Tired of waiting for a brushless 4tec? Take a queue from Traxxas 1/16.

[Russe77]

After seeing what Traxxas has done with the 1/16 slash, rally, and mustang I figured it was time to repurpose my 4x4.
1.) Set my shocks to their lowest position and limited the travel.
2.) A new set of kicks
3.) Trim front and rear 'bumpers'
4.) Lower front body mounts
5.) Fresh body

Ultimate parking lot basher/racer.

http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd390/Russe77/1305512329240.jpg

http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd390/Russe77/1305512494718.jpg

http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd390/Russe77/1305493687632.jpg

[Freelanceshots]

That is super cool! will it run with other purpose built cars on a track or does it show its truck attributes?

show some video and what body is that? how do you lower the body mounts? Do you have to buy new ones or do you modify the stock traxxas mounts?

[Russe77]

Currently I am running in a Slash / 1:8 buggy class on asphalt. It is handling exceptionally well. I purchased the sway bar setup and haven't even installed it yet. As for the front body mounts I just cut about a 1/2 inch off and drilled a new hole. The body is for a Kyosho Inferno GT (not GT2).

[zanek]

What tyres are you running? And I want to see a video.

[Russe77]

The tires are sweep's 50 shore and they are incredible.

I'd love to see traxxas release the 1:16 mustang for the Slash 4x4 especially since they have already licensed the body! Come on guys here is a great opportunity. How long has it been since there was a real 4tec upgrade? Where is electric touring? This is SOOO easy.

I'm not racing this weekend but I'll get video up as soon as I can.

Finally got it on the track this weekend. I am still learning how to drive so forgive the execution here. This is pretty much stock on a 2 cell lipo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtsNHrEDeqE

[cooleocool]

Looks like she does pretty well on-road! Very nice, I like it!

[FoxhoundEP3]

Looks like she does pretty well on-road! Very nice, I like it!

indeed, very nice

to OP, what are you geared? nice to see you have it running on 2S. I noticed you would slow down almost all the way when taking the turns, does it flip if you try to go faster? you need those sway bars, only 10 minutes tops :D

[Russe77]

Box stock gearing (18/54?). I have yet to traction roll this beast, and honestly I'm not sure it is possible anymore. There is some push though but most of the braking is due to my poor driving. As I get more comfortable I hope to see lap times fall off. That being said, my lap times were within 2 second of the 1:10 touring guys who are much more accomplished drivers. The size of the Slash really gives it an advantage on our rough parking lot.

[Russe77]

Setting up the car I used zip ties to get the ride height set. Once I had the fit where I wanted it I marked the shock shafts with a marker, removed the shock, extended it fully, and then marked it again.

Next I measured the distance and cut a piece of fuel tubing to length. I then removed the shock shaft and slid the fuel tubing into place, reassembled the shock, and reinstalled it on the car.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5305/5756655815_35ed45eba2.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7598192@N08/5756655815/) Picture 3 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7598192@N08/5756655815/) by 3seven3 (http://www.flickr.com/people/7598192@N08/), on Flickr

Just another pic under the cover

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3371/5757200184_33dccd2810.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7598192@N08/5757200184/) Picture 2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7598192@N08/5757200184/) by 3seven3 (http://www.flickr.com/people/7598192@N08/), on Flickr

Last one

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2243/5757199774_92f0ee8597.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7598192@N08/5757199774/)
Picture 1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7598192@N08/5757199774/) by 3seven3 (http://www.flickr.com/people/7598192@N08/), on Flickr

Track time


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9MUEVZdKXc

[Freelanceshots]

What temps are you running after practice with the 18/54 setup? How are you getting air to the motor and esc to cool it. Don't see any hole in the windshield and no fans or heat sink either. I believe my truck would over heat even with the 2S battery with that gearing setup.

[Russe77]

My mistake, I am setup 13/54. The motor never really even gets hot to the touch. Currently we are only running 15 lap heats so it really isn't pushed that hard.

[oneslyrooster]

This is really a cool setup. It proves that the slash is a super versatile truck and can be made into basically made into any type of RC( TC, Buggy, MT etc)

[Russe77]

Yeah, I was inspired by the Traxxas 1:16 stuff, just use the same chassis over and over. Traxxas has already licensed the Mustang (and a Camaro to some extent) I'd love to see them release bodies for the Slash 4x4.

[NYbandit33]

lol I love how your car is spanking the nitro cars

[Russe77]

lol I love how your car is spanking the nitro cars

There were a lot of guys that doubted it would handle, now there are just a lot of converts.

[zanek]

Now all you need is a MMM and 6s lipo :lol:

[rag6]

The parking blocks down the back strait are brutal! Not too bad in practice, but in combat makes me cringe:eek: I could see fighting for first on the last lap, I would make sure I was on the inside!

