ASK Cubby- Your Questions, My Pot Stirring

TRX-4 Hop-ups

Cubby,

Awesome review that you did on the Traxxas TRX-4. It got me off the fence, I am buying one for sure now.

Now that you have had plenty of time to try and break the truck, what hop-ups will I need on mine? How many parts have you broken so far? I want to make sure I have plenty of spares in my box when my truck gets here.

Thanks,

Daniel E.”

Cubby- Yo what’s up Danny, thanks for taking the time out of your day to write in. Don’t forget to send me your home mailing address for one of our sticker packs.

And yes, we’ve gotten in a LOT of time with the Traxxas TRX-4. Since we received it, the truck has had 1-6 packs run through it every single day. Sometimes crawling, sometimes general backyard bashing, sometimes playing around in the local river, and sometimes it has been roof jump city.

With that said, we just haven’t broken much. I know a lot of people are looking for its weak points, but at least with our test truck, we’ve had virtually no issues. We did break a rod end on one of the suspension links during a roof jump, and our stock servo is making some death noises, but it does still work and has seen more than its fair share of abuse.

So… right now, I simply don’t know of any glaring weak points. Like we state in the review, our unanimous choice for the first upgrade would be the steering servo, and we still stand by that. Read up on our Hitec servos reviews, pick one out, and get it on the way. Depending on how gnarly of a servo you pick out, you may also need to go with a separate BEC, but once you pop in a good servo, expect a nice improvement when picking your way through the rocks.

Oh and by the way, I’ve received multiple letters asking about that stock servo. I’ve found it just fine to use for general bashing or light crawling. It isn’t complete junk like some RTR servos, but it doesn’t have enough torque for hardcore crawling. And… one last thing, don’t forget to pick up a high quality aluminum servo horn with your new servo. The stock plastic unit worked ok for us, but once you bolt in some serious torque, I wouldn’t expect for it to live very long.

Hobby Grade

I really hope you read my letter Cubby as I have been a fan of yours for since I first discovered Big Squid RC.

I am writing in because I have a question for you, hopefully one that you have not already answered. How do I tell if my car is hobby grade or not? What is the difference between a hobby or a toy grade car?

Carl N.”

Cubby- Well Carl, there are a number of ways to tell if your rc car is truly hobby grade, or Wally World material. And while other people might have a differing opinion on the subject, they aren’t the ones writing ASK Cubby, so here is my answer.

1. Replacement parts. Here is the biggest indicator in my mind. Toy grade cars rarely have replacement parts, while on hobby grade cars, parts are often just a 5 minute drive down to your LHS to pick up.

2. Aftermarket parts. Are there any hop-up parts made specifically for your car? If so, that is a great indicator of it being hobby grade.

3. Separate electronics. Toy grade cars commonly have the receiver, steering servo, and speedo combined into just one unit. That makes them a PITA to upgrade, or to simply switch out a single piece of bad electronics. Most hobby grade cars use separate electronics.

4. Gray areas. There are a number of “hobby grade” cars that come with combined electronics, with many of these typically being in the smaller scales like 1/18th. These cars may come with combined electronics, yet have great parts availability and loads of available hop-ups.

See, you made it to the end of yet another ASK Cubby! Feel free to shoot me an email, I mean it is open 24/7/365. thecubreportrc at gmail dot com is my addy and if your letter makes the main page you’ll win a free BSRC sticker pack.

YOUR Cub Reporter