I saw this at HTU today and decided to buy one. This is the Limited Edition Animus 18MT with the aluminum upgrade rear dogbones and rear outdrives along with the aluminum center driveshaft. It also has LED headlights and brake lights.

I already have the Animus 18SC and have spare parts. This is the same chasis and parts so it made sense. This also makes a good matchup for racing with my son as well. 18SC vs. 18MT.

So here is a quick shot of the box. Not expecting much different from my other Animus except I am a few parts ahead on upgrades. I will unpack it check it out, break in the motor and take it for a spin. I will let you guys know how it goes. Pretty happy to finally have two RC's.

More pics...

I took it out for a run tonight and the LED's came in very handy. Was easy to see the truck in the dark and made for some nice night time driving. The speed/performance is pretty much the same as my other Animus. Get's up to about 20-25 MPH. The upgraded parts separately are about $55 so nice value with this limited edition.

Think I might have a bad rear diff? I have only run it for maybe a total of 3 packs. I can spin one of the front wheels and the other front wheel spins the opposite direction. Spin one of the back wheels and the other wheel does not spin and I hear a clicking noise.

Any thoughts? Take it back to HTU?

Yeah, sounds to me like a stripped diff. Helion will probably send you new replacement parts if you contact their customer service.

Well looks like the diff is ok. Turns out it was a loose pinion gear. Back up and running with some threadlock.

I am getting some significant friction on the drive shaft with the battery. Any ideas on how to alleviate this? Here is a picture where you can see the wear marks caused by the drive shaft and the battery touching.



and on the battery...

Hmm. Let's see. Do you run other batts that could be smaller and fit better into the chassis? How much real estate do you have around the battery compartment if you were to get out a dremel? How is the battery held down? Does the current battery tie-down allow movement of the battery in any way? What is the battery case in the area causing the problem made out of? If plastic, look at maybe sanding it down? I don't have a truck anything like it,so let me know what works and what doesn't.

RC13

RcGuy13 - Thanks for the reply. You can see from this pic here that options are limited.



I thought of another battery that may fit better and what a great excuse to add a lipo to my collection. Will have to look at some next time I visit the LHS.

Investigating further, the battery strap seems to push the battery in towards the drive shaft. I was thinking some mod might need to be applied? Maybe flip the battery around?

The manual mentions moving the foam to the back as an alternate 'front' battery install. This moves weight forward but might help?