Are you running a center diff? If so, what weight oil in all the diffs?

I bet there would be plenty of room to Jangify the chassis for a diet.

[Russe77]

Well that looks awesome. I've had anacondas on my slash 4x4 trucks for some time now so I wonder if I just strap the arms up ad lower the body mounts if this would do that. I have zip straps so I could get crazy this next week while lounging around since the weather has been nice lately.

The zip ties were mostly just to get the side height set properly. After I had it the way I wanted, I removed the shock shaft and put a short section of fuel tubing on to limit the travel. The zip ties add friction.

[Russe77]

The parking blocks down the back strait are brutal! Not too bad in practice, but in combat makes me cringe:eek: I could see fighting for first on the last lap, I would make sure I was on the inside!

Are you running a center diff? If so, what weight oil in all the diffs?

I bet there would be plenty of room to Jangify the chassis for a diet.

You see me hit one of the parking blocks in the video and yes it scared the crap out of me. This being a slash though no damage.

As for the center diff, I haven't installed one yet. The 'car' pulls pretty well without it, handles much better than I had anticipated and as this is a 1:8 class I really need to step up to 3S power. I did pick up some sway bars but I haven't even installed them yet.

[Freelanceshots]

You should install the black colored sway bars now. If you are not running any kind of sway bar setup you should see big gains by using some. Better traction in the corners for sure. I would run them set up stiff as well.

[Russe77]

So I picked up a set but haven't really looked that them yet. DO they come front and rear in a pack? Do I need to purchase the different colors seperately?

[Freelanceshots]

The Slash 4x4 Ultimate package that I got came with standard sway bars and a heavy duty pair that are thicker and they are colored black. To buy link: http://www.amazon.com/Sway-Bar-Kit-Front-Rear/dp/B002ZL4NO6

Traxxas's description: Sway bars reduce chassis roll and increase corner speed on high-traction surfaces—perfect for hard-packed tracks and pavement running. Slash 4X4 Ultimate features installed silver sway bars, and a stiffer set of black 'bars for extra-high-grip surfaces. The bar thicknesses are precisely tuned, and are easily adjusted for maximum cornering performance.

Youtube video install: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuYh4rPwSjE&feature=related

[Russe77]

Sway bars installed. Black may be too stiff. I run a fair amount of pre load and 80wt front and rear. I'll have to experiment.

[Freelanceshots]

I would think that 80wt shock oil would make the suspension extremely slow on rebound and compression unless you had special valving for that wt oil or monster springs. I would suggest that this would make the truck kind of jumpy and more unpredictable. The trucks wheels maybe skipping over the surface loosing contact with the ground. Can't control the truck with the wheels skipping. Just my opinion where I am not a paid suspension expert. I'd look at the 40 to 50 wt oil for the bigbore traxxas shocks but I see that your running proline shocks or something close. Would definitely want to be running the stiffer springs like the Losi light blue 2.5" in the rear and either the green 2.5" front or black 2.0" front as these are the stiffest Losi offers. I'm not sure if those will fit the proline shocks or not. Remember suspension is there so that it acts like suspension by keeping the wheels in contact with the road where using to much rebound and compression can make you loose traction because the wheels/rubber will not always be contacting the roads surface. The more contact the wheels have with the surface the faster and more control you will have. While running on the pavement race sag will not be as substantial as it is on the dirt because you need more sag as dirt surfaces will have greater highs and low spots. With the sway bars added one side of the car's suspension will not want to react without the other side doing the same thing which helps correct for unwanted body/chassis roll. When you go into a turn hard the vehicle chassis wants to roll in the direction of the turn lifting the inside tires off the surface or reducing the tire contact patch on the surface. this means you have less rubber on the road and could slide or push when turning in the corners. Sway bars allow the suspension to do its job where when both sides hit the same high and low spots and minor independent small bumps but body and chassis roll is where you will see the major correction. I would definitely go with the stiffer bars but that would be for suspension that is correctly set up for the stiffer sway bars. You would then see the most performance gain. The lighter/less stiff sway bars would be better for dirt running with a high traction surfaces but where you would still see breaking and stutter bumps in the corners.

I would have to try this setup for the road myself to give you any idea on what I would do but I would think that you would not want to run preload spacers on the suspension because you are already limiting the travel. By limiting the travel and adding preload spacers I would think that the suspension would become very harsh or over done.

One way to balance things out would be to limit the travel to where you see fit, lower the oil wt and then put tape across the entire bottom of the trucks chassis and monitor the amount of wear across the tape. If the concrete surface your running on is scraping the tape/bottom of chassis in large areas where it is tearing the tape off or wear deep marks into the chassis then you need to add some preload spacers or slightly increase oil wt but I'd try preload first. You want some small signs that the truck is bottoming on the surface over some of the larger bumps but you don't want it hitting the ground abruptly or constantly ridding on the chassis surface. When the chassis hits the ground the wheels tend to loose traction which could mean loss of corner speed or traction down the straights. With my knowledge of suspension one would never wants to limit suspension by either compression or rebound as those just enhance the suspension tunability. You use these additional adjustments to fine tune the suspension after the whole suspension package is as close to being set up properly as it can.

