CE and Worlds car build log

[BooGTS]

So I had a question that turned into a build thread in the electronics section, but that wasn't really the right place for that. I wish I could find some pictures of the CE when I first got it back when I was 8 years old. I had wanted a little toy car that the body popped up when you hit a button on the controller. Instead my dad got me an RC10. Which I know, you're saying I must be spoiled, but no. My dad did this as a present for himself to build, we didn't do it together, as I realize now is half the point of getting a kit for your kid - building it together. Once it was given to me at Christmas, he was done with it. Enough e-therapy. I enjoyed it and somewhat beat it up for years after that. Finally at some point it did what a lot of these did and went back into the box and into the basement. Except at some point I had taken it apart and lost most of the transmission pieces, as I found out earlier this year. Onto the (re)build!

I didn't take a pic of it in condition I left it as a 14 year old, but here it is all torn down. The white nylon pieces are segregated since I did the UV lamp / peroxide trick with them. That seemed to have worked well:

The spur gear was not whitened and shows the before / after.

Starting to come together...with some NOS Andy's parts I bought.

Rebuilt the shocks

I dived into the world of modern electronics and got it a 13.5T motor and lipo batteries with the help of this forum. In looking for parts I stumbled across a relatively cheap and complete Worlds Car and bought that.

CE Running!

Only to find that the 3/16" CVA's (since I lost the original dogbones apparently) are short and the axles pop out. So instead of putting spacers in the shocks, I thought that some limiting straps might be fun:

And finally I painted up a body using an airbrush and parma key lime pearl:

[BooGTS]

Well, got both cars running, but this weekend the CE lunched it's original idle and diff gears. I ordered the dhawk aluminum gears to see if that will help. Wondering if trying to run vintage cars will work out for me in the end...new motors have too much power maybe? I also got the tuning box for the ESC to see if I can make it so even if I don't feather the throttle well enough, it won't go to 100% power off the bat. I did have the slipper clutch tuned in - even to the point of slipping too much maybe - it wouldn't lift the front end when hitting the throttle holding the rear wheels down.

I'm also wondering if the 9.5T motor I got to convert my vintage HPI RS4 would be better for the old RC10s since from what I've read about low turn motors, they have less torque.

For the World's car, I took it to the local track and got schooled - on servo savers and clay. With the Traxxas Anaconda tires - the only non-pavement tires I have for the 1/4" rear axles it has, it was on ice. I slammed into the wall and broke my new but cheap $13 hitec servo. Sigh. Ordered two servo savers, one for each car, and will get Pro-line electron tires for the JC 5 spoke tires I ordered. It also managed to blow out both front shocks and make the front A-arms all nice and shiny.

[TRX-1-3]

I think the limiting straps are a neat solution. This idea has crossed my mind in the past, but too lazy to try it out. Not sure how effective they will be vs. internal shock limiters. But sound in theory.

[Lonestar]

Cool-looking cars and congrats for bringing them back to life.

regarding grenading stealth trannies - it has been investigated many times for the past few years now, and most of us are pretty clear that the original stealth is more than fine with some pretty darn warm modern brushless mills already. I've raced mine with an 8.5 (it was in a B1M, granted, but same difference) for three races last carpet season and although I had to rebuild the diff (which is expected) there was no damage whatsoever. If you chewed up an idler gear so quickly, either something was not running true (worn out case, defect, sloppy bearings, worn out idler gear, ...) or something overheated (slipper, diff), or the slipper was not setup at all.

check out this vid, it will help - not with a stealth, but still very applicable.



regarding steering - if you are going to do anything more than burn outs in the driveway, ditch the $13 cheapie servos, and put $50 in a proper piece of gear. And you don't need a servo saver, really, it only adds noise in the system. If you do want one, pick a Kimbrough above all things. Nothing else will do.

Enjoy your cars in good health!

[BooGTS]

There was likely just a bunch of "miles" on those gears. I would run pack after pack in this thing when I was a kid. I remember back in the day that I likely didn't have the slipper completely right since it would do a reverse to forward burnout. That couldn't have been good for anything, electrical or mechanical. 20 years or getting brittle on worn gears was the last straw.

For the steering servo, too late, ha. The Worlds car got the Savox with a saver and the CE has an old Futaba with a saver. Springs are pretty stiff, hopefully not to much play. With my level of driving skill at the track, likely doesn't matter much

[BooGTS]

Going to try out these guys in the trans. Should make an interesting sound too...

[NomadRacer]

Serious business you have there! Could you provide links to the idler and diff gear for us?

[BooGTS]

For sure, idler: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aluminum-Idler-Gear-For-Team-Associated-RC10-Worlds-Car-6569-26T-DR-920107/191354255401?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Diff: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aluminum-Stealth-Gear-For-Team-Associated-RC10-6580-45T-Dhawk-Racing-DR-920046/201064466398?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Everything I've bought from them has been top notch in terms of machining quality. No burrs on these gears, nor dirt or debris. Takes about a month to get here though.

