jehosophat

I had an ION XB originally and then bought an HPI Spino brushless - largely a brushless version of the same car but the stock HPI shocks and the alloy upgrades I purchased for it had much, much stiffer springs. So much so it had no grip and just did random spins and doughnuts on tarmac. I put the ION springs back on and all was well. The upgrade shocks may have these much too stiff springs...

With a GT14B Pro and a GT16MT recently acquired, I had been looking for ages for 2S saddle packs that fit the GT14B. I had success with some Turnigy 750mah packs wiring them together myself. I basically turned this: http://s18.photobucket.com/user/jamesmartinwyatt/media/RC%20stuff/IMG_0286_LQ.jpg.html Into this, 3 times: http://s18.photobucket.com/user/jamesmartinwyatt/media/RC%20stuff/IMG_0287_LQ.jpg.html And they work really well. Indeed while it is difficult to find 1S cells that are not too long, these ones have loads of space (I use foam insers to stop them rattling about). The standard wires on the packs were very thin but they claim up to 30C discharge, and having 2 sets of wires on each helped me wire them with the balance wire easily. I now have the GT14B Pro and a GT16MT - both bought for peanuts - running really well, with Carisma ESC's, Carisma 4500kv motor on the GT14B Pro and stock EMB-1H motor on the MT, as I had one spare and thought that could use the torque. Both run really well, and the turnigy packs were less than £15 for the pair in each case. I would not say they are as good as premium "stick" 2S packs, especially for runtime, but for the motors I'm using they are great, giving me around 7-10 mins blatting about mostly at max chat. Since Gt14B pros are often very cheap new right now, its a decent option for blatting, and I find it steers a lot better than the EMB-1H on the road for reasons I can't fathom (same tyres, geo, etc).

If it is an ion buggy then the larger bumper from the monster truck is cheap as chips and fits...

Carisma direct have been selling off GT14B Pro ARR kits for silly money, I got one for 100USD but they were doing them for 50USD before Christmas (shipping is quite high though), I think they are now out of stock. I built mine up over the hols and it is a really nice car, with carbon everything, nice shocks, ball diffs and ARB all round, etc. I used EMB-1 motor/ESC/radio gear bought SH on here, as I know this ESC/motor runs quite well with NIMH. It's a shame the LiPo batteries are so hard to get hold of, it seems a really good car.

I had something similar and it was the end can of the motor falling off (stock HPI Spino brushless - basically another brand for the ION XB). Which was very odd. I have not been using this car much since adding the LSD, and Leopard ESC and motor referred to in Bosq's links as I have got much more into my 1/16th cars, but had a brushed ION XB for a couple of years and aside from the front suspension tower, and the weak ESC (hopefully improved in the refreshed one) it was a really strong little car, able to take some serious crashes whereas I need to be more careful with the 1/16th cars. I.e. not let my daughter drive the brushless ones... I have found the stock shocks, metal and plastic, leak oil a little, and have used a cycling-branded teflon grease on the gears with good results... The stock plastic 13T pinion seems pretty good compared to some of the metal ones out there. Personally I find the XB handles quite poorly with the lighter LiPo batteries and struggles to contain the power, so usually run it with NIMH which work well with the Leopard brushless motor/ESC. Unlike Bosq, who is running the truck version, on the buggy I have found the limited traction means the stock driveshafts and other drivetrain gear works fine, I have only added metal ones because they look nice... To be honest I'm not sure how much the very expensive rear ball diff has helped, the XB seems to have loads of steering slack and likes to track slightly to one side under power, and the other side on a trailing throttle, which makes it much harder than my 1/16th cars to keep in a straight line at high speed. The motors get very hot on these cars, brushed and brushless, making some holes in the body and/or chassis, and buying the metal motor mount, is a good plan. They are good little cars, I was into RC cars in my teens (25 years ago!) and the XB got me back into them.

Hi, I am looking for one or two of these for a GT14B Pro build, with no physical damage and proven via a battery tester to still be in good shape please... They seem to be hen's teeth new except for occasional over-priced stock Alternatively if anyone can tell me which two single cells I can buy, new, and easily connect I'm all ears - none of the ones I have found are the right size.

