Well, I am sure everyone can say at least you an honest man... thanks for the info I am going to get on ordering up some parts now.

couple questions....I am installing lst diffs in my revo....I know the lst diffs have a different gear ratio than the traxxas diffs but are there different gear ratio sets that can go in the lst diffs or are they all the same regardless of what the diff came out of? I ask because the diffs I bought are in a silver case while most I've seen are in a blue case and I remember reading a comment from someone that implied there are different ring/pinion gear sets for the lst diffs.

Also, I have been running a 54/20 gear ratio on my revo with the stock diffs.....will going to a 24 tooth pinion be slower or faster than what I'm used too on it with the lst diffs?

There's a difference in ratio from the LST diffs and the Losi muggy diffs. Make sure you have the LST diffs which use a 13 tooth pinion and a 43 tooth ring gear. The Losi muggy has a different tooth count.

With the correct LST diffs and a pinion/spur of 24/54, BrianG's speed calculator evaluates the top speed of your E-Revo at around 45 mph which would be about 1 mph faster then what you are used too.

cool deal, I have the right diffs then:mdr:

I got the bulks and lst diffs fitted together today and tested the fit of the xxl cvd's and discovered that with my rdracing carriers I will be able to use the stock cups the diffs come with, they fit pretty much perfect with the pivot balls screwed in just past the threads, so it's all coming together with surprisingly few problems.

I ordered the kershaw center dogbones and will have to do what you did to make them fit with the rcmonster cups on the diffs I guess.

So a regular drill bit will put a hole through the revo tranny output shaft? Did you have to do that for both sides?

I'm going to use one of the kershaw cups clamped in my drill press as a guide for the bit so hopefully that will keep it centered on the shaft and help with starting the hole.


thanks for the help!

Reguardless of the color (blue,silver,black plastic)of the LST based diffs case the ratio is the same, only the Muggy ratio is different.

The lst diffs are a little different I know that the carrier is a little different the older ones are not as heavy duty as the new ones there are less plastic in them, but I am sure they are still miles better than the stock revo junk. I think the silver cases came from the aftershocks and the blues didnt start showing up till the lst's came out but color doesn't really matter at all. I wouldnt use the cup as jig for drilling unless you dont want to use it again, but that just me.

I didnt drill any holes in my shaft`s to fit the kershaw`s.. I just moved the tranny 1-2mm backwards.. 3 minutes with the dremel fixed that :)
The rear center axle actually was a bit short, not too short, but short enough to move the tranny 1-2mm.. Now both sits perfect, deep into the cups.

Well, I got the kershaw axles today and got those installed so at this point I basicly just have to put the truck back together and I should be good to go:yipi:

The longer rear dogbone fit fine but I did have to drill a new pin hole on the front tranny output and cut off about a 1/4 inch of it but thats all it took...I now have about 1/4 inch of play on front and rear dogbones which I think is enough to prevent any binding when the chassis flex's...besides most of the flexing it does actually opens up the gap rather than closing it so it should be fine.

I put a few o rings under the ends of the dogbones on each side to keep them centered and prevent them from sliding back and forth all the time....Any reason that may not be a good idea? They can still move back and forth, just not without a little pressure.

Is it normal for these lst diffs to be a little notchy when new? (I mean the ring and pinion, not the diff itself) One is fairly smooth but the other is pretty notchy, I assume they will wear in and I don't see any way to adjust the mesh aside from the one shim on each one and thats already on the side that opens up the mesh slightly.


heres a pic of where I'm at

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...sinstalled.jpg

Thats odd, Mine was too tight in front for that to work and the rear one would have been to tight if I moved the tranny rearward any. I did notice that the front dogbone ball had been ground down flat after the black finish was applied so I guess kershaw thought they are just a little too long too.

Yeah, mine front axle was also grinded down some.. Strange my rear fit so good then, but anyway you seem to be all good now!

My diffs where also _very_ tight.. I removed a shim from the ingoing "pinion" drive, and the mesh felt perfect after that.. They where so tight, that i belive it would be a problem.. I had problems tuning them with my fingers in the pinion drive, without cups on.. And they where noisy when turning them fast.

