Fireteam “Not another Fireteam build” Build

[RCbuzz]

All the needed fluids and shims showed up from Horizon/Tower so I got to work on the diffs. I’m definitely not an expert at building diffs, but I’ll show you what I used and where.

A pack of these little bad boys is basically enough to do two diffs.
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The order of installation
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Basically one of the bigger supplied shims behind the planetary, and then two behind the satellite gear on one side, and one on the other. I cannot take credit for this set up, I saw an old video from Rich Duperbash where he was setting his up this way so I figured I’d give it a go.

These little peanuts were used to shim the crown gear over once the diff was reinstalled into the bulkhead. The front diff required three, the rear I haven’t gotten to reinstall yet.
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Upon disassemble I found one of the driveshaft pins on the driver’s side rear sheared off. Not really sure when this happened, no damage to the cup, but this rig probably only has 3- battery packs through it. Luckily I have spares.
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Thank you @Matt05 this is great!

Especially interesting to see that two of the planetary gears needed a second shim to be trued up.

 

[Matt05]

On the rear diff, I took back out the extra shims behind the satellite gears.

On the center diff I replaced fluid with a mix of 200k and 500k and reused the stock shims behind the satellite gears. Behind the planetary gears I used one of the larger shims included in the Mugen kit.

While I was in there I replaced the bearings on all the diffs with some from a fast eddys kit. Otherwise it is all back together and ready to rip again.

 

[Matt05]

Got a run out of it with the diffs rebuilt and the servo saver mods and it’s handling a lot better. Getting close to happy with where it’s at. Unfortunately I blew the tread off one of my OG Kaiju wheels, but I believe I have spares. I’m pretty happy with how they perform, the added offset and they are only like $52 for all four.

When I get a chance I’m going to try and think of something to support the center of the body. If it rolls over on it’s lid, the body compresses down and forced the front over the front bumper, so it’d be nice to add some center support and not have that issue.

 

[joshjosh]

Got a run out of it with the diffs rebuilt and the servo saver mods and it’s handling a lot better. Getting close to happy with where it’s at. Unfortunately I blew the tread off one of my OG Kaiju wheels, but I believe I have spares. I’m pretty happy with how they perform, the added offset and they are only like $52 for all four.

View attachment 314563

When I get a chance I’m going to try and think of something to support the center of the body. If it rolls over on its lid, the body compresses down and forced the front over the front bumper, so it’d be nice to add some center support and not have that issue.

I found changing out the hubs for Kraton hubs added a great deal of drivability. I no longer slow down during turns from fear of it rolling over. I let off the throttle a little to get traction at the front tires, but it certainly stopped the turtling I was experiencing. I have them listed on my build thread, but it’s the Treal Kraton hubs. They are cheaper than the HR model, and add a third bearing. You will also need the Kraton axles, but everything else swaps over.

 

[Matt05]

I found changing out the hubs for Kraton hubs added a great deal of drivability. I no longer slow down during turns from fear of it rolling over. I let off the throttle a little to get traction at the front tires, but it certainly stopped the turtling I was experiencing. I have them listed on my build thread, but it’s the Treal Kraton hubs. They are cheaper than the HR model, and add a third bearing. You will also need the Kraton axles, but everything else swaps over.

I’ve got all of the factory pieces to swap it over to Kraton width but with the added offset of the Kaiju wheels, it is very planted. If I end up going to backflips, I’ll reassess to see if I want to run the Kraton hubs.

I’ve never really had a problem with the truck wanting to side flip too much, prior to the diff rebuild/servo saver shimming it just seemed squirrelly.

 

[Matt05]

Tried it out with Backflips for the first time last weekend and they are probably my favorite tire so far. I like the set from the Kaiju, but I’m not sure they can handle the TP 4070 and last as long as I’d like. Another nice benefit of the Kaiju wheels is they are a little more offset than Backflips. So I decided to go ahead and order the needed parts (I used the ones I had on another secret squirrel build) to widen this build to the Kraton/Outcast width.

It doesn’t really appear that noticeable but it adds right around 1/2” per side. I’m sure someone knows the exact mm but whatever.

Fireteam on left, Kraton on right

Fireteam

Kraton

 

[Matt05]

Little update on this one. I stripped another of the double set screw servo horns, so I swapped on a 25T Spektrum horn from the newer Arrmas. I was always pretty happy with the power of the TP4070 1700kv, but it would get a little warm, so I caved and got a set of fans from Radiocontrolpower.com Now I just have to resist the urge to gear it up.

…yes I am ashamed of how dirty it is.

 

[joshjosh]

Little update on this one. I stripped another of the double set screw servo horns, so I swapped on a 25T Spektrum horn from the newer Arrmas. I was always pretty happy with the power of the TP4070 1700kv, but it would get a little warm, so I caved and got a set of fans from Radiocontrolpower.com Now I just have to resist the urge to gear it up.

…yes I am ashamed of how dirty it is.

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I’m going to guess you were using the GPM “7075” servo arm, which I have stripped so many of myself. Everything GPM I use seems to be made of pot metal, no idea why Perfect Pass carries them.

For anyone else who’s motor is running hot, or they’re breaking fan blades. Ditch the 10mm thick fan and go with 20mm. More robust and push more air. I just swapped them into the same mount that had the 40x10mm fans that I always broke.
I use these, and they keep even my old HW 1/5 motor chilly.
40x20mm fan

 

[Matt05]

I’m going to guess you were using the GPM “7075” servo arm, which I have stripped so many of myself. Everything GPM I use seems to be made of pot metal, no idea why Perfect Pass carries them.

