Its looking really good!!! Very impressed!!! are you going to cut out partsin the chassis or leave as is?

Yes, there will be cutout sections in the TVps to lighten their weight. I should be able to get them down to near the weight of the Savage XL TVPs which is about 115 gms each. Currently each TVP weighs in around 200 gms.

I'm hoping the finished truck will be similar in weight to the original Flux even though it's XL length.

Fired it up for the first time tonight. No smoke, all good:yipi:. The slow speed smoothness of the Tekin system is awesome. So keen for a drive this weekend. Still have a few minor things left to do on the TVPs but they can wait :smile:

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0378.jpg

yea i heard the tekins are good for that... my cc motor coggs quite a bit, but i dont care really as i just bash...

I really want to see a vid of this performing with the CD and see how it transforms the handling....

What weight oil are you running in it?

I'm a basher and i have used 100K fluid in the CD. So I don't really expect the CD to change the handling much. I've seen 100K used in a slipperential in another conversion and it could still easily do wheelies.

Got a short drive in this arvo after work on the driveway. All good except the slipperential was slipping a lot. Tightened it up twice which helped but still slipping too much. The springs are nearly fully compressed so there must be something wrong. Might have to pull it apart yet again to see whats happening.

nice one... i guess 100k is what i will be using then.... i dont really want any power unloading to the front wheels.

Hope you sort out your slipperential probs soon...

Balance point for the near final build. 1/2cm forward of center with cutouts in the rear of the TVPs to come :mdr:

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0380.jpg

I originally thought that 50/50 was a good think, but more and more people say that 60/40 to the front is better for handling...

For a basher 60/40(either way) is likely not that relevant. For a racer i guess i could mean a small lap time advantage in the right circumstances.

Very slightly forward should be great for bashing. The handling should be quite neutral and better than the original Flux which i had no probs driving anyway. I've never seen a balance test on the original but i would have to assume it would be a bit rearward just from the layout.

Being center balanced certainly didn't hurt Nard's FLM FWD Tranny build, vid at bottom.

sooooooooooooooooooooo???????????/ Have you been too busy running it? I want to see some vids of your creation! Hows the slipperential and the motor mount holding up?

Would you recommend that mount??? i am looking for one for my neu which has space for a fan.

Haven't had much time lately with organising the house build and it just won't stop #@%$$#% raining here atm.

Pulled the slipper apart and scuffed the pads and ring. Went for quick drive on a tar road. Slipper was a little better but still not where i wanted it. Truck is also too fast, maybe a little overgeared. ESC gets hotter than the motor but only 10-15c and doesn't get too hot overall. So i have ordered an extra wave spring for the slipper and some lower gearing. Should arrive next week i hope.

Apart from that things seem to be working great. Nps with the diff mount or motor mount thus far. Steering re-arrangement works fine. Truck handles well from the small amount of driving i have done.

Was taking it easy on the tar road run, mostly half throttle stuff. Towards the end i decided to give it some stick to test the drive train. Got it into a slight drift on tar under max throttle (and this was from a rolling start) and let it off a bit too quick. Truck grabbed and eventually flipped and hit the only light pole on the street. Hysterical :lol:. Had my bro and neighbourhood kids watching:oops:. Only broke the top of one shock so i was extremely lucky.

The thing i'm noticing the most about the truck is just how amazingly easy it is to work on compared to a stock Flux. Anything between the TVPs you can unbolt from easy access screws on the outside of the TVPs and take it out without have to remove anything else. Really does makes working on the truck a pleasure.

Yeah, stock TVPs are stupidly designed. You gotta pull off one of the TVPs to even be able to switch pinions. I've been thinking about just cutting the vertical piece that is getting in the way.


Looks nice though. What diff gear and pinion are you running?

46\14 mod 1 with 1550kV motor on 5s. Ordered 58\16 mod 0.8 to try.

Jahay: I've never put up a youtube vid but i had a decent photo camera that also does video so i'll try and post a vid when the new slipper parts arrive.

i am running 46t spur and 11t pinion when using badlands. This should give me 53mph top speed on 6s. I think you are geared a bit to extreme on 14t.

I did buy a 13t which brings my top speed to 63mph for road use and occasional runs, but i doubt i will ever use that pinion.

I even have a 9t for when i run my huge MOAB heavy wheels...

Maybe instead of gearing it up to get your desired speed, just run 6s ???

46/14 calculates to 49.15 mph (78.95 km/h) on 5s. The 58\16 mod 0.8 will bring top speed down to 44.55 mph (71.56 km/h) which is a bit more reasonable. Smaller pinions will be a prob as the motor mount will get close to the diff cup.

