Build it the way the manual says. Mine was the same way being very tight, After 1 run mine were like butter as said above. My car drove pretty good yesterday at the track. Was just a tad loose. But wow does this car steer. Gonna make a front and rear spring change and oils and a rear camber link adjustment and i think my car will be dialed. My car now is stock minus the 1.3mm 8 hole pistons, option 2 rack and I dropped the rear camber link on the rear tower to the inside bottom hole

take all that stuff back apart deppen. and shim like the book my car would not move when i build 5 packs later it was dialed.

the serpent ring and pinnons need to be shimed tight and once they break in you never touch them.

and dont give me the you know this and that i telling you hard facts after 2 years

i build 4 buggy 10 truggys 4 ebuggy shim like the book say and forget about it.

serpent ones for me.
i broke 4 kingheads ones

o man i just re shimmed and it feels good i took the diff apart and put .3 shim on the cup side and 0 shim on the crown gear side ..but now you have me worried ill just go back to the book setup not sure . i guess if the case stretches out it might happen but the mesh between them now is good

chopper is right on the shimming. I have built many 1/8 buggies and always shimmed them till the mesh was smooth. But with this car the mesh was so tight when I built it I was like no way this is right. But I took chopper's advise and built it the way the manual said, Like I said after 1 pack I could tell it got alot smoother, Now it is butter smooth

Chops you can't put a sentence together much less a diff. Sorry I could care less how many cars you've built. If it won't spin at all I'm not about to hand it off to a friend and have him put 15+ volts thru it. Your the greatest Serpent mechanic ever I'll just bow out now and do things my way.

If u don't want a experienced persons advice gtfo this thread for this wonderful car and I repeat DO NOT COME BACK, seriously the diffs are made to be broken in and when broken in are buttery and just like chops said do not have to be touched because they are the best, take the advice or leave I'm sick of this crap people are saying even after 10 people tell you something. Accept it or leave.

Sniffle

You guys are just so knowledgable.

God I miss the good ole days of the S Grid

Your funny why even post as stated many have done per inserted instructions there's a reason why they changed the sequence on the shimming. Mine was so tight that I was super worried ran for a few packs up and down the street everything turned out perfect. Why the hell would serpent purposely insert a change its called testing a fixing issues from the past

Randy,

I shimmed mine so when brand new they would have about 1/4 rotation of a high spot, and the rest would spin free. Once I drove it it did break in pretty quickly and now feels great.

The only shim recommendation you should use from the updated instruction sheet are the ones that push the pinion gear outward towards the bevel gear. This way the pinion makes maximum contact with the bevel gear. The shims on each side of the outdrives on the diff are going slightly different for each kit.

Hope this helps.

Yeah you only say sgrid because you not have to read any good advice i could give you.
I will say billy has told me that shiming it to the book is the best way to do even if the gear feel to tight dont worry about just run it.

use the lil sheet that in the manual and your ready to go. the reason they shim so tight as it saves you money in the long run but if you want do like you do every other car you be tearing it apart after 30 mins to find you need to add shims oh yeah have fun with taking the diff apart to like it was new in the kit to do it
i got a 12 gallon old nitro car the gears look fine in and i plan to run them another 12 lol.

I ran into a problem at the track Saturday that totally bummed me out.
The 4 grub screws, 2 on each side, that go into the steering blocks to hold the steering block pins in place. All 4 of mine backed out and a pin came out. I got 2 laps in before this happened and missed race day! We walked the track for an hour looking for it, turns out it was laying by my air compressor at home.

Now I didn't put loctite on those grub screws as they are metal on plastic, but they obviously do not hold without it. The manual did not call for loctite either.

I really like the design of how those screws hold the pins in the steering block, but they don't stay in without loctite as my experience shows so anyone doing the build for the first time learn from my disappointment.

I've not read of anyone else having this problem so I'm assuming others are using loctite here? Red or blue?
I've been trained that blue loctite is very hard one some plastics and can actually eat them away, and red is best for plastic. Then again these Serpents use the toughest plastic on RC cars I have seen yet.

I put some of the steering block pins on order as a backup in case it happens again.

i havent had any issues with the, backing out. In fact they screw in so tight i need good allen drivers to get them out without stripping. Did you over tighten them and strip the plastic?

i just thought i would add a little trick i have been using on the rear dust boots to keep them in place. I used a small drop of my son's pinetar on the inside of the boot edge. Helps seal to boot and provides enough grip to keep it in place until you want to remove it. In case some of you that dont know what pinetar is, its the stuff baseball players use to make the handle of the bats super grippy, Fyi

hi guys i just finished putting my serpent together . i got one question ,,,i read u guys talking about shimming the diff's . Now when i put the rear diff case together i did it by the book and the extra sheet. with the front i tried doing it by the book with three .02 shims between the pinion and the bearing . i but the cases together and tighten everything up. i tried to spin the diff outdrives and it was realy hard to spin plus u hear a grinding sound . now i took one shim out and the grinding stoped but its still alittle tight . did i do the slimming right for the front or should i go back and put the third shim back and leave it .

please pm me your answers ,,i don't come on the thread alot ..

thanks guys,,,,BRIAN

We just covered shimming yes its tight following the instructions you will be fine