How to upgrade your RC Car

[BashTillBroken]

You may have just bought a new arrma granite or maybe a kraton but just broke it and are wondering how should I upgrade my rc car to make it even stronger?
Well first of all you need to be carefull what you upgrade because certain upgrades may weaken your rc car and obviously you don’t want to do that.
first step identify why it broke. Was it user error? or was it your just driving it on edge like it’s indestructible? These are the most common reasons why your car would break. But there are some rare cases where its actually the cars fault. I will discuss with you all on how and why you should or why you shouldn’t upgrade it

most likely if you broke your car it’s because your pushing it to hard if you want to continue doing that then you may want some upgrades here is some and why or why you shouldn’t upgrade them

Chassis: Arrma’s metal chassis’s are notorious for bending but we can prevent that by changing the stock plastic braces to aluminum or we can upgrade the chassis with something called a bash bar which is a metal bar that bolts on to your chassis making super tough. My personal favorite way to upgrade a chassis is to get a stronger chassis which you can find online. Brands I recommend are scorched rc and m2c racing.

A arms: This one is a big issue when it comes to upgrading. There are many way you can upgrade the arms i recommend upgrading to RPM racing arms due to them being flexible light and tough. If your car is a rare case where RPM is not an option then you probably have a race grade car which the manufacturer may sell different arms for the same car and this is due to the compound that there made out of normally its either a soft or hard compound im not to get in detail about that here but it’s pretty much this hot outside then (hard compound), cold outside (soft compound).
Metal arms you almost never want them they wI’ll put strain all over your car where your arms would normally absorb. The only situation you would want them is for a Shelf queen and that’s about it.

Shock Towers: now this is a tricky one but I’m going to make it simple. If it’s plastic keep it plastic and your probably not gonna have much issues with them. But if it’s metal your probable going to want to have something stronger because it’s most likely going to bend unfortunately there are little options for bracing (the only tower brace I know of is one made by m2c racing but thats all I know of at this point of time.) so your probably gonna want to upgrade that and brand i recommend are Basherqueen, M2c racing, scorched rc.

(solid axle rc cars) (not crawlers)Axles: In most cases your axle will crack from hard bashing and your going to want to upgrade this to aluminum it will be expensive but worth it.

Turnbuckles: normally they don’t break but you can upgrade them but I don’t recommend this because they normally don’t break there are upgrades but im not going to cover this because normally the stock ones are plenty durable.

Servos: we all know the stock servos are weak and have a tendency to die there are almost no downsides to upgrading your servo there are many many options out there depending on your budget but here are some brands i recommended then you decide what specs you want savox, perfect pass, eco boost. Don’t forget to set you end point it stop your servo from oversteering preventing unnecessary damage to your servo (not all remotes support endpoints) you can search how to set endpoints on YouTube for tutorials

3s line driveshafts: They break when you convert your car to brushless or are brushless they pop out of the cross joint and there aren’t many upgrades for them that are consistently working but there are some fixes you can do put heatsink over the joint or you can zip tie over the cross joint. Other members may have other solutions for this specific problem

Please leave recommendations for this thread so I can update it and make it more useful for those who need it.

 

[real_name_hidden]

You may have just bought a new arrma granite or maybe a kraton but just broke it and are wondering how should I upgrade my rc car to make it even stronger?
Well first of all you need to be carefull what you upgrade because certain upgrades may weaken your rc car and obviously you don’t want to do that.
first step identify why it broke. Was it user error? or was it your just driving it on edge like it’s indestructible? These are the most common reasons why your car would break. But there are some rare cases where its actually the cars fault. I will discuss with you all on how and why you should or why you shouldn’t upgrade it

most likely if you broke your car it’s because your pushing it to hard if you want to continue doing that then you may want some upgrades here is some and why or why you shouldn’t upgrade them

Chassis: Arrma’s metal chassis’s are notorious for bending but we can prevent that by changing the stock plastic braces to aluminum or we can upgrade the chassis with something called a bash bar which is a metal bar that bolts on to your chassis making super tough. My personal favorite way to upgrade a chassis is to get a stronger chassis which you can find online. Brands I recommend are scorched rc and m2c racing.

A arms: This one is a big issue when it comes to upgrading. There are many way you can upgrade the arms i recommend upgrading to RPM racing arms due to them being flexible light and tough. If your car is a rare case where RPM is not an option then you probably have a race grade car which the manufacturer may sell different arms for the same car and this is due to the compound that there made out of normally its either a soft or hard compound im not to get in detail about that here but it’s pretty much this hot outside then (hard compound), cold outside (soft compound).
Metal arms you almost never want them they wI’ll put strain all over your car where your arms would normally absorb. The only situation you would want them is for a Shelf queen and that’s about it.

Shock Towers: now this is a tricky one but I’m going to make it simple. If it’s plastic keep it plastic and your probably not gonna have much issues with them. But if it’s metal your probable going to want to have something stronger because it’s most likely going to bend unfortunately there are little options for bracing (the only tower brace I know of is one made by m2c racing but thats all I know of at this point of time.) so your probably gonna want to upgrade that and brand i recommend are Basherqueen, M2c racing, scorched rc.

(solid axle rc cars) (not crawlers)Axles: In most cases your axle will crack from hard bashing and your going to want to upgrade this to aluminum it will be expensive but worth it.

Turnbuckles: normally they don’t break but you can upgrade them but I don’t recommend this because they normally don’t break there are upgrades but im not going to cover this because normally the stock ones are plenty durable.


Please leave recommendations for this thread so I can update it and make it more useful for those who need it.