The best and easiest answer to have the best setup with the least amount tuning time would be for traxxas to design replacement shocks (correct length and amount of suspension travel) for the slash specifically for road racing with the chassis lowered to the optimal position. Since thats not an option at this time you have to do what you can and that is what you are doing. Hopefully the STRC rally conversion for the slash 4x4 will address some/all these areas and make the truck perform even better for competitive road racing.

[Russe77]

@Freelanceshots: Thanks for all the suggestions. The shocks are the pro-line dual rate (2 springs). They are fairly stiff with all the pre load and that is why I went with the 80 wt. The truck was pretty well planted without the sway bars. Preliminary running shows the back end is loose now and it wants to pick up the inside tire in a turn. I still need to do some more tuning and that is less than a pack of testing just out front of the house.

[Freelanceshots]

Can you take out the preload? Suspension tuning is very intriguing to me. Its so technical and so testing intensive to have it set up right thats it almost impossible to do unless you are a pro suspension builder or suspension tech. When I suggest the things that I do it may pertain better to larger scale/full sized vehicles but one would think what works full scale usually works pretty good small scale. I have zero experience with the dual stage shocks and have never been able to see the proline stuff in person. I would assume that the dual spring shocks would be super for SC full scale trucks as I think I've even seen that setup run on pro SC trucks and even on the baja trucks. I've only seen this through the TV as I've never been able to travel and see one of these event in person. Keep us updated on your progress.

[rag6]

You will have to play with the adjustment on the sways. Usually, adjusting the ft sway will have an effect on the rear handling and vice versa. Sounds like the front is getting too much traction now because of the stiff rear setting.
I would try to either move the adjustment out to the end of the rear sway bar(softer setting), or switch to the thinner rear bar with a stiff setting. Just remember to only make one change at a time.

Some interesting reading
http://users.telenet.be/elvo/

From the above site:

Anti-roll bars are like 'sideways springs', they only work laterally. Here's how they work: if one side of the suspension is compressed, one end of the bar is lifted. The other end will also go up, pulling the other side of the suspension up also, basically giving more resistance to chassis roll. How far and how strongly the other side will be pulled up depends on the stiffness and the thickness of the bar used: a thin bar will flex a lot, so it won't pull the other side up very far, letting the chassis roll deeply into its suspension travel. Note that the bar only works when one side of the suspension is extended further than the other, like when the car is cornering. When both sides are equally far compressed, like when the car is braking, the bar has no effect. So anti-roll bars only affect the lateral balance of the car, not the longitudinal balance.
Unfortunately, anti-roll bars aren't the only things affecting the car's roll stiffness; they work in conjunction with the springs and dampers. Suppose you add an anti-roll bar at the rear of your car without changing any of the other settings. When the car enters a turn, the chassis starts to roll. Normally, the suspension on the outside of the turn would compress, and the one on the inside would extend, making for a lot more pressure on the outside tire. With the anti-roll bar however, the suspension on the inside will be compressed, so the chassis will roll less, and the rear of the car will sit lower than normal. So the rear has more weight on it, and it's distributed more evenly over the two tires. This makes for a little more, and more consistent traction. Remember that this is in the beginning of the turn, the situation is different in the middle of the turn. Normally, without the anti-roll bar, the chassis would stop rolling when the roll torque is fully absorbed by the outsid e spring. But with the anti-roll bar, some of that torque is absorbed by the anti-roll bar, and used to compress the inside suspension. So the outside suspension won't be compressed as much as it normally would, making the rear of the chassis sit up higher than normal, so less weight is on the rear of the car, and more at on the front. It's as if suddenly the rear has become stiffer, making for more steering and a little less rear traction. Rear traction is more consistent however, because the weight is distributed more evenly over the rear tires, unless the track is really bumpy, that is; anti-roll bars can really mess up a car's rough track handling, so they're rarely used on bumpy tracks. Adding an anti-roll bar at the front of the car has a similar, but opposite effect: it decreases steering, but makes it much smoother and more consistent. It can stop the front from 'biting into' the surface too much, making the turning radius big and smooth. This can come in handy on large, wide tracks.
Math-wise, the torsion stiffness of the middle part of the bar goes up with the fourth power of the bar's diameter, and for the two side parts, torsion stiffness goes up with the square of the diameter. Keep this in mind while changing anti-roll bars.

