Traxxas Evo8 (1/8th buggy)
 

I got this idea when I was in a brainstorm session of potential upcoming projects. After looking in it this seemed like a perfect project to get me back into the swing of making custom r/c cars. I know a few people have made 1/8th buggies in to CORR trucks and so why not a Slayer into a buggy? The wheelbase and width are perfect for being a 1/8th buggy and very close to other 1/8th's. After doing some more research I took the plunge and bought myself a Slayer roller for $140. This will be the starting point and the base for the project which will end up being the first Traxxas 1/8th Buggy.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...601091227c.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...0601091227.jpg
This isn't going to be just a half-asked conversion by just putting some buggy tires,wing,and body on the stock Slayer. My project goal is to make it a competitor against other 1/8th buggies such as the 8ight, Rc8, 808. This means I will be tearing it apart and putting a 1/8th center diff in the middle and make a aluminum flat chassis to lower the Center of Gravity.Along with doing other modifications to help it be able to compete with the other buggies. I'm not much of a Nitro guy so I will be going the Lipo/Brushless route once the time comes to get it running. But, for now I'm going to be concentrating on getting this thing built. I know that I have a reputation for starting projects and taking along time to finish them. But I can promise I will all finish my projects..eventually.But first I have to finish this one and then I will work on my others.

Tear Down and Cleaning

I tore everything apart and got it all cleaned up and got rid of the stuff I don't need (Transmission, Chassis,Etc) Here is what is left.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...0622091155.jpg
I apologize for the quality of the pictures once I start making more major progress I will have better quality pictures.
So far since I bought the roller for $140 and sold the parts that I didn't use for $40. I have only spent $100.Throughout the build I will be keeping tabs of how much I spend and my goal is to come out under $250 for a roller. I just bought a Rc8 Center Differential. Once I have this I can come up with a chassis design along with chassis stiffeners and battery tray designs.I will be buying a piece of aluminum sheet soon for the chassis. I'm going to start with 1/8" 6061-T6 Aluminum for the first prototype chassis. 6061 is much cheaper and and should be strong enough to do testing. Once I know the exact design and know it will work I will be making a new chassis out of 7075 material just like all the other 1/8th buggies out there and I will also be getting it anodized. Over all this project looks like it will be a pretty simple project especially compared to my other projects that I'm working on.

Here is where I will be keeping tabs on how much I spend on the project:
Slayer Roller= $140-40= $100
RC8 diff and stand offs=$33.74
1/8" 6061-T6 aluminum sheet=32.29

Ethan

Looking good , but isnt this technically a Slayer ;/ ....J/K

Who says one can't make a Slayer into a 1/8th Slayer Buggy? lol

Lower cg would be a good think IMO. My e-slayer flips over alot. I do attribute alot of that to the badlands that have a ton of side bite. And I am too lazy to put the swaybar kit on... But lower cg would be a good thing. I look forward to your progress, cantilever suspension on an 1/8 buggy would be cool!

EDS

welcome to the darkside, im glad you are posting overhere

You'd be better off making it more like a rally car - Put a flat chassis on it an I always thought you;d get something like a DM1

Funny that this thread started....I was actually looking at my Revo 3.3 conversion the other night an figuring that making it into a buggy would not be that difficult.

WOW I saw this thread a few days ago at the Mobile Alabama RC track forum! So what's gonna power this thing?

LincPimp,Arct1k: Yes, a lower Cg is a must. I will be making a flat pan chassis that goes under the diffs to lower the Cg.

Semi-pro: Haha the real darkside is The Rc Zone. I didn't know this was the other darkside. But I thought the guys on here my like my projects and I have heard its a good forum.

Magman: Yea you right it really isn't going to be that hard of a conversion.

Kcaz25: Yea... Right now I live in Colorado but I'm moving to Mobile in July. As far as powering it.. I'm thinking probably a Tekin Rx8 with T8 2050 on two Reedy 5100mah 2s saddle packs. But that's still awhile down the road.

The aluminum sheet for the chassis came a couple days ago and the Rc8 center diff should be here today.

Ethan

In reality I think you will end up with something that looks just like a G3R (gorillamaxx revo) with slayer arms...

Sort of but mine will have a Rc8 center diff so the motor will be mounted much lower and the batteries will be pushed towards the center. Plus it will have buggy wheels and a body on it.

Sounds like a cool conversion. Are you going to leave the diffs stock? I'd worry about them...

Maybe it wouldn't matter with those little tires. :neutral:

you could also do a flat chassis w/a center diff motor mount combo that would be pretty sweet which is what I had envisioned

Diffs will be fine with buggy tires...