The first time I took out my LST-equipped E-Revo there was a lot of binding going on in the diffs, particularly the front. It made a grinding noise, but eventually it went away. I took it apart to replace the grease with true diff fluid and the gears didn't look worn so I guess it just took some time to break in?

I hooked up the batteries today to make sure everything worked right and it does except for one thing.

I have it on it's back while doing this.....While giving it some throttle (forward or reverse) it gets this jerkiness like something is catching or dragging when I turn the steering to the stops, left or right...it's smooth when the steering is straight and all the way up too about 85% of maximum throw.
When I have it turned off and turn the steering to the stops and then rotate the tires they spin smoothly, I just can't see anything that would be causing the jerkiness when on throttle and turned fully left or right.

I'm hoping someone has seen this problem and knows what is causing it?

Are you using a Mamba Monster?

yep, 2200 motor and MMM esc

Do you have a Capacitor (1000+ UF, Maybe 10volt to 16volt) you can solder on a old servo lead and plug it into the battery channel on your Receiver.

My MMM was going nuts without it. Actually cutting off all response...

Something like this:

http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...iver-Capacitor

You can make one much cheaper though if you have access to an electronics store...

does it happen at all speeds? does it happen while under load (running)? my Monster combo was kind of notchy at low RPM, particularly under minor load (CVA angle friction). If everything spins smootly when the motor is disconnected, then I wouldn't worry about it. If you're worried about it, turn down the dual rate to 85%. One of my LST2 CVA's did come slightly notchy, never figured out what it is but it works fine. try swapping the front and rear CVA's, it may just be those particular ones.

hmm, played around with it some more and when I try to rotate the wheels while holding them steered full left or right with a little pressure I can feel it get hard to turn every half rotation so It must just be too much of an angle for the cvd's.....I am a little suprised that my revo's steering angle is more than the cvd's can handle but I guess I'll just dial back my end points a few degrees untill the binding goes away, although I hate to give up any turning radius:(

Mine did bind alittle as well, being to deep into the cups..
1mm out on the pivots, and i was all good..

you won't notice the less steering angle unless you are puttering around at 5mph. there are modifications that drifters (like me) do, is shaving the cup of the CVA stub axle so it can handle higher angle without hitting the CVA bone, but I don't think it will last very long in a heavyweight high torque and relatively high grip monster truck.

run the truck a couple of times and recheck the CVA's, the binding may go away as it breaks in.

Looking good!.

How did you shim your diffs? I spent one and a half hour to find the sweet spot of shimming my lst diffs, I came up with this for my diffs, yours might be different:

I removed all the shims that was installed in the diffs, inside and outside the bearings maybe there was one on the pinion too, I don´t remember.

If I shimmed the pinion and not the ringgear there was some "unsmoothness" in the diff, a slight resistens, didn´t feel good. I tried alot of different shim setups, from 0.1mm to 0.5mm.

I removed all the shims on the pinion and shimmed the ringgear insted, when I did this I could shim the diff really really tight and it still turned butter smooth!

I have absolutley no play in the diffs, its not possible to move the pinion in and out in the diff case at all and you can feel each tooth on the gears while turning the diffs by hand, but they are very very smooth, the difference from the stock ones isn´t even comparable.

I have now used this setup for about 20hours with my slipper completly locked ( with screws not just tightned the nut ) I am not gentle on the truck and didn´t get the stock diffs last half the time I have been running those.

So I suggest that you try to shim the ringgear only, or maybe you have already found a descent shim setup?

Have you checked if the truck still binds if you lower the rideheight?

I wanted my lst shafts to go as far in as possible in the drivecups, so when I used Lt rockers with Pushrods setup for p2 rockers in the innermost hole in the a-arm it did bind alot, I just screwed out my pillowballs half a turn and problem solved.

I hope you get things sorted out. Good luck!

I really think it´s because of the cvd´s going to deep into the cups, it will wear in after a few hours, mine was exactly like that in the beginning too, I can take a picture and show the "wear" on mine that made the unsmoothness go away.