[Russe77]

Thanks for all the help and great information guys. I'd love to get this thing dialed in a little further. It has already shocked just about everyone who has driven it.

[prostock12]

Russe77,

Great project I wish I had some time (work) to dedicate to my Slash onroad project...

As for setup a switch to 60wt oil would work better and add 4mm limiters inside the shocks; at that point you can then work on tuning with different spring rate to cure the loose rear. In the first vid it was apparent the slow suspension action was holding the car back.

Setup the front with -2 camber and the rear with -1.5. Try switching the rear hubs (L to R) for more rear toe and your car will be dialed. I have this setup on my onroad Slash PE and the chassis handles great, I also have the black sway bar in the front and the silver in the rear...


Good Racing!

[Russe77]

Where do I get the limiters? The fuel tube is not very precise.

[prostock12]

Try these:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXAJVY&P=FR

[NYbandit33]

just out of curiosity, how much different is this using a Rally VXL? the Rally is 4 wheel drive, its 1/16th scale and it comes in the form of a car... no need to fool with shock spacing and frame mods... you did an excellent job I was just wondering after I took another look at the first pic of the car with the body off and street tires on it

[Russe77]

just out of curiosity, how much different is this using a Rally VXL? the Rally is 4 wheel drive, its 1/16th scale and it comes in the form of a car... no need to fool with shock spacing and frame mods... you did an excellent job I was just wondering after I took another look at the first pic of the car with the body off and street tires on it

That is a 1:8 body on a 1:10 Slash 4x4. The wheel base on the slash is exactly the same as a majority of the 1:8 scale buggies (truggies are longer so I've been told maybe a Revo project...)

[Freelanceshots]

1/16 scale vehicles tend to be to small and more toy like. Can't do the same type of higher speed running and racing with the smaller vehicles as they will not handle the bumps, cracks and small rocks the same as the bigger cars and trucks. Don't take this the wrong way folks that are going to get upset or disagree with me writing this but its just a scale fact. Not to say that you can't race 1/16 scale vehicles, they just need to be run on smoother surfaces like a smaller indoor maintained carpet or concrete track. It would be cool to have a 1/8 scale Rally VLX 4x4 but then it would be pretty expensive to buy.

[Russe77]

1/16 scale vehicles tend to be to small and more toy like. Can't do the same type of higher speed running and racing with the smaller vehicles as they will not handle the bumps, cracks and small rocks the same as the bigger cars and trucks. Don't take this the wrong way folks that are going to get upset or disagree with me writing this but its just a scale fact. Not to say that you can't race 1/16 scale vehicles, they just need to be run on smoother surfaces like a smaller indoor maintained carpet or concrete track. It would be cool to have a 1/8 scale Rally VLX 4x4 but then it would be pretty expensive to buy. All Traxxas would have to do is mold up a few 1:10 Slash Fiesta's (and a Mustang) and a set of shock shafts that are 5-10 mm shorter and they would have a whole new vehicle. Price should be in line with the other slash products give or take $20. For hobbyshop supported parking lot racing it can't be beat!

That being said I had a 1:16 Rally and loved it. After seeing what Traxxas had done there I had to try the same with the big slash.

[Russe77]

The sway bars were a big help. Not enough people showed up in the heat today for a good race but I got in some good laps. Took some adjusting but I think the sway bars are set.

[Russe77]

TeamSTRC had great success with their conversion last week racing in So Cal

Looks like a great product

http://www.teamstrc.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=65

[jman98]

what you should do now is but some off road tires on it and take it to a off road track and see how it does

[rag6]

$90???????????

[Russe77]

$90???????????

I know $90 sounds a little steep but the wheel adapters alone were $45 at my hobbytown.

[Russe77]

When I look at this thread it shows 43 replies (44 posts) so this should be #45 but if I look at the indivual comments I only see #40. What gives? Am I miising some permission, account too new? Any thoughts?

[Russe77]

So it looks like there is a class forming for these (GT8 lite) and HPI is rumored to be getting in on the fun. I'll take a Shash w/ velineon any day over a Blitz but competition is good

[Russe77]

Have I mentioned recently how much I love my Slash. This thing is amazing! Tough like no other. I bought my youngest an RC18t2 for his birthday in November. He lives with his mother and never really ran it due to a slipper (I think) issue. You can imagine his shock when I put him in control of the Slash.He had a blast! he did get a little upset at one point cause he was wrecking a lot. I just pointed out to him NOTHING was broken and that it just takes a little while to learn to drive a car on a track. Let alone an 1:8th GT car with a brushless motor on a 2S LIPO. He did great and the Slash is none the worse for the wear.

[Sierravmax]

I think i have met you before. I have been to one of those Sunday Hobbytown meets once a couple of monts ago. I think u were the one that lowered my Slash at the time.

[prostock12]

Russe77,

Any updates on your setup and racing season?