I definately recognize this from somewhere. howdy Ethan :)

Bl_Rvo:Thanks yea I was planning on keeping the diffs stock

Magman: That is what I'm doing....lol

Brushlessboy: Hmm yeaa I have put the project on quiet a few sites. Nice to see a familiar face on here =)


The Rc8 center diff still hasn't come ...but the guy who sent it said I should be getting it sometime this week *rolls eyes*

did you get a shipping notice?

Well I got a USPS statement sent to me Via email and it had a confirmation # on it. Unfortunately, the status says that all the sender has done has notified them to expect the person to send a package. I have heard though that it can stay at that status forever and the receipt can receive their package. Knowing USPS's tracking system I would believe it.So we'll see. The guy has 100% feedback on ebay so I'm sure it will come soon.

sweet, did you ever figure out what center drive's your going to use? I still say slider shafts and revo outputs in the center diff f

I do like the idea of have sliders in the center because then I really wouldn't have to worry about trying to find the right length of CVA or CVD.I could just cut the sliders to the desired length. Also that leaves a possibly of a tuning option not availible on other buggies..Motor position. If I had sliders I could move the center diff back and for to find the right wieght distrubtion for different tracks.

I do believe that CVA's would be better in the center though and possibly could be cheaper. I was looking at some Rc8 center CVA's but I'm not sure if they would work becuase of the length and also because I don't know if they would fit on the revo output shafts. If I can find some sliders for cheap I might just go that route. I'm just trying to make it as race orienated as I can and sliders don't quiet live up to that expectation. I guess I won't know if the Revo input shaft would work in the center diff unless I try it.

Edit* I just found a pair of revo sliders $10 shipped on ebay... hmmmm..

i know for a fact that they will fit. search "muggy diffs" and find the thread where lincpimp installed muggy (8th scale) diffs into his e-revo using the modified outputshafts and stock sliders.

as for the moveable motor mount, i guess it would be possible but there is no real need for it-once you set the weight bias you really wont need to change it.
what motor mount are you using?

ok well then I might just have to go with sliders.

Well I was thinking that if you wanted or needed more steering you could move it up and if you need more traction you could move it back depending on the track. I guess more practically though it would help with just figureing out the rigth weight bias.

I'm going to be using the Associated motor mount (Don't tell mike), its $23 compared to $50

the current trend for 8th scale is is all the weight as far forward as possible... so it might work to your advantage.. mikes mount may cost more but you get higher quality material and a higher quality piece... 2 things- there has got to be a reason for that low price, and 2 where do you think they got the design from (cough mike).

I'm sure Mike's quality is top notch. What can I say though.. I guess I'm just cheap. I'm 16 and work at Mcdonalds. 1/8th buggies are expensive enough. For the price I think the Associated mount will be fine. From what I have found , AE has great part quality and I think its a great deal for being half the price.

you dont even know when i say "i know how you feel" just getting through my first week of work, I started at Kfc this past thursday. Im 17..

If you ever need any cad work done let me know.w

At least you guys have jobs. I'm 18 in august and I'm broke. My state also has 15 percent unemployment and rising though...

Center Differential/Drive Shafts
Today I finally got the RC8 Center diff today. It came brand new in package and just like everything thing else 1/8th I was surprised by the size. After a few minutes of just messing around and building it I decided to try something that I had heard may work for the Center drive shafts. This is one of the only issues that I was worrying about with this project was finding some center drive shafts that would fit.I got the tip from brushlessboy16 (Who is now my new best friend:D)that I can cut down Revo axles to replace the input shafts on the center diff so that I could use sliders. I was curious and realized that I had some Revo axles on the buggy already since the Revo and Slayer use the same axles. I figured out it would actually work and started hacking away. They ended up fitting perfectly with some modification . I know that sliders don't show up in the racing dictionary but they are cheap, more "Traxxas" like, and they fix my problem of trying to find correct length Cva's that fit on the Revo diffs. Here is how I made the modifications to make the sliders work on the Rc8 Center diff.

1.First I had to shave about 1/8th inch off of the black plastic part where the axle hooks on to the sliders.

