Billy Kelly

iTrader: (9)

dnp85

iTrader: (2)

Billy Kelly

iTrader: (9)

Billy Kelly

iTrader: (9)

Lord of Snails

Is your's leaning a bit to one side there Billy?

I built mine very carefully and mine leans slightly at the back, which would seem something is out of align but I used set squares on the bulkhead when building, and a digital calipers to ensure shock lengths and turnbuckles were all equal....

So it makes no sense that it leans. Shocks were all built the same and with due care, same level of oil, same compression.

I did a bit of a ghetto fix for it by a combination of adjustments with droop screw, turnbuckle and shock length (rear) to make sure the adjustment was spread out rather than hiking a turnbuckle shorter by 5mm or something extreme.

Bit wierd, just seems like yours is doing that too in the photos or is it just the camera angle?

Billy Kelly

iTrader: (9)

JennyC6

This car looks to be quite a fun one. MY local track actually does allow the car from what I can tell(We run on USVTA F1 rules which have a max permitted wheelbase of 285mm and no rules explicitly mandating a pancar type rear suspension).

As I'm a fairly new racer(Been running hobbygrade in the back garden since 2002-2003 or so, never actually entered a race at all, and I've only gotten maybe 4-6 hours of track time on the off-road track with a B4.2) I don't expect to win anytime soon, but at the price they're selling these for and with the scale realism these cars offer I couldn't resist. If nothing else I can always throw something made of 100% pure lunacy in the car and make it do speedruns on the road out front :rofl:

I do have a couple Qs about it, though.

1: Anyone have any rough idea of the max ESC dimensions these cars can use? I've noticed that the space alotted isn't exactly voluminous and a few of you have had to rethink your ESC choices because of that. I'm planning on using a Mamba X(I already have a Castle Link for my scale truck's Mamba Micro X ESC and I'm gonna run a Mamba X on my B4.2 as well as whatever ends up inheriting the Sidewinder 3 I have in the B4.2 currently), but if that won't fit then I'm kind of at a loss as to what to run. And I really don't want to have to buy a second programming toolkit for one car. I can't use another Mamba Micro X because my track insists on blinky mode for F1 and that ESC doesn't support it(It's maybe an inch square and half an inch thick, it'd fit like a dream and probably be ok for a 25.5t in an F1 car even though technically it'd be overloaded).

2: My track mandates 25.5t blinky for powertrain(Another reason I'm looking at a Mamba X instead of another Micro X, as the latter isn't a 'blinky' ESC). What sort of gearing works well on these cars with 25.5 motors? I've seen some pinions as large as 30t in use in this thread already.

3: Has anyone thought about grabbing a ball diff from the arse end of a belt drive TC, a couple of pulleys, a dremel, and re-engineering the driveline that way? I've noticed a few people commenting on the chonky 32p gearing in the back end of the thing and that was the first thing that came to my mind as an improvement, replace all those gears with a single belt.

4: Has anyone pondered FPV on theirs? I'm planning on replacing the driver's helmet with one of those 800-1000tvl FPV cameras and...i don't know where, but hiding a VTx and a decent antenna under the bodywork somewhere. Dunno if I'll ever try to compete from FPV but I'm certainly going to have the option and I'm certainly going to drive from FPV on free practice/bash sessions!

5: How's the runtime on them? I'm...incredibly twitchy about that and I often err towards shoving the most mAh I can fit in the battery tray into my electrics. My B4.2 runs 2s 7400mAh 90C SMC hardcase lipos, just to put it into perspective. I can drive that thing at race pace for damn near 40 minutes before it gets too soft to clear doubles(And probably another 10 if I push it all the way to LVC). And my scaler runs two 5000mAh packs in parallel for 10,000mAh total(Literally 3+ hours of battery life on that thing while running head/tail/brake lights, a 600mW FPV transmitter, an 800tvl FPV cam, all while pulling 20-70 pounds through grass and mud hahaha). I get the feeling using one of those SMC packs in the Evo would be...less than ideal, given it's already a portly car before a battery even goes in. What sorta packs are you guys running? Any consideration for aircraft softpacks since they tend to be much lighter? I can't imagine I'll need too much of a C-rating on a 25.5t motor so they should be fine there.

GT CRUSING

robk

iTrader: (22)

Belt Fxg by Calvin

JennyC6

Any build details on it, part numbers, custom fabwork needed, et-al? I imagine that conversion greatly improves straightline performance on these things with 25.5 and 21.5 blinky setups like what I'm gonna have to run when I'm racing mine.

