ASK Cub Reporter, 11.09.2012, Version- Your Questions Come In, I Dodge Them

Hello BSRC,
I was thinking about putting sway bars on my Traxxas E-Revo but I am not clear on what the benefits will be. Will it just turn better?
You guys rock,
Brent B.

Cubby– Hey now Brent, thanks for the email, be sure and shoot Brian your snail mail so he can hook you up with some stickers. And yes, we do rock.

Before you cut the check and buy sway bars, how about you answer a couple of questions.
1. Does your truck traction roll a lot?
2. Do you find your truck hard to control because it leans too much?

If the answer is yes to both questions, then cut the check. Just fyi, I recommend that you buy the Tekno RC sway bar kit for the E-Revo. It has a very reasonable price and is easy to mount up.

Stock, the E-Revo drives like a marshmallow, the suspension is super soft making the truck lean like crazy whenever it is forced to shift weight from one side to the other. Sway bars will help reduce all the excessive lean, helping to keep the truck flatter when it shifts weight. Typically, in an E-Revo application, sway bars make the truck easier to drive overall, easier to drive in a straight line, and will help reduce traction rolling. If you do a lot of high speed driving on surfaces with a lot of grip sway bars are the way to go.

But… if you are a hardcore off-road type you may be better off without the addition of the sway bars. For instance, if you drive in areas with large dirt clods, you enjoy climbing over rocks, or most of your speeds are quite slow, the addition of sway bars might very well hamper your truck instead of improve it. To boil it down, you need to look at how you drive your truck to determine if your cash is going to be well spent on sway bars or not.

I just bought an ECX Torments and I saw you just did a review on it. I am looking for more speed, what would you recommend to make it faster?
Jeremy S.

Cubby– What’s up Jeremy and thanks for reading BigSquidRC.

Like mentioned in the review of the ECX Torment the first easy upgrade for speed is using a 2S Lipo instead of the stock 6 cell Ni-MH battery. The Lipo gives it 5 more MPH on the top end, but even more importantly it gives it more yank on the low end and in the mid-range. Double jumps that are impossible to clear with stock power are easily made simply by popping in a decent 2S Lipo pack, and overall the truck is much more fun to drive. Look at our Lipo shootouts for an idea on which brand to buy.

However, if you are looking for serious “blow your hair back” yank you’ll need to ditch the stock speedo and brushed motor. We have not driven the updated Torment with brushless power, but I have personally driven the original Torment (that came with smaller drive-shafts) on BL power many, many, manyyyy times. To keep the powertrain alive I’d recommend sticking to 2S Lipo packs and to moderate kv brushless motors. With a decent brushless system on 2S Lipo you’ll have enough power to triple the doubles and have much more power from top to bottom. On top of that, you should be able to gear for at least another 10 mph on top before getting into any temp issues.

Speaking of which… do not overheat a new brushless motor. When you pick up your new BL system pick up a temp gauge and some spare pinions at the same time. Start small on the pinions and work your way up monitoring the temps as you go. 140 degrees F (and below) is really optimal, and you never want to see your motor hit over 160.

Have fun, go fast, and enjoy that Torment my friend, we sure like ours around the office.

That’s it for this week, submit your questions, suggestions, complaints, and whatever else you can think up to Cubby at BigSquidRC dot com. If your email makes the front page not only will you instantly be envied by all your friends, but you’ll also get some sweet BigSquidRC stickers. Also… if I pick yours as letter of the month you’ll win one of our uber t-shirts.

YOUR Cub Reporter