The savage has these spots "weared" from stock to make sure that everything goes smooth, look how it´s thinner in the ends:

http://www.zonehobbies.net/files/ima...057%5B1%5D.jpg

It seems mine are binding at the cvd end, not the cup/dogbone end. My dogbones are sitting just about dead center in the cups when the a-arms are level to the ground. I have my pillowballs screwed in as far as possible without the carrier "lips" hitting the a-arms when articulated but I can make a slightly wider PVC spacer to go behind the inner carrier bearing to move the cvd's towards the diffs another 1/8 inch if I need too.


Manne, I left the shims the way they were on my diffs, one was fairly smooth and the other is a little notchy but not so bad I'm worried about it. I think a few hours of running will wear it in. I may be going to heavier diff fluid at some point so I'll play around with the shims a little then....I only saw one shim on the non ring gear side on my diffs though, I'm not sure if it had any others but I didn't look real close.

I have some binding from the LST CVDs on full steering also. I blame it on the extreme Slayden Steering Mod. The binding gets less after running a few times as the CVD parts wear in. I can see on my CVDs where the binding occurs, maybe a little Dremelling on the parts would help but I didn't bother with it.

Thats good to know, I reduced my steering throw a little to reduce it and hopefully whats left will smooth itself out with a little running.

I ran it for a half hour today and everything seems to be working good except for my inner carrier bearings. The aluminum duct tape I used to increase the OD of the bearing is working it's way off the bearings because it's just not fitting in the seat tight enough....

So I have to figure out some way to make those 21mm OD bearings fit tightly in the carriers 22mm seat.

Anyone have any ideas? I really want to continue using my rdracing carriers if at all possible, mainly because the xxl cvd's sit perfect in the stock lst cups with them, plus I just really like them.

I searched but couldn't find any 15x22mm bearings.

^ I have an idea, dunno how feasible it is. You can try get a really cheap set of 8x22x7 mm bearings, gut the bearings, and use the outer race as a more solid shim. I believe that it's much cheaper (and probably easier) than finding a 21x22x? mm rod or shim. Those bearings are 7mm wide which will stick out past the end of the carrier; if it doesn't cause problems then I would just leave it as is, or if it does interfere with steering throw or suspension travel, then cut off some of the excess. I'm not sure if the ID of the outer race is 21mm, some dremel work may be necessary...but then again, you have over twice as many throwaway bearings as axles.

That might work except that it would have to be 1/2 mm thick and even the outer race of the smallest bearing is at least 1mm thick.

I Have been going through all the different types of sheet metal I have in the barn and found that some zinc roofing rolls I have are almost the perfect thickness for the shim....I am still looking for something just a hair thicker though as I can still slide the bearing in and out a little easier than I like...it's snug enough that the bearing won't fall out on it's own but not quite as snug as a actual 22mm bearing would be in the carrier...it may work though if I can't come up with something better.
I'm thinking I'll ca the sheetmetal shim into the carrier so I don't have to worry about it working it's way out over time which I'm sure it will do if it's not secured somehow.

Ok, I think the these shims made from roofing zinc strips should do the job. I fitted them and then glued them in the carrier with some IC2000 rubberized ca and I don't think they will ever break loose on their own and the small bit of space the ca took up tightened up the fit to where I'm confident the bearings won't ever wallow out their seat and start moving on me.

I left the shims a little high to make it easier to get the bearings in and I don't think it will interfere with anything. Now I just have to do the other three wheels and I should be golden. :)

By the way, this lst diff and xxl cvd setup even sounds better than the stock parts:oh:

Heres a few pics for reference in case anyone else is ever looking to use the rdracing carriers with xxl cvd's.


http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...n/carrier1.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...n/carrier2.jpg

Nice work on this, when I was running the RD Racing carriers, making shims out of a very thin sheet of brass is what I ended up doing. Yours looks better though.

Since my MMM died in a cloud of smoke yesterday, I decided to go ahead and try the double bearing trick to use the stock LST diff cups and see if it would work with the extended Traxxas rear arms and the stock Traxxas carriers. It fits perfectly but since I don't have an ESC, I can't try it out. But just looking at it I don't see why it wouldn't work. I'll try to take pics this weekend and maybe do the front also. This simplifies the whole process a lot and cuts down on the number of parts needed.

That sucks about the MMM, my two year old one did the same thing a month or so ago. AT leats we don't have to pay full price for a new one.

