Kraton My opinion on my new 8s Kraton V2 after the first run

[Slo1]

Great review brother. What are these coming with for factory gearing?

23/47 standard 30/47 speed gearing

 

[MoreFyah]

I haven’t changed the gears. AS for the speed, at first, no. Then I calibrated the ESC and absolutely. It’s way faster than a stock V1. It has more than enough power. It runs about as fast, with as much torque as my old V1 with a 800kv Castle system in it.

Thank you for the feedback! What ESC configuration did you set it to for increased speed?

 

[Xjeepguy]

Thank you for the feedback! What ESC configuration did you set it to for increased speed?

All I did was the calibration procedure. Probably due to me binding it to my good radio, it was not registering full throttle.

 

[Surchaufeur]

That some good news. They got their plastic togueter. The kraton 8s body aint too bad looking vs the outcast one

 

[kratonwatch]

Great review! My V1.5 K8S has been pretty solid, really like that truck.

Does it have the standard S905 servo in there? I have heard the older ones can actually run 8.4V and perform quite well.

I just yanked the S905 out of my rig a few nights ago and was running it on 8.4v. It was better than how it came out of the box, but still awful. thenNew servo really livened the car up

 

[RCbuzz]

I just yanked the S905 out of my rig a few nights ago and was running it on 8.4v. It was better than how it came out of the box, but still awful. thenNew servo really livened the car up

Good to know the stock S905 will run on 8.4V

 

[harith7oe]

To start out, this isn’t my first 8S Kraton. I had a V1 Kraton, and owning it was a miserable experience for me. Seemed like every time I took it out I bent or broke something. I was very hesitant on buying the V2 for that reason.

I’m so glad I didn’t listen to my gut.

I forgot just how much fun it is to drive one of these. When my V1 ran, I absolutely loved it. Handled incredibly well, jumped level, and was in a class all by itself when it came to sheer performance on this scale. This truck is very much the same, and then some. Here are some of my observations on the first run of this beast.

Performance:
It jumped high and air control is effortless. It actually outperformed my XRT in this aspect by an impressive margin. It cornered like it’s on rails, and not one single traction roll out of it. The speed is actually comparable to my V1 with the 800kv Castle combo I had in it. The new motor and ESC are on point. I have zero plans to upgrade them, which for me, (as some of you know) is very odd. The torque comes on very strong, and the throttle response is immediate, and I did not turn up the punch at all. I did turn up the brakes from the factory 25% to 50%.

Steering:
The new servo is a massive improvement over the V1 factory servo. It’s somewhat quick, it’s a full 1/5 scale size, it has loads of torque, and runs on 8.4v right out of the box. As a matter of fact, the ESC factory setting is 8.4v. What lets the steering down, as was with my V1, is the servo saver. It does ok, but needs to be a bit stiffer. The servo returns to center well, but the servo saver does not, so there’s a lot of correction to be done while steering. It’s not a dealbreaker, but I’m going to be looking for a better alternative.

Motor/ESC:
I have nothing negative to say about this combo. It’s astounding how well Arrma did with this. The ESC is extremely nice in the way it programs, since my Spektrum program box isn’t yet comparable with it. More on that later. The motor is head and shoulders above the old one. I couldn’t replace that one fast enough. I will probably never replace this setup. It’s that good. Power is immediate and very smooth. Very impressed.

Programming:
I plugged my Spektrum V2 programming box into the ESC and it gave the message “please update firmware”. That’s no biggie, out comes the laptop, downloaded the latest spectrum app, and as it turns out, my version of firmware is the latest version. So I guess they haven’t released the newest version of the firmware for the program box. Bummer. But it’s all good, it’s a cakewalk to edit settings just using the buttons on the ESC itself.

Telemetry:
I use a DX5 Pro radio, so after binding it with the stock Spektrum receiver, I found that this setup has an insane amount of telemetry data on the radio. I can check temps, read motor RPM, battery level, and a ton of other stuff. It’s awesome.

Battery Life:
Let’s face it. It’s a 30+lb. Truck with a huge motor. Comparatively, battery life will be abysmal. I got about 20 mins of hard running out of a pair of Spektrum G2 6800mah Basher series batteries. About 10 mins shy of what I get out of my XRT with the same batteries. I already expected this, because my 800kv Castle V1 was about the same. It really doesn’t bother me at all, because I usually have a couple trucks charged up and ready to run when I go out to bash, so it’s just not that big of a deal. That’s the price you pay for this level of performance.

Durability:
The elephant in the room. How did the truck hold up? As I mentioned, that was the Achilles heel of the V1, at least in my experience. The simple answer is that it did not have a single issue! First off, I was not being gentle on this thing. I was jumping pretty high, back flipping, I cartwheeled it, I landed a particularly high jump directly onto the wing, which consequently acted as a shovel and dug a chunk of dirt out of the ground almost 2” deep lol. I lawn-darted it trying to do a front flip, and I did beat it pretty hard. Absolutely nothing broke. There’s no way they didn’t change something about these A-arms. They took some direct hard impacts with zero problems. This thing is an absolute beast of a truck!