For anyone else who’s motor is running hot, or they’re breaking fan blades. Ditch the 10mm thick fan and go with 20mm. More robust and push more air. I just swapped them into the same mount that had the 40x10mm fans that I always broke.
I use these, and they keep even my old HW 1/5 motor chilly.
40x20mm fan
View attachment 351895

No, I was using the horn that comes with the Nimod servo. As for the fans, they are 40x28.

The radiocontrolpower set up I feel is reasonably priced at $70 considering you get two fans, a switch, a mount, covers and it all wired up. I like tinkering and building stuff as much as anybody, but making a nice little fan assembly is where I tap out.

 

[joshjosh]

No, I was using the horn that comes with the Nimod servo. As for the fans, they are 40x28.

The radiocontrolpower set up I feel is reasonably priced at $70 considering you get two fans, a switch, a mount, covers and it all wired up. I like tinkering and building stuff as much as anybody, but making a nice little fan assembly is where I tap out.

Oh no! I wonder if the Nimod and GPM arms are made of the same material

I saw the RCP setup, but man $70 is a tough pill to swallow, when I can spend $10 on fans, and $10-20 on a mount.

The switch is interesting, but I could never think of a time I wouldn’t want them running, unless it was for a brief second while I made an adjustment. Aside from that, I just saw it as another point of failure, with little added benefit.

 

[slick2500]

Oh no! I wonder if the Nimod and GPM arms are made of the same material

I saw the RCP setup, but man $70 is a tough pill to swallow, when I can spend $10 on fans, and $10-20 on a mount.

The switch is interesting, but I could never think of a time I wouldn’t want them running, unless it was for a brief second while I made an adjustment. Aside from that, I just saw it as another point of failure, with little added benefit.

We have a thread someplace on here where I found those fans that RCP uses on Digikey, they were like $4 or $5 each. Him and Gamechanger make a killing on their fan setups as they might have $15-20 into each fan they sell.

 

[joshjosh]

We have a thread someplace on here where I found those fans that RCP uses on Digikey, they were like $4 or $5 each. Him and Gamechanger make a killing on their fan setups as they might have $15-20 into each fan they sell.

Right?! Those fans I linked are for ESC powered 40x20 dual ball bearings for under $11. No reason they should be charging that much. I had enough to retrofit a few motor and ESC’s, then when I saw the total I just laughed. $50 for an ESC fan is laughable, I just couldn’t. I remove hundreds of dollars worth of fans from my cart, and retrofitted multiple vehicles for <$100.

 

[Matt05]

We have a thread someplace on here where I found those fans that RCP uses on Digikey, they were like $4 or $5 each. Him and Gamechanger make a killing on their fan setups as they might have $15-20 into each fan they sell.

Oh I agree, they are making money, but when I don’t have to order everything separate and piece it together, it’s worth it to me.

 

[slick2500]

Oh I agree, they are making money, but when I don’t have to order everything separate and piece it together, it’s worth it to me.

I was half tempted to buy a bunch of crap and make my own brand of rc fans lol.

 

[joshjosh]

Oh I agree, they are making money, but when I don’t have to order everything separate and piece it together, it’s worth it to me.

I’m not trying to discredit you in any way, but what do you mean? It’s like 4 pieces. They literally got the cheapest fan motor mount they could find and stuck some $5 fans on it and sold it for a premium.

 

[Matt05]

I’m not trying to discredit you in any way, but what do you mean? It’s like 4 pieces. They literally got the cheapest fan motor mount they could find and stuck some $5 fans on it and sold it for a premium.

So I order the fans, then I order the mounts, then I order the covers, then I order the different connectors, then I order the screws, then I spend time soldering and crimping pieces together… yeah I’d rather just order a set and slap them on. Not discrediting you, but I work out of town 5 days a week and I’m just home on the weekends. If I get time to tinker, I’m going to build something funner than a fan set up.

My opinion is probably very different than most, but when you don’t have a ton of time to spend on a hobby, time is definitely money.

I was half tempted to buy a bunch of crap and make my own brand of rc fans lol.

Hell yeah! If you’re passionate enough about fan set ups to make them in your free time, and have the patience to deal with complaining customers, I think a guy could make a killing selling them.

 

[joshjosh]

So I order the fans, then I order the mounts, then I order the covers, then I order the different connectors, then I order the screws, then I spend time soldering and crimping pieces together… yeah I’d rather just order a set and slap them on. Not discrediting you, but I work out of town 5 days a week and I’m just home on the weekends. If I get time to tinker, I’m going to build something funner than a fan set up.

My opinion is probably very different than most, but when you don’t have a ton of time to spend on a hobby, time is definitely money.



Hell yeah! If you’re passionate enough about fan set ups to make them in your free time, and have the patience to deal with complaining customers, I think a guy could make a killing selling them.

Can’t really argue with time is money, but also that money is money. This is pretty much the same thing for half the price. DKKY Fans. My mount came with screws and covers. I just replaced the 10mm fans that came with it. I spent $30 and came up with a solution so good I can run WoT for a full pack and my motor is not hot at all. Still have 2x 40x10mm fans I can play with too.

If you’re set on buying it altogether, I’d save myself some money and get DKKY Fans instead.

That being said, I absolutely hate the cheap mounts they use. If RCP would’ve used a good quality mount I probably would’ve ponied up.