House building is hitting my time hard. Managed to complete the shell today though. This was the first shell i have painted and I used Tamiya spray cans. I'm quite impressed with how it turned out. Looks good with the stock Flux tires mounted on the inner bead of Rulux half-ups. The windows are actually 'tinted' with Tamiya smoke spray but they show up as black in the pic.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0381.jpg
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0385.jpg

nice paint job!!! take it you decided t oleave the TVPs as is? or are you going to get around to cutting areas out? getting a bit lazy now are we :)

Cutouts in the TVP are still on the todo list. Likely they will get done this weekend now as the replacement slipper adjustment ring didn't arrive this week so no further test driving :cry:

well keep me posted!!! i want to see how you go abuot keeping the rigidity.. are you going to do any crazy cut outs?or just keep it simple and maintain strength?

Got a lot done this weekend though not much to show for it visually. Fitted an FLM steering brace. Simple but effective, freed up the steering movement. Cut a heap of bolts that needed doing and drilled all the remaining holes in the TVPs for the radio box(Traxxas), shock tower supports, rear mud guard mounts and skid plate. Rear mudguard mounts i made out of old Flux battery box mounts. Skidplate i decided not to go with the RPM one. Made one out of 3mm MDF i had left over from prototyping. It will be mounted to an old set of plastic Flux cross braces that have had the locator pins cut off. Shock tower supports are made out of the stock Flux steering tie rod ends. You can sorta see one on the rear in the pic

Did some cutouts. I had more cutouts sketched out for the middle of the left TVP shown below but i'm going to wait and see how much mud\dirt gets thrown up in the area where the slipper is.

I probably have only a days work or so to go now before a final assembly :yipi:

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0387.jpg

impressive buddy!!! nice idea on the skid plate...

do you remember some others mounting their centre diff to an flm skid plate....

can you please enlighten me on how you constructed your rear arm protectors and what material they are made from. I am very interested in this idea.... At the moment i was going to utilise small front bumpers from buggys and attatch via screws... but this looks like a much more fool proof method

What about just using some Lexan?

It is a little too flexible isnt it ? im sure people have tried it...does it work well?

I've seen plenty of shots of lexan guards on truggies\buggies but i'm not sure how they would hold up on a Flux used as a basher. How thick can you buy it?

Originally i used plastic cover from an A4 sheet paper holder. It was too thin. I run in a few places that are a little rocky and the guards were shot to pieces by the flying stone after just one run.

Then i had the idea to cut the guards out of this document case that i no longer needed (don't think it was that expensive anyway). The material was much thicker and withstands the stone strikes well.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0394.jpg

Close up of the mounting method. Basically just zip tied through the two holes in the arm. The third zip tie to the top is needed to stop it bending forward after a while. This method works well except that after 10 runs or so stone strike will usually wear through the bottom zip ties but they are easy to replace. Combined with a guard that I used to mount on the rear stock Flux battery mount the rear dog bones and drive\axle cups would remain very clean compared to no guards. Also used to get stones jammed in that area fair bit before i put the guards on, well worth the effort.http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0390.jpg

Thickest I've seen in sheets sold for hobby stuff is .060. You could probably search online and find it thicker in the general industry sites, but might pay more (or maybe less).

Looks good man. What did you use to cut the TVPs? A scroll saw?
How difficult is it to do all that? I imagine its mostly tedious work rather than difficult.

Keep it up, nice job!

I used a jigsaw to do most of the outside cutting of the TVPs and a Dremel for the cutouts. The cutouts are difficult. Those 4 cutouts in the pic took around 4 hrs including marking them up.

I wouldn't say the work is overly difficult, epecially if you have some metalwork skills\experience, which unfortunately i don't. There has been a lot of planning and time gone into the build though. A lot of my weekends over the last 6 months have been eaten up.

For someone looking to build there own I would urge them to learn some CAD, draw them up and pay to get them cut. For the amount of time you will spend making them manually (and cost of tools) it will be worth it and the accuracy will be much better than you will likely be able to manage yourself. If your doing something really custom though like mine the protoyping with the MDF board would probably still be useful as its very cheap and easy to work with.

There are a few minor things i would like to change on the TVPs so i have actually started a CAD drawing for them so that in the future i can get someone to cut them for me without having to remake them from scratch.

Got the replacement adjustment ring for the slipper on Mon so i will get to do some more test driving on the weekend, this time with the lower mod 0.8 gearing. Looking forward to it.

Got a lot done today. Some pics of the final assemby.

drivetrain overview
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0400.jpg
rear mud guards
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0403.jpg

shock tower supports
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0405.jpg

skid plate
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0406.jpg

battery tray
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0410.jpg

motor mounted
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0415.jpg

top view
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0418.jpg

radio box
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0421.jpg


with body 1
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0439.jpg


with body 3
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0443.jpg

Going for a drive in the afternoon tomorrow. Hopefully i can figure out how to make decent video of it.

Many thanks to GCM! Without the custom driveshafts this build would not have been possible.

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0442.jpg

Looks very nice !
I'm gonna be working on mine this weekend hopefully ?

looks great! vids vids vids!

Which body is that?

Looks like the regular XL body,called the gigante I think? Very cool build by the way--Josh

It looks fantastic.

