2nd Fury

[Skaxis]

About a month or so ago the BLS motor died. It was cogging like crazy and making gawd-awful noises. Arrma promptly replaced it but since the stock BLS motor died in under a dozen battery packs, and the motor in my Mega Fury died in literally 3 packs, my trust of Arrma motors is basically non-existent. I picked up a sensorless Speed Passion 3500 Kv motor over Labor day weekend on special. The installation was delayed because I needed to replace my solder gun. I think the tip is just worn but I wanted a soldering station which was about $100 so that required some financial planning. The Weller WES51 arrived the other day and now I have soldered up and installed the Speed Passion motor into the Fury BLS.

This Fury BLS is bone stock except now for the motor. I'll try to get some video of it running and post it soon.

 

[Unusual RC]

And?
How did it run?

Weller is one of the best brands for solder goods

 

[Skaxis]

And?
How did it run?

Weller is one of the best brands for solder goods

I tried to get a video of it running but that was a fail. My son's little buddy (4th grader) drove it for a full 8.4v NiMh battery pack. Using the BLS ESC, he couldn't quite keep up with my son who was driving his Losi XXX-SCT and stock Dynamite Fuze sensorless ESC/motor combination. To be fair, the Losi was running on a 35c LiPo so it wasn't quite a fair comparison. I'll see if I can get my wife to video me driving it.

I think the Castle Sidwinder SCT combo has more performance than this motor with the BLS ESC but this motor was only like $30 so it's well worth it IMHO.

 

[Skaxis]

Going to try and get the loaner Fury up to a new track we discovered near Dallas. Haven't made it yet because it's a bit of a drive but while I was setting up some clay compound tires on a new set of rims, I noticed this little issue:

This loaner has maybe a dozen battery packs on it. My guess is that my son's best buddy is who did this damage to it. They were bashing the SCTs pretty good one weekend.

So it obviously needs to be replaced. This newer version of the Fury, even though it's a BLS, has much more plastic than my circa 2013 Fury Mega. I opted to get this as a replacement:

It also comes with a plastic lower plate, a plastic upper plate, and a battery retention bar. I only needed the lower plate so I have some spares now if I ever need them.

This repair/upgrade took all of 10 minutes to accomplish. 8 screws total. Easy peasy.

 

[Unusual RC]

I tried to get a video of it running but that was a fail. My son's little buddy (4th grader) drove it for a full 8.4v NiMh battery pack. Using the BLS ESC, he couldn't quite keep up with my son who was driving his Losi XXX-SCT and stock Dynamite Fuze sensorless ESC/motor combination. To be fair, the Losi was running on a 35c LiPo so it wasn't quite a fair comparison. I'll see if I can get my wife to video me driving it.

I think the Castle Sidwinder SCT combo has more performance than this motor with the BLS ESC but this motor was only like $30 so it's well worth it IMHO.

The BLS ESC only has 45Amps continues max, where the Losi has 60A if I am not mistaken.
And of course ni-mh compared with a lipo has a lot less punch/initial acceleration.

My experience with a handful stock MEGA 15T motors is bad.
However the BLX motor and ESC for the 1/10 scalers is very, very good!
I have not experience with the BLS motor, but this motor has an open design (not water/splash/dust proof)
My idea is that killed your motor.

 

[Skaxis]

It's been over a week since I sent the BLS ESC (and motor) back to Hobbico for warranty check. I grew tired of waiting. I decided to install a Castle Sidewinder 3 instead. My other Fury has a Sidewinder SCT and my son's Losi Ten SCTE has a Mamba Max Pro so having another Castle ESC made sense. I can also use the programming card to dial back the power when this loaner is in the hands of a novice. Which honestly was the biggest reason I did the upgrade. If the Arrma ESC had that ability I would have just waited for the warranty replacement. I had to grind down the aft most capacitor strap tab in order for the Sidewinder to fit but my Dremel made quick work of it.

