swerv512

iTrader: (21)

Does serpent make hardened outdrives for the rear to replace the aluminum ones?

CamLS

iTrader: (3)

The older diffs have the steel brown coloured outdrives. Are you having issues with the aluminum ones?

swerv512

iTrader: (21)

Just noticing that the aluminum outdrive slots are starting to wear a bit and I'm curious why the rear gets aluminum outdrives and cvd damper blades but the front gets harder outdrives but no blades.

CamLS

iTrader: (3)

There is an optional aluminum front spool that uses the blades and the 3.0 includes it. Unless you're running mod, you shouldn't have to much issue with the aluminum and blades. Switching to an Xray hard foam bumper (with slight hole modifications) might help a bit as well.

I find that the steel drives wear faster as the drives get worn out really fast from the metal on metal contact with the drive pins.

swerv512

iTrader: (21)

Thanks for the response. Even though you say the metal pins on metal outdrives have had more wear for you- I'm assuming this is in the rear. My fronts outdrives have little to no wear but I'm assuming the rears get more load even though I would think spool outdrives should get hammered no matter location.

corallyman

iTrader: (101)

In the rear gear diffs, the aluminum outdrives are your best option, all you need to do is to check the blades occasionally but really there is almost no problem with the aluminum outdrives is the back. The original gear diff that serpent released had metal outdrives but you have to use the large 2 metal gears in the diff because of the way they connected to each other. Instead of using the pin that the current gear diff uses, the old gear diff pieces had a squared shaped ends that connected to each other then you used a screw to screw them together. The metal gears were very stout but took forever to smooth out, (mine felt like it never did). Just use aluminum outdrives and replace the blades if they ever look bad and you'll be golden!

In the front is a different story. The current spool is a once piece coated aluminum part that uses the same blade that is used in the back. The 2.0 spool had a metal outdrive with no protection blade to wear out or brake but because it had no blade the metal pin in the cvd would wear a groove in the metal spool outdrive fairly quick so you had to replace a 15.00 or 20.00 part depending on how much usage the car had or even the motor used. Some people prefer the older style some like the newer. Older style weighed more I'm sure, and is not really available any more from what I can tell. I use the newer style and just like the rear end, look over your blades often and replace when needed.

Steve

Johnny Wishbone

iTrader: (6)

Can't argue with the above. I have actually taken the old metal spool outdrives after the pins have groved them up and have made the plunge 2mm wide to accept the stock pin cushions, these work quite well and I use them in my mod car.

If you're unsure if you need to service your front pin cushions. I find that the best way to test for this, is to have the car with its wheels on sitting on a table and just try to rotate the spur gear. If you get more than 2 teeth movement in the spur your pin cushions should be changed out. With new pin cushions doing the same test you should get about 1/2 to 1 tooth of movement on the spur gear. If you change them out and you still get excessive movement then the CV pins could be worn, but this is very rare.

CamLS

iTrader: (3)

That reminds me to bring you my outdrives for you to grind out Mine have probably around 4-5 teeth of movement before the before the drives are engaged!

Johnny Wishbone

iTrader: (6)

Excessive movement such as this will make the car have wierd feelings when accelerating, lots of wander down the straights.

swerv512

iTrader: (21)

So much good information being disseminated in this thread and rctech as a whole. Makes me want to read the other 4k posts here before I ask yet ANOTHER question, but here it goes.

Trying to figure out of my rear sway bar... With the set screws on the ends of the sway bar loose, it appears to work ok. But when I tighten the set screws only one side appear to affect the other????

Another question. I run the two set screws on the sway bar mount (near the center keeper thingy) really loose. How tight should these be?

Benzaah

iTrader: (24)

You should set up the 2 small set screws in the Cross brace to be as tight as possible as they will give your sway bar A nice even action. 1st make sure the 2 insets that sit on the bulkhead are the same. I like to use the largest ones that come in the kit. Loosen the sway bar ends and the centre locator and pivot the sway bar up and down as you evenly tighten the grub screws. You'll find a point where they bind the sway bar so you want to back of a hair from there. You want to check the whole action of the bar up and down and You'll get to a point where there will be a tiny amount of play up and down as the bar sits against the grub screws. Once you have this even you can then tighten up the centre locator and check the sway bar so its centered. You will find this locator can bind up a bit too so check again thru the whole action that it's free as it can be tweaked and not sitting straight in the locator guides. If you have the plastic holders you can give the edges off that a touch with some wet dry to smoothe it up. Now as you set up the ends check at first with only the arms attached. Obviously you want the ends to be as close to the same length as possible. I'm using the ends off the new 4wd buggy as they are much easier to adjust in height. Once the bars are free and even height you can set the bars evenly with much greater ease. I do this when they are unloaded then I will the reassemble the back end and run it like that. Playing around again once it's all assembled can consume massive amounts of time for IMO little gain. A ball end that's a bit more bound up than the other or parts that aren't exactly the same weight will effect the ability to perfectly match up the sway bars once the rear is fully assembled.

Hope that helps. Regards Benzaah.

swerv512

iTrader: (21)

super helpful! thank you. it makes alot more sense now. i feel like the only noob here asking all these questions but i appreciate the answers and trust me they do not do unheard. hopefully my questions are helping others too.

ok....
last question for the night-
i currently have never balanced my car for weight bias but i want to. i dont own any scales but am willing to get one if necessary. i'm assuming that the trick i do with the x-acto knife under both ends of the chassis, raising one end slightly, noting which wheel comes of the surface first, and adjusting the opposite end (diagonal) shock collar gets me even load on the tires without adding or subtracting weights to get an even load distribution (but not really "balanced" car)= tweak free car. I'm also assuming that a properly balanced car would result in much less shock collar adjustments than i currently have to make with my unbalanced car. after getting the car "tweak-free" using the x-acto knife trick, my ride height is all screwed up at all 4 corners so now i adjust each end's collars evenly to get as close as i can to ride height at all 4 corners.

would doing all this, and yes- i'd do the same even with scales in my possession, affect handling any different on a left to right basis compared to adding weights? hopefully this makes some sense.

Benzaah

iTrader: (24)

In 4 years running serpent I've never properly balanced a car. The cars these days are designed around the components we run which are all very similar. Heavy lipos used to unbalance the car but now motors are lighter and it balances out. So unless your running some monster battery, servo and huge lengths of extra wire and crap in the car it should be around the mark from the get go. IMO Using scales is a waste of time unless you have 4 pins the length of the shocks to lock the corners to weigh them. You can use the hudy balance pins to get it close. If you have access to a hudy tweak station this is your best bet. I will adjust the ride height to where I want it and then set the shock collars so they are the same length side by side. Then adjust the car up on the tweak station and if the car is around the balance you will find you only have to adjust the collars around 1 turn either way to untweak the car.

spacendeman

First of all ; Happy new year to all

I have a question.
Anyone already run the new diff yet in the 4.0?

I have always got a bad diff in the 3.0. Leaking, so I could not run a complete raceday with 1 diff.

Thanks!

Andy63

I will get my 4.0 next week, hopefully i can drive it next weekend! Maybe put up a video as well