flexible but still useful feature called dual-rate. What that does is let you adjust both steering endpoints simultaneously. So if you back it off to say 50% it will limit both left and right steering throw to 50%. What I do is this. With the scout off the ground, and dual rate turned right down, I turn the remote all the way one direction (doesn't matter which because this is dual rate we're adjusting) then I slowly increase dual rate until the steering hubs start to foul the axles. If you don't do this, and dual rate is turned all the way up, the poor old servo will be pushing against an immoveable force and eventually the servo will fail or as you've seen the servo arm will break. There's a slight caveat here in that, when you set endpoints with the vehicle upside down, wheels in the air, the servo will be able to hit those endpoints easily because there's no resistance to the turning motion, i.e the wheels are off the ground and there's no friction. If I then put the vehicle back on the ground it will fall slightly short of hitting the same amount of lock unless the truck is in motion - because that makes it easier for the wheels to turn. Why am I explaining that part? On a crawler, unlike your average monster truck, much of the time you are turning the wheels while it's stationary and there will be a lot of resistance to that turning motion. Therefore when I set dual-rate or endpoints on a crawler, with wheels in the air, normally I then increase it just a smidge to account for that extra resistance when the steering is loaded up. Basically if you're able to observe the hubs hitting their limit of steering lock and you haven't turned the TX wheel all the way yet, then they probably need adjusting down. Yes you should add grease to the gearbox, it's an easy job. Re battery, if you're running the stock Nimh stick just wedge it between the front springs and behind the servo, and use a bungee cord or elastic band to keep it there, doesn't have to be elegant I use small capacity lipos which save about 250g in the process.

More on this, one thing I'd say about the servo arm cracking, make sure you have dual rate or steering endpoints adjusted properly otherwise the servo will be straining on when the scout has hit its (very limited) steering lock. Even on the stock remote you should be able to dial it back to avoid that happening. I cut some of the excess plastic from where the steering hub meets the axle housing and that helped give it a few more degrees of lock, but it's still not enough. One way to get more lock is just get some wheel hex extenders which space the wheels out by another 10mm or so, then there's much more clearance, however I've not done that yet on mine.

I added lead tape to the rims, my fronts weigh 200g each and the rears 160g. The stock servo handles these fine. I'd also suggest removing the front & rear bumper thingies, swapping the tires direction (they grip better when the tread pattern is facing the opposite way), and mounting the battery between the front springs with a bungee or elastic band or something. I actually run small 1800mah 2s lipos which last 45 mins, mounted on a plate behind the servo. Also the linkages are modified and inboard. Esc mounted under the tray, and a few other mods here and there. If o was starting out though I would do the tire weights then try and get battery weight lower down as a first step. After that is when the cutting and bending mods start to help!

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Bump and a price reduction to

Just done fifth shock mod by replacing two rear socks with cheap oil filed jobbies and reusing one of the stock shocks. Mounted it through the rod that the gearbox hinges on. Also fitted an uprated servo earlier in the week which helps a fair bit... When the wheels are on the ground anyway! Next job will be a sport tuned motor.