ASK Cubby – More Of Your Questions, Less Of My Answers

“Get Racing

Hey Cubby,

After your foray back into racing and seeing how ROAR rules work, Let’s say you all at BSRC got the wind up and decided to create a new RC governing body. What would you stand for and how would take on the might of ROAR?

Cheers,

Kyle C.”

Cubby- Yo hey ya Kyle, long time now hear, but glad to hear from ya again.

If BSRC were to be proclaimed overlord of rc racing, what would we stand for? I would think mostly for making things less competitive, and to reduce the cost of racing. For example, traction levels need to go wayyyyy down. High traction levels make it easy to drive a track, but also make it too easy for guys to get “dialed in”. Off-road tracks with loose surfaces would be high on our priority list. Loose tracks are harder to drive, but vastly more fun when you aren’t always worried about “having to win” every race to maintain your 20% tire sponsorship.

Stock classes would be exactly that, stock. For example, in on-road, our stock class would be bone stock RTR Vaterra (and other RTRs with similar brushed power systems). If you wanna run mod, run mod, and that would included every other motor than a sealed can brushed RTR unit.

Scale realism would also be a big priority to us. If it doesn’t look at least a bit scale, it just isn’t racing. Off-road racing needs to look a lot more like Traxxas UDRs than Mugen 1/8 truggies.

Local racing exists to sell cars and parts. As racing got more hardcore, the racers got better, but the numbers imploded. To get the numbers back up, racing has to get less serious, period. Yes, of course, there is a need for a national and world champion, but the other 99.999999% of racing needs to be more relaxed and set-up for noobies and kids, not the mouthy local hardcore guys.

“Ok Cubby time to do some work!

Hiya Cubby.

I know you have said you hate giving questions like these deep thought, but hey you were the one who signed up to do the cub report. OK BS aside, some of the best advice I have read came from the Squid, so when I want advice I’m coming to you guys.

So here’s the deal, I’m short on funds but I’m trying to re-purpose some of my RC cars, they were mostly track oriented and now I find myself trackless, so I’m re-purposing them for bashing. My last project was monsterizing my Anza Slash and it worked out great, Slash body, Big ol Trenchers, anemic 17.5 motor replaced with an old school Velineon. The thing can book its more stable and handles deep grass really well and it just looks awesome.

So I want to do the same with my Slash 4×4. Like the Anza Slash, it has an LCG chassis but here’s where your advice starts being needed. Lots of homework here so if you want to use parts of the letter for the cub report thats cool by me, but the whole things gonna be way too long!

1) Back when Brushless was new and Traxxas was the only manufacturer to sell a ready to run with a brushless power unit, graphite was king of chassis materials. When Brushless/lipo went mainstream, it seems like everyone switched back to old school aluminum for their chassis. Why? Is it actually better? Or perhaps is it cheaper/easier to manufacture so it made more sense to use when Brushless/Lipo negated the weight penalty? The reason I ask is that I have 3 choices of chassis to base my Monster Slash 4×4 on, a TRCE graphite chassis, an STRC V1 aluminum chassis or an SSC v2.5 chassis. The SSC chassis is still in production as the SSC8 which is good because the TRCE and STRC are no longer being produced. The original V1 SSC chassis won the RC soup head to head aftermarket slash 4×4 chassis shootout so its the raciest chassis and its aluminum but the STRC is thicker at 4mm vs 1/8th inch thick on the SSC. The TRCE was the sexiest and lightest of the chassis (Double deck graphite chassis with machined nickel plated magnesium parts! Even Vanquish doesn’t make stuff that light & cool looking!) Since I can choose any one of the chassis to base my rig on, for a bashing rig, which would you go with, Graphite, Aluminum or really HD Aluminum?

2) Sway Bars! Do they have a place on a basher rig or are they strictly for track use? The STRC V1 chassis has some tolerance issues with the rear sway bars which is a point against it, but if they are not really needed then that point against goes away. But I couldn’t help but notice that Pro-Line’s Pro MT 4×4 has sway bars and its mightily basher oriented. So whats the skinny on sway bars for basher rides?

3) Shocks, the more the chassis weighs (I’m looking at you STRC chassis) the more work the dampers and springs have to do. I still have the original big bore shocks that came with the Slash but nobody is using that bore size anymore, not even Traxxas! What would be the best choice for shocks for my Monster Slash 4×4? Money is an issue, but whats the point of having an awesome Monster Slash 4×4 if it cant take some serious bumps, ruts and jumps? Can Traxxas Big Bores still do he job, or am I looking at getting a set of Losi big bores or Traxxas GTRs or somebody else’s.

4) Servo, my Slash 4×4 had a trusty Savox 1258T servo which was fine when it was just pushing short course tires but now its going to be moving some big ol Badlands, will the Savox 1258T have enough grunt to move the 2.8s I’m going to be driving on? If not, whats a good (I cant afford great) servo choice for my needs? How much torque will I actually need? How much speed, If I have to choose one over the other which one is the bigger concern (I’m guessing torque but whats the point at which I have enough torque now prioritize speed).

5) Power, I’ve got the choice of an old school (non sensored) Castle Mamba Max Pro SCT 3800kv 1/10th system or a Venom Copperhead (non sensored) 4500kv system, opinions?

There that should do it.
Thanks Cubby,

Ken K.”

Cubby- Yo hey ya Ken-ster, thanks for writing in. Perhaps a bit too much Red Bull late one night? I kid, I kid, some of my readers like the short stuff, while other enjoy reading longer letters.

1. For hardcore bashing, is plastic or aluminum a better choice for a chassis? Yes, the answer is aluminum, hands down. Why would that be? Because when you freak’n totally send it, a plastic chassis can, and will, snap. Then you are done for the day, or you are wrenching a Bunch out in the middle of nowhere. For hardcore bashing, aluminum is the chassis of preference. When you go epic, you will absolutely tweak/bend/taco an aluminum chassis, but with most, you can bend them back to where at least you can drive again, with your bare hands. No, your truck won’t be “straight”, but then no hardcore bash truck is for more than a few minutes after it is cracked out of the box.

2. About sway bars and bashing, that totally depends on the truck. Some trucks are fine without them, but others may sit up really high, or come with really soft suspension, so sway bars can help keep them flatter while cornering. If you find yourself traction rolling more than you want to, anti-roll bars should be a tuning option to look into.

3. About shocks on a Traxxas Slash 4×4, I would personally run the Pro-Lines, unless I was going for pure epic-ness, than I would convert over to 1/8th scale shocks. 8th scale shocks are just soooo much heavier than 1/10th units, which helps not only for durability, but also for making it easy to get your hands on much heavier shock springs. Springs for 8th scale shocks are typically much heavier than 1/10th units, which is awesome if roof jumping is your main gig.

4. Most hobbysists don’t realize how important a good servo is, glad to hear you are going with something much faster and stronger than stock. I don’t have any first hand experience with the Savox 1258T, and as you know, I nearly always run Hitec. For your application, I would run something like the Hitec D930SW. The 930 is one of their newer D-series servos that is super fast and oh so smooth, perfect for your Slash 4×4 (assuming you are running SCT tires).

5. About power, I would go with the Castle Mamba Max Pro SCT 3800kV. IMO, the 3800 is the best motor that Castle has ever put out, with loads of low-end grunt, a very efficient design, and tons of raw wattage across the power range. Make sure to use a temp gun to check temps while you get the gear sorted out, after that, hold on and go fast!

Have a burning question? Need a dis-honest answer? Have some crazy rant that you just have to get off your chest? Email me- thecubreportrc at gmail dot com.

YOUR Cub Reporter