It appears there is a sandwich baggy in-between the motor and the motor mount to seal the holes in the front endbell. :mdr: :lol:

Speechless.

lmfao ! didn't you guys tell him to take the zip-lock baggy off once hes done grinding the flatspot on his shaft. Lets send im a link to Arctiks article, help him get started without the hardware section of the local 99c store.

I sent a message to Dan on ebay about this abomination, outlining all the shoddy features and general lameness- he just replied:

out of curiosity, why did he say the aluminum is fine? Meaning on the buggy itself?

"It works flawless and the speed control holds up to 8s even though its only rated at 25 volts. don't ask me how, but it does."

For $1400, "don't ask me how" doesn't really cut it.

Obviously by the magical pixie dust and hot glue he used to build the rig with.
That is a piece of crap. Scratch that, huge flaming ball of molten monkey sh1t that smells like burnt bananas and smoldering donkey hair, the likes of which could only ever be sold on ebay or as a Duratrax.
But not quite as big of POS as that one guy who used cardboard to convert his Revo to BL with (been a few years, right when I joined here.)
It ran well except for when it rained lol.

Hahaha... That priceless!

lol, I remember that!

Cardboard eh... Was that a homeless conversion?

No, just someone trying to get a setup running without any real fabrication of parts...

This 'ol Brushless Box. Don't ask what he used to glue it all together.. lol

I hate to take you down, but, these knockoffs are exactly that!

The plastics are weaker, clutch & spurs melt, engine is....ok, but, pullstart breaks easily, servo's are crap & literally stop working after a few hours or the spline shears off the steering servo.
Best part is that the alloy bends & bends back without breaking! Good for two bends only.:lol:

I've had both an original HPI & these crap things in front of me & driven both. They're not worth it.

You will spend hundreds if not thousands of $$ over a short period to bring it up to HPI standard each time it breaks.

& for the record, HPI plastics are made in the same factory as a few other high end nitro buggy & truggy brands, just can't remember which one's, in Taiwan.

China rips things off because the copyright, patent & legalities that apply in other countries don't apply & can't be enforced in China. Shenzen, China, is the place where most of the knock off crap comes from.

Quite a large can of worms opened here.

what alloy are you talking about? The rear shock tower brace is the only thing I can think of that may be 5b substandard. The early ones had pullstart hub problems, but have now come with metal hubs, plastics may be easier to break, I don't know, havn't broken anything. The electronics may leave something to be desired, but like I said I have 2 gallons on the stock servos, did put the dx3s in that I already had. I don't see how it could take hundreds, or thousands of dollars to make it hpi standards, maybe you can fill me in. Most people with multiple vehicles are going to put different radio equipment in it anyway, I havn't had any clutch or gear problems, but if you did you would probably put something better in it just as you would do to a hpi as well. I have not personally owned a 5b, but have driven one, and been around one. We have 2 of these running around, and both have been great deals. At $450 to the door, you can't beat it, especially if you plan on doing something other than leaving the car box stock.

I have a 1/5 gas truck (Duratrax Firehammer) and get 30-40 minutes of runtime. I can't see a brushless setup giving me that much runtime at equivalent speeds, unless I spend thousands of dollars on LiPos. However, it is annoying to use the gas. My car smelled for months after the first run, partially from the truck, and partially because a little gas spilled. It is loud, which limits where you can run if you don't want people really mad at you. But the biggest con for me with a gasser is the gas itself. But the running cost and runtime is unbeatable.

Regarding the KM Baja, there's a huge thread on RCU giant scale forum. I only had a chance to read through about 1/2 to 2/3 of it. It seems the plastics are a bit more brittle, but other than that, most people are happy with theirs. I remember there was a problem with the KMs, but I can't recall what it was exactly. For a 1/5 buggy, I'd rather get the upcoming Nutech Thunderbolt2 4WD buggy.

how does the MM and the tekin R1 take 4-5s lipos???

I guess it all depends on the user and his/her driver style... Ive heard they are every bit as good as the 5b rtr version. The baja 5b ss is of higher quality but thats not the point... I would not mind having one.

My friend has an XTM grizzly 1/5 MT "Same thing as the DuraTrax FireHammer MT" and that thing is nuts. He can hit speeds of 40mph + with his Zen 26cc xcan setup. Hes hit just about everything their is to hit and only stripped out an upper front link. Its very clumsy at high speeds but overall I would reccomend it to any beginer no doubt. Its based off the the FG mt EVO-1 series MT's which are now discontinued.

I heard the only problem was the radio box. Which is a little different than the hpi 5b's. It can be swapped out.

Are you sure you not talking about the Smartech ThunderBolt 1/5 4wd buggy?
http://www.oversizerc.com/p/519888/s...-delivery.html

For not very long? If I'm paying this kind of money for a 'professional brushless conversion' you can bet that I want electronics that were designed to handle the specs that the seller is boasting.

Who would buy crap like that? :slap:

People that are clueless and have cash to spend.

And then come here when FD won't/can't help them and ask why their stuff broke...

in fairness - the esc and motor are very nice - the car is a clone (what do you expect for a 400 car)

The conversion well no question there it could be more "oem" like...

It does have a nice motors, but i would say that a hv esc would be a much better idea than a boat esc. Plus running 8s on a 6s rated esc is not the best idea for longevity.

I am suprised that he did not use a lower kv neu and run 2 5s packs in series. If a 6s 5000 pack can be made to work, a 10s 3000 pack will provide the same performance. Just makes more sense to me that way...

I was reading one of the baja 5b forums and Jason from maxamps is making a bl baja and he stated that any more than 6s lipo was stupid and not a good idea.... What a dumb ass. I guess that is why maxamps packs are not the best sellers in the large scale air section of the hobby...

As for FD's conversion. Why did he use a bottle cap? Honestly, I could have found something to cover the end that looked more like it belonged there... Some sort of plumbing fitting from lowes. And he should have used black silicone to seal the wires, and applied it with more care. His stuff just looks slapped together...

linc now that was funny, taking a crack at j like that. I've been following his thread on the baja forum too, I was also surprised to see 6s setup on a 25 lb rig. Anyways we will wait and see how it turns out. I also emailed dan (guy on ebay with the bl baja), and I asked what kv the motor was, got the run around for about 3 emails and then was told "a bunch of time went in the R&D of the motor" and he wasn't willing to say what winds it was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DqoiNrDJ70
Here is a link to the fine design baja running 6s 4900 lipo 34 mph

Looks like it's got some bottom-end to it, but the top speed is too slow.

It looks decent but no faster than a stock 23cc gas powered version... . And a lot less run time... and more expensive... Sure is quiet though!