I wonder how the stock lst cups will hold up compared to the rcmonster cups?
The rcmonster cups have double the surface area for the dogbone pins to ride on which should mean both the dogbone pin and the cup should take approx. twice as long to get the same amount of slop or wear on them as the lst diff stock cups.

I was running the extended arms but I kept having the little cross member on the upper arms snap in two. So I have gone back to my old rpm arms. I don't care for how flexy they are on one hand but on the other I don't have to worry much about breaking them and at this point thats more important to me than a slightly longer wheel base or precise suspension.

So I tried this trick of double 15X21 bearings that some people are doing in the axle carriers to be able to use the stock LST XXL diff cups. I wanted to see if it worked with the stock Traxxas axle carriers and the rear Traxxas extended arms. It turns out that it all came together beautifully. One thing I did to push the CVD even deeper into the diff cups was to drill the holes for the pillow balls 3 mm deeper then they are. Then I screwed the pillow balls about 1.5 mm deeper which brought the CVD axle pin deeper in the cup where I wanted it. There is now three bearings supporting the axle, and the outer bearing and the most inner bearing are now 5 mm more apart so it should give a lot of support to the axle. Now being able to use the stock LST XXL diff cups cuts down on the amount of mods to be done and the parts needed.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._lst_cups1.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._lst_cups3.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._lst_cups7.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w..._lst_cups4.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...lst_cups10.jpg

If you drill out the traxxas hop-up axles the fit very good for the center shafts, and you don not have to buy a bunch of different parts to make them work. I picked mine up on ebay for about 28 bucks shipped. I do realize they are not built like a tank like the other axles but I think they should work pretty well.

center driveshafts don't get shredded as often because they only have to handle ~1/3 the torque that the axle shafts do. I bet the 'standard' Traxxas CVA's will do just fine there. (:

Nope, I replace my rear center shaft after about 4-5 packs/runs.

I need to break down and buy dog bones for it when my revo axle surplus runs out.

All I did for over a year on this truck is experiment with ways to make it better. Once I find something that fixes one problem and it proves that it's functional and durable after a lot of time testing, I stick to it. I don't get why some feel the need to tell me that going back to stock parts should be sufficient. If I changed it it's because it didn't work on my truck. And then I share what I did to fix the problem. It's free! If you like it, take it and enjoy. If you don't like it then, you got what you paid for :na: :mdr:

If this is directed at my by no means did I mean any disrespect by what I said. Also, I have read this thread probably 10 times from post to post and is full of great info and I thank you for taking the time to offer your experience. The axles that I was talking about are not the factory axle, but the cvd dog bone style the traxxas offers as the race axles. I just thought I would let people know I found something that might also work.

Don't get me wrong, no offense taken really. And you're right, it's good to know about all the options out there.

I also would like to say I do agree with you if you look at the cups and the axles just by size yours look 10 times stronger then the traxxas stuff. I have also learned that if the traxxas stuff did not work the first time the best stuff probably isn't going to work the second time, but I am going to try it and see how things turn out.

I just want to say thank you for this thread. I has been outstanding to see the things that you are doing and also letting us see them. It has been helpful to me several times. So thank you very much..,.

You're welcomed,

Now I find this very interesting. This guy from Italy made an aluminum chassis for his 1/16 E-Revo. The chassis is cool but I doubt it would hold up to off road abuse. He built it mainly for speed runs I think. What I find uber cool is the motor mount he made. The guy's a genius. By having the sliding gear mesh adjustment screw on the other side of the spur, he spread the load to a wider area which makes me think it makes this mount much stronger and stiffer. He also made a small piece that supports the bottom pivoting screw and ties it to the chassis. Brilliant! I'm tempted to make one of my own but I would extend the top part of the plates to have a second sliding adjustment screw in the stock position like the stock motor plate. That way, the motor would be supported on three points and tied down to the chassis instead of just hanging from the motor plate with two screws.
This was seen on the French forum ''Revopowaaa''
http://www.revopowaaa.com/t3113-e-re...-kazuaki#39313

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/9718/mmount1.jpg

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/1927/mmount2.jpg

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/6900/mmount3.jpg

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/459...mountparts.jpg