CanadianRCs

1. The mamba X will definitely not fit where they recommend putting it. You MIGHT be able to squeeze in under the upper deck if you a run a shorty pack though.

2. I've been up to a 31t on 21.5 and it's still painfully slow. Not the electronics fault although that was my initial suspicion. The problem arises of heat issues as there is nowhere to put a cooling fan too.

3. Not that I have heard of. I doubt it would work and at that point, just buy a real F1 car from associated or Xray. Save your time and your money.

4. Maybe...? there is hardly any space between the shell and the car due to the upper deck having a high cg. The components are very cramped as it is.

5. I mean, you could run whatever. I roll with the Gens Ace 60c 4200mah and 5000mah shorties I sell they do fine. Plenty of runtime for sure seeing as races are usually 5 mins

JennyC6

Prolly will, then, because with these cars being a bit on the portly side anyway running one of the 7400mah SMC fullsize hardcase lipos I use in my B4.2 would make it an absolute dog. Those packs are heavy AF, I think 270 grams or so. Was even considering breaking my own rules and running a softpack lipo(I normally won't touch these with a stolen 10' pole because I'm paranoid about a crash damaging them and only ever run hardcase lipos). Aircraft batteries weigh bugger all and the ruleset my track goes by doesn't require roar certification, only that the OCV of a fully charged pack be 8.4v, so I may even run an aircraft battery. All the more reason to look into a belt drive conversion, which someone has done as a picture of one was posted just two posts above this one. I'll have to toy around with my car when I get it running. We're running 25.5t, so less current draw than a 21.5t, so I may have a little more wiggle room. Plus if I can mod it to get rid of those chonky 32p final drive gears I can free up a lot of power for actually moving the car along. That alone is likely 50% of why ya'll find the car to be so slow in a straight line(The rest being its portly curb weight).

It's been done because someone posted a picture of one with a belt mod done to it.

If I wanted a twitchy, difficult to drive, delicate pancar based F1 that literally won't survive five minutes in my driveway before being totally destroyed I would not have bought an FGX Evo in the first place. Instead I would have found an F103 with a classic F1 bodyshell and bought that. If I got a pancar based F1 I would have to run it on the track, they're just too low slung and too delicate for running anywhere else, but this car I can run at home if I so desire.

And I probably will, the idea of swapping the 25.5t blinky powertrain for something in the neighborhood of 7,700kV and throwing 3s in the battery tray to do speedruns out in front of the house is very appealing indeed. With the downforce these cars produce it would be nice and planted on the buttery smooth road out front, and since I live way out in the sticks where rush hour is 3 cars per hour, I don't have to worry too much about other traffic. And it would be interesting to see just how fast one of these things will go if you really poke it with a stick...

Might also try to track down the Kyosho car just for running out front. There's supposedly a nitro version and, as I'm a HUGE nitro nut, I almost need to have one in my stash. Can't race it on a carpet indoor track but that doesn't matter, it's nitro, it's F1, and the road in front of my house is buttery smooth + seldom travelled.

If I put my ESC in the battery tray behind a shorty pack I can mount the VTX where 3Racing intends the ESC to mount. That would only leave the antenna itself...may not have anywhere for a cloverleaf but given I wouldn't be driving the car very far from me, that there'd be nothing to penetrate with the signal, and that the VTx can push as much as 800mW if I set it to do so(One I have on order is good for 25, 200, 500, 800mW), I think it'd be fine with one of the long skinny antennae tucked away under the bodywork somewhere. What I'd lose in not being able to use an ideal antenna I can make up for by brute-forcing transmission power.

Heh. I've had people chuckle at me for shoving 7400mAh packs into my B4.2, but then I can run at race pace for nearly 40 minutes straight before it sags enough that I can't clear doubles. If a 4200-5000mAh shorty is enough to run one of these well beyond a race I'll probably just grab the lightest one I can find that has 4mm bullet connectors available on it(or can have them retrofitted, I'm perfectly comfortable with snipping a connector off and replacing it). Either that or I'll track down a 2s aircraft lipo, since these cars are a bit overweight and every gram saved will help.

On that note, I've been pondering weight savings on the car. I might just attack it with a dremel, slot the chassis a bit to try to shave weight. Repurpose an old hot-rodder's trick, one used many a time on goldpan RC10 buggies. Pulling some 200 grams is a tall order but ya never know. Just hope I don't get it too thin and spindley, but with how overbuilt the car is, I bet I can pull a lot of excess meat out of it and not have it break in half or flex too much.

Megatron328

If anyone is looking for one, I have a built kit FGX with the full independent suspension I'm looking to sell. Pm me.

GT CRUSING

GT CRUSING