Leopard motor as previously recommended in this thread is now fitted (as are alloy dogbones since this pic was taken) - on impulse I bought the ESC as well, as it was so cheap, I'm glad I did as my Himoto Spino based car (with ION XB as spares mule) has no space for ESC on top - and with the Leopard motor longer than stock, the tiny Leopard 1/18 ESC fits perfectly with just a few mm between the motor, ESC, and servo (stock brushless ESC was much bigger and will go in the daughter's GT14B sport at some stage): It also turned out the clicking noise was the motor spindle of the stock brushless motor, there is no issue with the stock centre driveshaft and plastic end gears. Yet. I have the alloy one and metal ends ready for when I can be bothered/find time. There is always a "gotcha" for someone as inexperienced as me, however, and this time it was pinions. It seems the OEM spino brushless motor, and some of the other Carisma pinions I had laying around, are 2mm internal diameter. Leopard motor wants 2.3mm. I had some 14T Carisma ones with 2.3mm ID (themselves now useless as the upgrade motor I have for the GT14B is 3.2mm!) but they are .05 module not 0.6 as I understand the Himoto/Mavericks are. In the end I forced on the 13T plastic pinion from the brushed Maverick ION - being plastic, 0.3mm was not an issue... I need to find a decent 0.6 module 14T steel or brass pinion with 2.3mm ID. I now have a bunch of pinions bought for this car and the GT14B's which are unsuitable either in ID or pitch, including a few 2mm ones I'll never need again by the look of it... For now it runs really, really nicely anyway. The transmission is really quiet on the plastic gear, the motor runs far cooler than the stock brushless and seems more efficient as it runs really well on NIMH, which is what I wanted from this car as a "basher" now my lipos live in the EMB-1H. It's a bit twitchy and needs more grip so I need to address the wheel/tyre front next as I'm not paying the silly money people want for ION XB wheels/tyres, but I don't want to put on monster truck wheels and need a new servo. The Leopard brushless motor and ESC are a great little upgrade, thanks for the links.

Looks good - I need to look into upgrade prices. I was considering a brushless Mini Z buggy, or upgrading the current one, but it's fiddly to work on and not that reliable. Even imported, the brushless Mini Z buggy is very expensive as well, and needs a lot of upgrades - it does not even come with wheels ! That Carisma looks simpler and the price is good, not much more than half the Mini Z chassis price, for a full RTR kit.

Annoyingly the non-LC 66mm dogbones I ordered did not fit, despite looking almost identical to the stock ones - the ball at the end was just too big to fit the cups. $20 not well spent, but it was worth a punt since stuff from the US always seems to get here faster than from the far east. Happily the CVD's arrived soon after and work well on the rear. Sanity restored now this car - by far my favourite - is running again. I found the complete screw set for peanuts as well, which is good news given the metal "quality" of some of the stock ones. At the risk of being told to read all 70 pages of this, are there any decent quality ball (or other "liomited slip") diffs that people have used on the rear and felt were worth it?

Hi Bosq, did you feel you had to change to the steel gear (28500 I think you said it was, I'd like to know where from if possible) when you added the mini quake ball diff? I finally fitted mine, with the stock centre driveshaft and gears, the mesh looked OK but I don't know if the gear pitch is the same. The car seemed to run smoother and skips no teeth under acceleration, under braking on tarmac there is a clicking sound and the rears lock up a bit - not sure if this is the slipper clutch being given a harder time by more grip (in which case I'll just reprogram the ECU for less brake force) or the gears slipping. In the hand, the gears don't seem to slip if I try and turn the front and rear wheels different directions. Also is there a simple way of converting the wheels to a hex fit, since the stock wheels are so pricey? Being able to run the same wheel fit as the EMB-1H would make life easier, and cheaper. Thanks!

Cheers - I have ordered a pair of CVD shafts from Hong Kong and a pair of generic 66mm dogbones from the US - it does not seem to be a common size - shall see what arrives first! At least it was not the diff, which I was convinced it was when one rear could be rotated independent of the other.... I'll try getting some sort of pin in the old one but I doubt I have the skill to make it stay there....