The Verdict?
This may just be my new favorite truck. Other than a better servo saver, I have zero upgrade plans. I’m actually happy with it as-is. And that feels icky.


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Man, I'm in a real pickle here. I can't decide between Kraton Roller EXB (New) and a used X-Maxx, both going for 500 bucks. The catch with the Kraton is I gotta cough up some extra cash to get it up and running. I mean, I saw your review praising how awesome that new K8 RTR is right out of the box. Should I just stash some more cash and grab the RTR to avoid the headache? But darn, I've got a serious hankering for an X-Maxx

 

[Xjeepguy]

Man, I'm in a real pickle here. I can't decide between Kraton Roller EXB (New) and a used X-Maxx, both going for 500 bucks. The catch with the Kraton is I gotta cough up some extra cash to get it up and running. I mean, I saw your review praising how awesome that new K8 RTR is right out of the box. Should I just stash some more cash and grab the RTR to avoid the headache? But darn, I've got a serious hankering for an X-Maxx

I have both. That’s a real conundrum. I love my Xmaxx (Big Chungus), but the K8 V2 is just so good. Good luck making that decision. I’d say just get both!

 

[3x9rtse]

That is awesome Xjeepguy !!! Glad you're enjoying and satisfied with it !!!

 

[RCSteve]

I bent the crap out of the top front brace today

I saw Rich Duperdash’s latest video that came out today. He was reviewing the outcast 8s rtr, he recommended putting a cheap carbon fiber sleeve from Amazon on it to stop it from bending. Watch the video at

 

[djrahbee]

I saw Rich Duperdash’s latest video that came out today. He was reviewing the outcast 8s rtr, he recommended putting a cheap carbon fiber sleeve from Amazon on it to stop it from bending. Watch the video at

I've seen some guys doing that. I had already ordered a tower to tower brace, and bent it back while I wait. But thanks anyway!

 

[3x9rtse]

So now the question , with the new upgrade ESC / motor , if one has a V1 rtr or the EXB Roller , would you buy these electronics from JRC or real HW Max 5 / 1100kv combo . Easy install with new V2 stuff to just plug and play , no soldering.

 

[djrahbee]

So now the question , with the new upgrade ESC / motor , if one has a V1 rtr or the EXB Roller , would you buy these electronics from JRC or real HW Max 5 / 1100kv combo . Easy install with new V2 stuff to just plug and play , no soldering.

I wanna try the new stuff! I already have the HW Max 5 800kv in 2 rigs.

 

[RCSteve]

So now the question , with the new upgrade ESC / motor , if one has a V1 rtr or the EXB Roller , would you buy these electronics from JRC or real HW Max 5 / 1100kv combo . Easy install with new V2 stuff to just plug and play , no soldering.

Better yet, pickup an outcast exb roller for $400 and put the new 12s max5 g2 system in and save a few bucks. Yes I will run my 5690 1250kv on 12s at least once.

 

[CrashBoom]

So now the question , with the new upgrade ESC / motor , if one has a V1 rtr or the EXB Roller , would you buy these electronics from JRC or real HW Max 5 / 1100kv combo . Easy install with new V2 stuff to just plug and play , no soldering.

A Max 5 will put out more power, but honestly the new electronics are a huge improvement - I feel like it's a pretty small crowd that would want even more power. For me, it would boil down to cost.

 

[Moirae]

I'd be tempted to change the esc but the motor could stay

 

[Ram58]

Bought mine 2 weeks ago, was absolutely loving it (more then my XRT) and all of the sudden my servo fried melting all the wires together in the receiver. My hobby shop was great, they ordered me a new servo and ESC. I'm good waiting a minute for the parts because the old ESC is still good.

 

[hobo]

nosed mine into the grass twice over the weekend from 10 ft in the air can't believe it didn't break with the weight of it amazing

 

[Xjeepguy]

nosed mine into the grass twice over the weekend from 10 ft in the air can't believe it didn't break with the weight of it amazing

That’s what I’ve been saying. My V1 broke every time I took it out. This thing is a total tank. I’ve lawn darted it, I’ve landed on one wheel from a 15’ jump at WOT, I’ve wrecked it every way you can imagine. All I e broken is a rod end. Arrma upgraded their materials, no doubt. Which is very good for peeps with a V1, because as they replace parts, the quality will be higher than before.

 

[Moirae]

V1 stock chassis

I love you guys but you're all drunk off placebo pills! To this day I've never broken an arm on my outcast v1 and you're all driving the same exb we've been driving for a year+