How's the weight distribution, pretty sweet I guess.

As stated above : vids, vids, vids!!

Thanks for the kind comments guys, much appreciated after the long build.

Freeze: Yes its the Savage XL stock body, the Gigante. The only thing different about the shape is that i cut the sides lower than was marked as i thought that would look better.

Nard: Last time i checked it was about 1/2 cm forward of center but i've added cutouts to the rear since then. Its also very light but i haven't managed to get hold of a scale i can weigh it on yet.

Vids, will definitely get to them. Might have time this weekend to give it a go, haven't posted a vid to youtube before.


Took the truck out on Sun for its first decent drive. Only had the old stock wheels on (haven't glued the new ones yet) and the old shell. Bashing area of choice was a mostly flat area of dirt\small stones and a few piles of earth. I walked away about 45 mins later with a huge smile on my face :mdr:.

It handles great, it's responsive and predictable and just gives that feeling of being easy to drive. I went out with another guy who had a totally stock Flux and driving that after mine just felt like i was struggling for control all the time.

Jumping was also great. It flies rather nicely through the air with no real tendency to dive or end up on its tail and it was landing without bottoming out. Suspension might actually be a touch stiff now with the tower supports and when i put the new lower profile tires on.

Heat was also good with the 16\58 pinion\spur. Ambient was probably 20-25c (forgot to check) and the ESC and motor were about the same temp. Max temp i saw was 34 point something c on the ESC.

Slipperential was also much better than the short test runs. The 3 wave springs with the evenspacing of the overlaps really reduced the slip. I didn't have to tighten the adjustment ring much this time though it was probably harder to tell on the looser ground.

Tekin motor\ESC combo has just as much brute power as the Castle MMM system but its just so incredibly smooth running at all speeds.

Things did go much better than i expected. So many different things could have gone wrong but didn't. Nothing broke, overheated, loosened or just didn't function as expected. The only issue i had was a design one with the center diff mount. The cutout for the spur gear should have been wider so that there was a space under the slipper adjustment ring. Kept getting small stones stuck under it. Took the skid plate off which seemed to help a little but at the end of the run a stone got stuck and the mod 0.8 delrin spur stripped. I still have the metal mod 1 spur and i picked up a 13t pinion for it today that will bring the ratio close to what the mod 0.8 set up was.

Not too sure what to do about the skidplate though as it covers the cut out for the spur. I could just leave it off when running in rocky areas or maybe cut a hole in it as well. Only made from cheap mdf so i might try a couple of different ones. Do people with center diffs in buggies\truggies on a flat chassis have this problem?

Soz about the long post.

Couple of the better pics i took of the truck outdoors before it became permanently dirty :)

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0452.jpg

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0465.jpg

it does look great finished!!! thanks for sharing the pics. glad to hear the slipperential isnt causing any more problems... maybe if you ran a smaller spur and pinion then you wont have the rock issues???

Rebuilt the slipper with the mod 1 46t spur. Using a 13t pinion which doesn't leave much clearance at all between the motor mount and the slipper output. Gearing gives about 73km\hr which is close to what i had with the mod 0.8 setup. Definitely can't go to a smaller pinion without changing the motor mount.

Enlarged the cutout in the diff mount to accomodate the adjustment ring. Also thought i would try a cutout in the skid plate.

http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...t/IMG_0473.jpg

Schemed up a method to weigh it. Used my 2kg scale under each wheel with supports the same height as the scale under the other wheels. Weighed it with stock wheels and everything except battery and body. Total weight was 4922gms. I know the stock wheels are usually a touch over 300gms each so without wheels its about 3722gms. This seems about right compared to Nard's weigh in here as it doesnt use a gearbox like the FLM tranny forward.

The revised diff mount and skid plate seem to have worked. Have done a couple of short runs in fairly rocky areas without a single issue so hopefully problem solved.

Finally got around to gluing up the new tires today.

Stock vs new mounted on inner bead. Gluing on the inner bead is difficult but having two ppl makes it easier.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0480.jpg

Balanced the wheels by taking out a dogbone and counter balancing where the bottom of the wheel rested.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0482.jpg

I was going to stick on these downhill racer weights to do the balancing but they were difficult to break apart and very hard. I would have had to dremel each one to the desired weight.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0485.jpg

I ended up just using blutack as i have done in the past. It never moves and makes balancing a breeze, just break off what is needed to balance and stick on, done. If only it came in black :smile:

Wheels with blutack balancing
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...h_IMG_0490.jpg

I'm going out for a drive tomorrow and my camera woman is coming with me. So hopefully i can post a vid soon.

hmmm i may consider trying the blu tac balancing method and see whether it helps at all....

I definitely recommend doing it. It's easy to do, cheap, doesn't take very long and will make a big difference to how smooth your vehicle runs if it's wheels are out of balance.

If you hold your truck by the roll bar and spin the wheels up to a decent speed you should see and feel the vibration if the wheels are out of balance.