2.Then I spent about an hour and half using my hand saw to cut down the axles so that they where the same length as the Rc8 inputs.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...0702091911.jpg

3. That's about all there is to it after that I just started putting it back together.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...702091911a.jpg
(Right is stock, Center is cut-down, Left is the completed one)

4. Once you have it put all together it should look like this.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...0702091919.jpg

The diff mounts fit perfectly around the axle coupling so that the pin doesn't fall out.
And the diff in the mounts with the top plate..
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...702092009a.jpg

Over all I was very surprise how well everything to fit together.As far as shafts go I just used the Slayer Sliders off of the front of the buggy. I figured I can get a set to replace them off of ebay because the Slayer sliders fit perfectly.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...0702092011.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...2092010a-1.jpg

Ethan
Team Kassanova

Looks great. Kudos to Ben for finding that solution.

thsi guy here made a truggy out of a revo:
http://www.beatyourtruck.com/forum/s...t=ruggy&page=8
thought u might pick somethin of his thread(meaning u might find it usefull)

Thank you, I have seen that before and have read thru the whole thread. I have been looking a pictures and such from it for ideas. I found a link on there that sends you to a shoot-out that a online mag did and his truggy did poorly against the others. Then again it didn't have sway bars but it still means that I have alot of work to do to try and get this thing competitive. Cabbie did have an advantage on me... he has a mill while I just have hand tools but I do my best with what I have.

I saw the thread with cabbies truggy . That thing looked AWSOME :gasp:.

I used to do that mod when I was shearing the 1/8th hybrid revo diff outputs or you could use these with stock centres:

http://www.rc-monster.com/prodimages...haft%20web.JPG

http://www.rc-monster.com/proddetail...d=RCMdiffshaft

Rchippie: Yea it was a pretty good looking ruggy/truggy.

Arct1k: Haha well those would have saved me a couple hours.

As far as updates goes I drew up a chassis design and my original layout idea.. would have made the chassis way to wide and heavy. This is the layout I was originally going to use..
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/eds24/ercmp927.jpg
I liked how all the batteries would be mounted on the chassis so that the COG would be low but it would have made the chassis way too wide. So after brainstorming layouts I found the layout that I believe I will be using..
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...8/OOP_5048.jpg
Even though the COG is higher the batteries are closer to the center. This makes it so the higher COG doesn't matter as much. This will allow me to use stick packs and it also makes it so that my chassis can be slimmer cutting down on weight.

I'll be getting a final design done for the chassis today and hopefully cutting the chassis today to but that might have to wait till tomorrow.

Ethan
Team Kassanova

First off today I cut the Bulkheads down so that the electronics and batteries could fit in.Before I cut them though I measured how far it was from the center of the Rocker post to the shock mounting hole. Then I got out the scroll saw and hacked away at the Bulkheads.
After I got those cut I finalized the chassis drawings. And taped them to the piece of 1/8th" 6061-T6 aluminum.
After a couple hours of cutting and filing I came out with this..
For cutting aluminum for the first time andonly having hand tools I think it came out good. But after cutting it I realized the parts where the front and rear of the chassis hook on are probably too thin. Unfortunately, I don't have material to make another one so this one will have to do for now until I get some 7075.Then I will put the diffs on risers so that the front and rear can be wider. I still have some more filing ,drilling,and bending to do but here is how it should turn out and how it looks right now.
This last picture is just to give you an idea of where the batteries will be going. Obviously they aren't going to be the actual packs that I will use. I plan on using some lipo 5000mah 7.4v packs.

Today I'm going to try to finish the chassis and mount the diffs. I will probably also start drawing the battery mounts and the shocks/chassis stiffeners too. Watch for updates. Actually I created a website for projects..
www.Teamkassanova.webs.com . There you will find all my projects and the latest updates on them (I will be posting updates first on my website)

Ethan
Team Kassanova

Cool! nice updates Ethan....keep em coming!

Wow I haven't posted here in forever..moved to Mobile, Alabama and all my stuff has been in storage. Got everything out of storage and I have been able to work on this project here and their and I thought I would share.I have mounted the front end and rear ends and made the upper plates for both. I also got a battery tray mounted and to hold the batteries in it will use two velcro straps like the one in the picture. I'm very excited about how this project is turning out..:nod: and I haven't even gotten to the bodies, wheels, or tires. I will let the pictures speak for themselves..
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...8/IMG_0852.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...8/IMG_0858.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...8/IMG_0830.jpg
Next, I will be ordering a Rc8 servo saver to complete the steering and some Revo drive shafts to cut up and put in the center to link the center diff to the front diff.

Ethan

Nice work there!

I'm curious to see how this all plays out. The one thing I personally try to do on any conversion is minimize modifications to stock parts. That way, when/if something breaks, replacing it is a drop-in affair.

Brian: Thanks

Yea this project I have been trying to keep a lot of the stock parts on it. I think I have been successful where the parts will break the most.

Made a discovery today.. the stock rc8-e motor mount won't work on this because I want the motor positioned on the left side and the motor mount would put it on the right side so I will have to use a Tekno mount or a novak mount. Or I could move the battery to the right side and the motor to the left side. This would mess with the steering though since the Rc8 steering puts the servo on the right side. and I rather just use a different motor mount.