Servo….
The stock one doesn’t last long. Even a minor bump can make it break. Definitely worth a mention.

 

[ZooKeeper]

Tires. Depending on the car you're driving and how you drive it, some tires just don't last.

Lookin' at you Typhon 6s Katars and Infraction Hoons!

 

[BashTillBroken]

Tires. Depending on the car you're driving and how you drive it, some tires just don't last.

Lookin' at you Typhon 6s Katars and Infraction Hoons!

Wont do tires due to them not being a weakness and there being so many options

 

[Johnny b]

Servo….
The stock one doesn’t last long. Even a minor bump can make it break. Definitely worth a mention.

Great point. Might get a little more use if people would set there endpoints properly also. Surprised at the # who don't.

 

[slick2500]

Most of this seems aimed more at the 6s line of Arrma vehicles not really for all rc cars.

Wont do tires due to them not being a weakness and there being so many options

Have you seen the posts about the tires on the 3s line of vehicles especially the Senton? They blow apart if you look at them wrong.

 

[ZooKeeper]

Have you seen the posts about the tires on the 3s line of vehicles especially the Senton? They blow apart if you look at them wrong.

Can confirm. Have 3s Senton.

 

[Johnny b]

Most of this seems aimed more at the 6s line of Arrma vehicles not really for all rc cars.

Have you seen the posts about the tires on the 3s line of vehicles especially the Senton? They blow apart if you look at them wrong.

Don't I know it..45 seconds!

 

[BashTillBroken]

Most of this seems aimed more at the 6s line of Arrma vehicles not really for all rc cars.

Have you seen the posts about the tires on the 3s line of vehicles especially the Senton? They blow apart if you look at them wrong.

Yeah I know about the senton but this thread is about upgrading in general not a specific car
and the 3s line does not have many issues from what I’ve seen owning one if I missed anything let me know

 

[Hector_Fisher]

I'll try to leave some dissenting, but constructive comments.

Arms: your comments on RPM arms brings up this thread. Not all RPM arms are created equal. In many cases, stock arms are better value. This forum is a great resource for researching what people like and what they've had problems with, so if you want an arm upgrade, consider looking around the forum first.

Turnbuckles: Stock suspension links might be durable all around the arrma range, but steering slop is a big issue on the 3s line. The end links loops wear out and the pivot balls lose their shape. Upgrading to either the HR metal pivot balls or different turnbuckles is really the only way to get alot of that slop out of the 3s suspension and steering linkages.

Shock towers: They will ultimately break if you abuse the truck and have any upside down landings. Whether stock is alumium or plastic. If you're having frequent or consistent breakages or bending on the shock tower, i'd really consider that driver error. IMO, upgrading will only attempt to solve the symptoms, not the problem. Upgrading to thicker aluminum shock towers will likely mean the failure will happen somewhere else (moves the stress down to the plastic bulkhead and that will crack/break next). If you're frugal, you can try to patch things together like this.

I'll add

Receiver: If you're looking for a quality of life upgrade, consider replacing stock receivers and radios with a single radio that you can use on all of your RCs. Buy one radio and then all you need to do is buy additional receivers (which are usually pretty cheap). I use the flysky GT-5, but there are many options out there for cheaper and more expensive. Some recommend the dumboRC models as well.

Motor mounts: for the 6s line, many have said to replace the two screws on top with socket head screws or specialty screws that allow more bite from the hex driver. Due to the amount of threadlock, they are often hard to get off and the hex can strip. For the 3s line, if yours bends, upgrade to the thicker 6mm motor plate (ARA311106).

 

[BashTillBroken]

I'll try to leave some dissenting, but constructive comments.

Arms: your comments on RPM arms brings up this thread. Not all RPM arms are created equal. In many cases, stock arms are better value. This forum is a great resource for researching what people like and what they've had problems with, so if you want an arm upgrade, consider looking around the forum first.

Turnbuckles: Stock suspension links might be durable all around the arrma range, but steering slop is a big issue on the 3s line. The end links loops wear out and the pivot balls lose their shape. Upgrading to either the HR metal pivot balls or different turnbuckles is really the only way to get alot of that slop out of the 3s suspension and steering linkages.

Shock towers: They will ultimately break if you abuse the truck and have any upside down landings. Whether stock is alumium or plastic. If you're having frequent or consistent breakages or bending on the shock tower, i'd really consider that driver error. IMO, upgrading will only attempt to solve the symptoms, not the problem. Upgrading to thicker aluminum shock towers will likely mean the failure will happen somewhere else (moves the stress down to the plastic bulkhead and that will crack/break next). If you're frugal, you can try to patch things together like this.

I'll add

Receiver: If you're looking for a quality of life upgrade, consider replacing stock receivers and radios with a single radio that you can use on all of your RCs. Buy one radio and then all you need to do is buy additional receivers (which are usually pretty cheap). I use the flysky GT-5, but there are many options out there for cheaper and more expensive. Some recommend the dumboRC models as well.

Motor mounts: for the 6s line, many have said to replace the two screws on top with socket head screws or specialty screws that allow more bite from the hex driver. Due to the amount of threadlock, they are often hard to get off and the hex can strip. For the 3s line, if yours bends, upgrade to the thicker 6mm motor plate (ARA311106).

Will add this to the post tomorrow

 

[#ARRMArcfanboy4life]

Keep the car light. The heavier it gets, the more you will break and the more your car will need more upgrades.
When you add more aluminum parts, you transfer the flex/shock from the parts that were plastic and transfer them to the "weak link". If there is no weak link, it will break an upgraded parts (even if it is aluminum).