EB Buggy with Portals - Build Thread

bbaxter51

bbaxter51

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2010
Location
Stillwater, MN
Since I've got 2 little girls at home under the age of 2, the real garage time is almost non-existant, so I needed something to keep me from going crazy. This is my narrowed EB buggy build with portal axles.

Specs are as follows:
Axial SCX10 frame and trans.
Castle Sidewinder SV2 ESC that's been hacked and waterproofed.
Integy 55t motor
Axial SE2 servo
Gmade R1 Portal axles
MIP front drive shaft
Punisher 150mm rear shaft
Custom EB body that's been narrowed and dovetailed.
Custom cage, bumpers and sliders loosely modeled after the Twisted Customs Bronco build.
Axial Ripsaw tires on stock Wraith wheels. (need to ditch the wheels, the offset sucks.)

And here's the pics of the progress.

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While I was gathering parts and deciding which way I wanted to go with the cage work, I was getting impatient so I picked up a Honcho body to wheel with while I worked all the bugs out. You can see the ground clearance difference between the wraith and the SCX10 with the portals, it's a solid inch higher at the diffs. Both rigs are on 2.2's.

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Well, the honcho body lasted about a 2 weeks before I started in on the tube work and cutting up the narrowed EB body. My good friend HULK (back in MN) did all the tube work for me since he's built about 200 of these custom crawlers. :eek:
All the tube is 3/16" solid rod, mig welded and ground smooth with a dremel. A lot of guys use brake line but that shit folds like a cheap suit on a hard roll and this is not built to be babied.

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I also took this opportunity to clean up the wiring so it doesn't look like a rats nest.

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Also, my parents were in town all last week, so while my mom watched the kid, my dad and I took to the garage to clean it up and build a nice bench complete with a laptop and 26" monitor. 8' long should do the trick, also made some room to throw the window AC unit in the garage window for this summer when it's hot as shit out there, I can still avoid the family and get some garage time. :lol:

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Oh, and a buddy hooked me up with some motivation for the real build too. Until then, it's wall art.

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Well, the bumpers are done and the tube work is wrapped up. Anyone painted a body before that wants to give some lessons on how to make it not look like shit? My wife has all sorts of paint brushes if that helps. :lol:

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Well, I got the cage and body painted up tonight. The cage got a nice couple coats of Black and the body got Coral Blue. I'm hoping it will look good once I get a coat of silver over the coral and peel the film off. I'm heading to blowing rock this weekend with the family so I'd like to have this finished to chase the kid around with. As long as the paint dries, I should be good to go!

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Before I put the esc back in, I chopped off the plastic cover and gave it a couple dips in the can of Plasti Dip. Once that dried, I went around the heat sink with an exacto knife. It's not as pretty anymore but it is waterproof now.

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Then I took it for a drive around the rocks on the lake shore and it drove submerged. Waterproofing was a success - until an hour later. :rolleyes: Turns out I forgot to waterproof my receiver. :laughing:

Since the rig was down again, I decided to upgrade the rear and put the rear steer kit on.

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Real buggy plans are a "hitman" 4 seat chassis from M&M fab with EB skins on it. I talked to this guy for a while at the Superlift park during the Gorilla run last month and really liked the stance. He's got a nice feature article in the current issue of Crawl.
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Sweet RC build. I like it. Good job.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 
I've been driving this rig a lot around the house. I needed a different tx/rx so I went budget and bought a FlySky from some kid that mods them with firmware upgrades. It was $50 and does all the things the $200 controllers do for what I need so I went with it.

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From there I went and found my front servo was junk too, so I bought a pair of my favorite HiTech 645 servos. Sure there are betters out there but for $25 each and a Castle BEC, I've been very happy with them. After Getting the Tx configured, I made a video :)

 
Since I robbed the TSL's off my Wraith, I wanted another scale looking 2.2 tire and the TSL's are too soft for my 8lb pig of a bronco. I opted for the RC4wd Rock Krushers that are supposed to be like the BFG Krawlers and are my favorite from a looks perspective. I also got a set of G-Made 2.2 beadlocks. At $12 a pair, they're hard to beat, I really like them. The Rock Krushers get really bad reviews from the sub-culture kids but i do this because it's fun and looks go a long way in r/c for a guy like me. Expecting the worse, I actually really like them in the dirt and love them in the rocks.

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They grab so well in the rocks, It broke my front output shaft on my trans. I need to learn to be careful in the rocks with rear steer. The traction is way better than before since you can put it where you want it. With a 55t motor and 10t pinion it's got lots of grunt. I've got a new upgraded trans in the mail that should be here next week. Anyone have a Wraith interior they dont want? I'd like to finish out the inside of this pig since it's all open now.


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On another note, I've been really loving the Jims Garage buggies for a few years now, so I'm going to try a full tuber Modeled after Cole Shirley's Jims buggy. I'm looking for a cheap set of axles so if anyone has a set of t-rex's let me know.
 
I have a set of RC4WD's that look like Dana 60's, let me know if you're interested. I bought them used off e-bay for a scale build but then found the Wraith so I don't need them.
 
Well, I finally got the Robinson Gear for my trans since I've snapped 3 stock outputs now. This thing is BEEF! We're back in action, which is good, because I was out playing with my Wraith yesterday and the 4 year old neighbor girl came by and asked if she could play with my "truck". Sure, how much damage could a 4 year old do, right? Well, in less than 5 min she broke a front knuckle and stripped my $50 servo. There's about $70 worth of damage I didn't need...

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bbaxter51 said:
Well, I finally got the Robinson Gear for my trans since I've snapped 3 stock outputs now. This thing is BEEF! We're back in action, which is good, because I was out playing with my Wraith yesterday and the 4 year old neighbor girl came by and asked if she could play with my "truck". Sure, how much damage could a 4 year old do, right? Well, in less than 5 min she broke a front knuckle and stripped my $50 servo. There's about $70 worth of damage I didn't need...

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Yep. You got all metal gears in there now? Having that metal gear destroyed my idler gear in about 10 minutes. :(
 
hscrugby said:
Yep. You got all metal gears in there now? Having that metal gear destroyed my idler gear in about 10 minutes. :(
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Hmmm, I sure don't. I guess I'll keep replacing and upgrading the weak links as they show themselves. I've got a spare trans close by at all times waiting for another part to grenade.
 
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