[Lonestar]

It irks me when I don't even get some kind of acknowledgement for trying to help (explanations and video above...) but I will try to save you again:

Going to try out these guys in the trans. Should make an interesting sound too...
RC10 gears.jpg

I'm sorry to be so blunt but this is wrong, wrong, wrong. your diff balls which are metal will rotate in a blingy metal part instead of the stock plastic one, which is self-lubricating, inexpensive, has served generations of racers and is track-proof with even the hottest mod motors from bitd, which is still hotter than most normal casual racers can handle today. what you have built is a great setup for the shelf and a bad setup for running. You will have a gritty diff in no time and your transmission will wear out stupid fast.

I know traxxas has made useless alloy "hopups" mainstream with their Tmaxxes, where people basically had four times the value of the kit in purple/blue/red alloy parts, but please don't do that to an RC10. The stock diff gear is a tried-and-trued design that has won many world championship. No piece of $19.99 cheap alloy can even come close to it in terms of reliability and performance. Please ditch that piece of metal back to ebay and use the stock parts.

Let me repeat again: USE THE STOCK PARTS. AE made and possibly still makes THE best transmissions in the world. Don't put aftermarket junk in there, you will not get anything good out of this unless you are using very specific parts from very specific racing-focus companies, for very specific purposes. If you are not getting the results you want with the stock part, the assembly is wrong - not the stock design. I understand people hate to read stuff like this, but believe me and believe whole generations of racers who are on this site, more alloy on a racecar design (be it raced or not...) is just defying the purpose. bling is for the shelf - not for running.

If I sound pissed - it's because I am

Hope this helps!

Paul

[NomadRacer]

Very well said Paul.

[BooGTS]

Why be pissed? Heck even the AE guy who designed and spec'ed the trans would look at this and say "whatever..." I'm sure.

Parts are chosen mostly for cost in terms of production - and for weight in terms of racing. In this case, plastic wins on both fronts. If they were given a cost-no-option criteria for local track use and bashing who knows what they would have done.

Its assembled right, new bearings. The added battery power, brushless power, floating diff and possibility of the slipper being not finely tunable enough (any softer on the spring and the car will move 5mph at full throttle though) are working against the decades old plastic parts. The gears are brittle and the plastic housing deflects. The amount of self lubricating that age of plastic is still doing is questionable. Add the shock load of landing and the binding that the drivetrain sees when that happens and this doesn't even surprise me.

I've got a vintage 2.2l engine that is capable of 550whp (rated for 220 crank hp) doing all the things that the engineers couldn't do for various reasons. We've had some of the retired guys come by our meets and they are just floored by the modifications we've done and are congratulatory about it. They say, "if you had asked, I would have said, will never work, you're crazy, but here you are".

So I hear ya, but sometimes stock isn't best. Oh, and I'm an ex transmission engineer - dual clutches that shift in a thousandth of a second - know a thing or two about gear loading and lubrication. And yeah, there are some concerns since you'll have a steel ball inside the aluminum but the aluminum is softer than the balls, but the aluminum is still harder than the plastic, which doesn't show significant signs of wear after a decent amount of use. Maybe the gear teeth will wear - how fast and how bad I don't know. It is certainly not the first use of metal gears inside an R/C car though, in any price range.

That said, maybe this wont work at all, its a grand experiment and it'll be fun to see what happens - and fun is why I'm here. You get to learn along with me - for free. Now if you say the decades of experience already includes doing just this from this vendor with this grade of alloy, motor, etc, and it doesn't work, then whoops. But if they haven't, then that experience doesn't include trying this does it?

(p.s. all said in a very neutral "were all on the same team here" way, no intent to start a fight or lessen anything that was said - it may be completely dead on, I just want to make sure)

[Lonestar]

I'm just trying to help and share 30+yrs or experience with RC and 20 years of racing more or less competitively.

1- we are not talking full size cars, here, just toy cars. The full size example you are quoting doesn't apply here, because the cost of a full-size, no-holds-barred 1:1 race car is dozens more than the "equivalent" run-off-the-mill car from the dealership. Toy cars are different - yes there are a few prototype parts and exotic materials here and there, but the cost of a worlds-winning rig is twice the cost of the kit version you and I can buy, because the tech is similar, as the user can afford the top of the line stuff already. There are a few exceptions, like the '89 and '91 AE cars whichwere basically hand made and custom-built, but eventually this tech trickles down to market the year after at little if noincremental cost. This is not the case for 1:1 race cars - the stuff they run remains race stuff only.

2- You asked for help about how to make it work - we provided you with info about how to make it work. The cornerstone is, prep it properly, assemble it properly, use the proper fluids, set it up right and it works. I provided some info and linked a video from a multiple world champion (Jared Tebo) who explains how to do it... with stock parts. I understand the will to use fancy alloy parts, but believe me when I tell you the stock setup in this case IS the best setup, maybe not from a cosmetics standpoint, but from a performance/reliability standpoint it sure is. No DHawk/HammanGumman part ever won any race - EVER. This is the RC equivalent of stanced cars... looks "good" (ahem) at the Taco Bell monthly parking lot meeting, but makes racers and car enthusiasts cringe. If you goal is to do a show car (we do here, too!!!), Dhawk stuff is ok (it's actually far from being the best, but let's ignore this for the sake of the argument), if you want to run the thing, believe us and put the stock parts back on the car. Your transmission will work better, faster, longer.

