sooo, while I was researching and head scratching, I wanted to improve the front hinge block to allow me to keep the 10T pin tie-bar. I ended up milling a rabbet out at the same thickness as the tie bar, to allow the RPM front arms to fit without modifying them (weaken them)
I also made a tie-bar out of some steel (middle one). the aluminum ones seem to egg-out the holes pretty easily.
Took some measurements and cut some battery braces out of some thick uni CF.
Using a B44.3 stock shorty battery strap (pn- 9952) worked, but didn't fit well with the body -- the thumb catch hit pretty hard. Some B44 bule anno battery posts (pn-9706) worked nicely for the strap securing duties
soooo-- I cut up a spare unknown TC chassis and made this. Much better. Wish I could use a more convenient fastener, but the button head 4-40's are easy enough
now onto the good stuff--
as said earlier - the B2 rear arms and B44 front shafts, etc worked, but were a bit too wide.
I picked up a set of RPM Bandit arms (pn 73282) that unfortunately only are currently available in black
I did a bunch of research and ordered a few AE CVA dogbones. I tried the B6.3 rear CVA (pn-91860) -69mm Listed lenght witha 75.4 OAL. THe B74 (pn - 92193) ended up being the ideal size (74mm listed, and about 79mm OAL)- they also fit perfectly into the Custom Works 5mm rear CVA shafts (pn-7272). yeah, I hate to have anything metric on the car, but it atleast allows me to run the same size nut front & rear. Picked up some sweet blue serrated nuts form Yeah Racing (pn-0448DB)
The inner hinge blocks did need to be shortened down to fit in the new arms, by about 0.300". I milled the material off, but some careful dremel or sharp Exacto work will do it, too
yeah, ideally I need to figure out the rear hinge pins. For now the front e-clip keeps them from sliding back and they hit the tub when sliding forward. Someday
the only catch was that the 5mm shafts, of course, take metric bearings. Now, there may be a ideal hub carrier for this, but I am trying to clean out my parts bins. I reached in and grabbed some HPI RS4-2 rear carriers (pnA401). They have 2degrees of toe in them, so I had to run them 'backwards' - left on the right side & vice-versa. I think I have some with zero toe, I am jsut a little reluctant to open that NOS bag...
They do however allow for a slightly higher axle height, which helps keep dogbone plunge in the outdrives under control.
Otherwise, the RS4 carriers put the axle in just about the exact same spot as the 10T or RC10 carriers. Pretty cool
I haven't had it on the carpet yet, but I did get to shake it down at Sumter last weekend, where it put a serous hurting on a field of stock slashes that were driven by some of the "Pro" Ebuggy guys.
It was a little loose in the rear, but I think alot of that was due to the fact that the M3 Holeshots were a too hard for the cool conditions we had - M4's next time!