I have not experience with the BLS motor, but this motor has an open design (not water/splash/dust proof)
My idea is that killed your motor.

I wasn't using the Arrma motor. I am using a Speed Passion sensorless motor.

 

[Skaxis]

Follow-up: I finally got the replacement ESC from Hobbico. They send a new BLX 85 ESC and a new BLS 4000Kv motor. I'm confident that the motor was fine but hey, two new parts. I gotta say their warranty support is second to none. Only once did they give me trouble over a breakage and that was on a $7 camber arm so I'm not going to complain. I will leave the Sidewinder in the BLS though. I like that I can dial back the power on it which is something I can't do on the Arrma ESC.

 

[Skaxis]

It's been a while but I finally got some video footage of the Fury BLS running. They built a new park in my neighborhood with a gravel walking track. It's pretty slippy with the stock tires. The truck has been on loan to a co-worker for 5 weeks. He didn't drive it a single time in all those weeks. :/ I think the battery might need a little conditioning or it might just not be as fast as I remember.

 

[Skaxis]

Last weekend my son went to his buddies house and we brought the SCTs. They had a blast of course but as I was cleaning off the Fury I immediately noticed that the front-left shock had popped a cap. Oil was everywhere. So, completely sick and tired of these junky BLS shocks (I've never popped a cap on my v2013 Fury) I went ahead and installed the Integy MSR11 front shocks that I've had in my bits box awaiting the day for Integy to finally get the 100mm rears in blue back in stock. It's been like a year so I'm giving up. On the front of the BLS they go.

So I snatched up a pair of Integy "Off Road" 100mm shocks model C25946 in silver off eBay for $25. They come pre-built which is nice I suppose but I tore them down and used some Associated Green Slime on the o-rings. I filled them with 600 CST oil and installed them onto the Fury.

I used some blue thread lock on the piston shaft to keep it from backing out from the lower shock mount. Use just enough to coat the valley in the threads. Wipe off any excess before you thread the shock mount on. Also, the shock shaft came with a nut threaded onto the shaft just above the shock mount. I removed this which ever-so-slightly shortened the overall shock length since Fury shocks are 98mm not the 100mm that these Integey's are.

I found that the best way to fill these shocks is a bit different than most diaphragm shocks. Fill them with the piston about 1/2 way up. Then pull it all the way back out slowly. Push it back in slowly and add oil as the piston top is about to extend beyond the oil level. By the end you'll have the piston all the way in but full of oil.

Then carefully pry the diaphragm out of the cap.

After coating with Green Slime, I put the diaphragm into the shock body. By going in at an angle I was able to displace some oil.

Using this method I ended up bleeding most of the excess oil out around the diaphragm. You can see the threads are totally covered in oil in the image below.

I used a 2mm longer than stock screw in the lower shock mount point. The stock screw will probably work fine. I think that the Integy ball is a bit thicker than stock so the added screw length afforded just a bit more security. Mounted up they look like this:

It does drive me bonkers that the front and rear shocks don't match.

Driving Impressions:

The shock action of the MSR11's is smooth but a bit soft. This is probably because they are rock crawler shocks. A stiffer spring would likely fix that issue but fewer/smaller damper piston holes might also be a good idea. The MSR11's aren't built quite as rugged as the "Off Road" shocks. Most notably is the partial plastic shock cap. That said the Off Road shocks are beefy and almost all metal. The spring is progressive. Not my favorite but it is what it is and springs are easy enough to change out. These stick a bit even after I used the Green Slime on the o-rings. Neither are race level shocks but that doesn't matter. This is a basher and they are more than up to that task. My guess is that fitted on all 4 corners, the MSR11's would provide a more supple ride, especially over smooth or semi-smooth driving surfaces where as the Off Road shocks would handle big jumps and stand up to hard use better. I'll likely find the matching Off Road shocks for the front of this rig unless a set of the 100mm MSR11's in blue turn up before that.