3- Basic mechanics: you don't want metal diff balls to rotate against a metall diff ring while being (not...) captured in a metal main diff gear. It will stick, rub, wear, vibrate, heat up, whatever mechanically wrong thing you want it to do, it will do it. I understand this is an experiment, and this is an experiment that has been tried by quite a few of us here, and it fails every time. Proper (toy car) race rigs ( ) use plastic diff ball main gears, because this is the only one that works. Yes, it will melt if not setup properly... but the solution to this is not a metal gear. Just like the solution to a recurrently blown fuse in an electric system is not a bigger fuse... The solution is proper assembly, lubrication, setup etc... (see above)

The reason why it upsets me is that this is typically the stuff that has killed the hobby. Noob goes to the track, he gets spanked and/or his car breaks. Instead of listening to seasoned racers, he goes online, empties the bank account buying all kind of alloy crap which he fits to his ride, comes back to the track, gets spanked just the same or even worse, and never come back out of frustration. This is the Traxxas hopup story again and again...

I'm genuinely trying to help by being a bit provocative here... believe us - ditch the dhawk stuff, use proper fluids and assembly, and the stealh diff is the best in the business, it truly is a landmark of RC.

best

Paul

[klavy69]

not trying to be anti hopup here but metal gears aren't the answer for these stealth boxes. You can go ahead and try it but give it a few runs and when you tear it up do your wallet a favor and go back to the original AE parts. They will last longer and be better on all the other moving parts but then again its your time in maintenance and parts replacement. Just a heads up You'll pry end up needing another stealth case next time though. The only thing I've ever run different after all the tore up aftermarket trannys in my gts, rc10s and 10ts is maybe an occasional alloy idler but they don't last any longer than stock and wear out the topshaft quicker.

I will give you this though about your alloy gear set there...makes for a cool look. If I was a 'displayer' of stuff I'd set that gearbox just like that up on my desk because they scream precision cool to me

Let us know how it works out.

Todd

[broodenburg]

not trying to be anti hopup here but metal gears aren't the answer for these stealth boxes. You can go ahead and try it but give it a few runs and when you tear it up do your wallet a favor and go back to the original AE parts. They will last longer and be better on all the other moving parts but then again its your time in maintenance and parts replacement. Just a heads up You'll pry end up needing another stealth case next time though. The only thing I've ever run different after all the tore up aftermarket trannys in my gts, rc10s and 10ts is maybe an occasional alloy idler but they don't last any longer than stock and wear out the topshaft quicker.

I will give you this though about your alloy gear set there...makes for a cool look. If I was a 'displayer' of stuff I'd set that gearbox just like that up on my desk because they scream precision cool to me

Let us know how it works out.

Todd

so true... I've ran a alloy idler (think it was from Robinson racing) in my T3 and this ate up my topshaft. The debris in the transcase then destroyed the other gears in no time. Since then I've switched back to stock AE parts and all is well.

[BooGTS]

We shall see - I put the idler gear in last night with the thrashed diff gear and...it worked great. Did all kinds of horrible things to it and it didn't strip out. Is it tearing up the mainshaft? Dunno, I'm going to run a few more packs through it and do a teardown. The aluminum shouldn't be wearing the mainshaft, maybe the idler is wearing? Even this part will be fun to see for me - so even an utter failure will be money well spent for me. Yeah, I'm weird. The $10 for the idler I already got back with the the shameless bashing run I did yesterday - that did strip out the plastic idler when I did the same thing (asphalt run, no slipping on dirt or grass that might save the drivetrain from stress)

As far as giving up:
I'm bringing an ancient, 6+ generation old car to the track. The last time I went I got the "oh, isn't that cute a gold pan car" treatment, ha. Getting spanked by some 40 year old who has raced 2x a week for the past 10 years and has $1000 into a B6d and its electronics is going to happen. What will make me leave the hobby is being bored. I can only drive the car around the track (poorly) so many times. If I wanted to be fast and (as much as can be) reliable, I would have bought a B6 - which in a way is AE saying 6x in the past that their stock parts /design aren't the best an modifying them

Anyway, nice discussion. I hadn't seen this done, run, thread made about it in my perusing since I got back into this (doesn't mean it doesn't exist) so here it is.

edit: thanks for all the help / videos. In the 1:1 cars I've made thousands of reply to help posts and don't really look for a thanks so I don't think about it, but if its your thing, here is another Thank You. I already bought the gears before any of that was posted, so I'm going to just try them out at this point, me doing it isn't giving your advice the middle finger. Worst case I'll have to find another trans case - actually have one, but its pink... I've paid for those gears in the time I've spent typing the replies...since I'm at work.

It keeps me from doing more expensive projects too. Example: Putting a 340 and a 4 spd in this over turkey day break - or at least making progress on the swap. Was a 273/auto. Not much experimenting, all 68 vintage stuff (Barracuda is a 67). Much simpler than my turbo 4cyl car. Less power from more than twice the displacement too, ha.