Does anyone know if the "CVD" driveshafts will work in the rear of the EMB-1? I lost drive to one rear wheel earlier, started to work out how to remove the diff and then saw the pin had come out of the end of one of the rear driveshafts. The CVD ones seem easier to find as spares. I have some GT14B ones but annoyingly they are a tad longer. Having put a few packs through the car earlier, I'm really pleased how quick it is even with a basic NIMH battery, much quicker than my smaller lighter Spino brushless. Crazy fast on lipo too..., and the motor doesn't even get hot (unlike the Spino). It handles really nicely - I'm really pleased with it overall. Some of the little Allen bolts are made of soft metal, apart from that it's been great. It was a bit understeery for my liking but adding sway bars - thicker at the rear - really helped that.

Sticking with the old school theme, Carisma are selling GT14B pro ARR chassis for 100USD - reduced from 250USD. Whether its as an upgrade to a "sport" model (its cheaper than the pro upgrade pack - and includes a lot more parts) or a whole new build, that's good value, especially for something with so many shiny carbon and alloy bits on it. I "accidentally" ordered one yesterday... I know its old tech and the saddle packs are a PITA but it just seemed a lot of car for the money, its in the collection... http://www.carisma-shop.com/en/product_detail.php?id=27 The GT14B Sport RTR is still running well in the hands of my daughter. The plastic undertray is a pain, it is stuck on with double sided tape when the car ships, I have put the front and rear T Bone bumpers on top of it to hold it in place and this works well. I Also ordered the "hard" springs as the stock ones seemed far too soft - especially for a child bouncing it over low kerbs - but they turned out to be the same as stock. So I put some rears on the fronts and big spacers on the rear. It is now pretty child proof, and with the cheap as chips Tamiya sport 380 motor and Overlander 1600mah saddle packs is a great car for the money, highly off-road capable for a micro too despite the road tyres.

Thanks Bosq, I might get something similar. I'm pleased with the results of using a 1600mAh NIMH overlander in my Spino. The extra weight vs lipos really helps the stability - it definitely jumps better without pointless cartwheels over even small drain covers at speed. And with my stock 3700KV brushless setup you can barely notice a speed difference over my 1500mAh 25/40C lipos. In fact I turn the power down slightly with the lipos so its about the same, and its at the level where the motor stays acceptable hot through a run. I was bashing with this and my new EMB-1H this week outside the house, and with a 30m cul de sac of tarmac and some low kerbs and small grass patches I use (other people's fornt gardens...) the Spino will brake from speed and turn around in half the space of the EMB-1H, which is mighty quick but I really need to take it somewhere "proper". Just like using the Mini-Z buggy in a really small space, the 1/18th scale has its place for sure. The EMB is mighty up and down the kerbs however, and on grass. My Mini Quake diff arrived. Need some new tyres next, they are getting eaten by running on coarse tarmac. There's always something to buy...

Looks good. Does that finned motor heatsink do much? Is it a standard part? Your motor looks a similar size to mine, which still gets quite hot, more than I'd like even still using my old Ion XB body with loads of holes cut in it, not the HPI Spinon one. My Brass OE pinion still looks like new but I only tend to run on clean surfaces (road and a bit of grass) and run teflon grease and ceramic bike chain lube on it without too much worry of dirt. After seeing how superior my daughter's Carisma GT14B sport was to the XB/Spinon off road, Just because its a bit bigger and can handle short grass, I looked for another cheap RTR brushless car for the "collection", this time 1/14th scale and something that would use the same batteries as the ION. I got an EMB-1H rather than the more obvious Losi, which seems excellent. As a result I have tried NIMH packs in the Spinon again and it seems to handle a lot better with the heavier packs, not flipping over nearly as easily, and the chassis can handle the power better too - plus the motor stays the acceptable side of warm. I may keep it this way and just use a decent new NIMH pack in it as a "holiday basher" - I don't especially like charging lipos in a holiday house, in mine on a concrete floor in a bag its fine. Sometimes its easier just to leave the pack in the car and charge it that way in a hurry on holiday, so NIMH wins. Weirdly, the4500 kv 4 pole motor in the much heavier and faster EMB-1H does not get nearly as hot was the stock brushless 3700kv one in the HPI Spinon, using the same 2S lipo packs. The ESC also gives much better throttle response. Probably should have got the EMB-1 to start with... Still, as with mountain bikes, you can never have too many... At least getting the EMB-1H finally prompted me to go to 3.5mm bullet connectors on everything and ditch the mini-tamiyas which the brushless Himoto RTR system still came with. I ordered one of those mini quake ball diffs as well to see if I can get more traction, its in the post...