Outcast My Outcast Log

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slpcrf450x

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Arrma RC's
I am creating this thread as a build log of sorts to keep track of modifications, failures, ideas, etc. Not to mention I'm going crazy waiting for some better weather to melt all the snow. I'll use the term "build" loosely because I'm not intending do different electronics unless the stock ones crap out on me. I will try to give credit where credit is due but I will apologize in advance if I miss someone. Hopefully people can find the information here useful in some way.

I bought my Outcast close to Thanksgiving 2016, I had to do some searching to find one in stock. I had next to no experience with RC's. My buddy has a slash that I have driven a couple of times, but other than that a cheap heli and a cheap drone was about it. It was a steep learning curve to jump right into the Outcast. Of course I had just bought some 3s batteries so I threw 2 in for its first run on 6s! Besides being completely amazed by the thing the first 3 packs were ran through it without incident. Held up well, through some improvised jumps and attempted backlfips (doesn't work very well with the 12 tooth pinion.) I even ran into a post head on at near full speed.

Fast forward to December. On the fourth pack through the pinion slipped on the motor shaft, the 12 tooth pinion is small enough that the spur gear damaged the set screw. Not a huge deal but I had to break the dremel out to re-form the hex hole in the set screw in order to get it out.


While I was fixing the pinion I moved the shocks to the most vertical position on the shock towers front and rear and stiffened the springs as much as possible.

Sixth pack through it was cold outside and I landed directly on the rear wing from a pretty big jump, snapped the rear wing right off. Broke both wing mounts in 2 places each. Ordered the RPM mounts and got a backup from Arrma. While waiting for the wing mounts I tore it down to do some maintenance. Pulled the screws out for the center diff and plastic came with the screws. It appeared that the plastic mount in the center diff was stripped at the factory. With some research I found the motor mount mod on this forum and ordered a motor mount to cut in half.
Work done:
Diffs, 20k rear 100k center 30k front.
Tekno orange springs
Straighten both front shock shafts
Straighten front shock tower
Did the DIY servo mount mentioned in the sticky section.
Rear lower hinge pins for the suspension were pretty rusty. Cleaned it up with emery cloth and oiled.
Made the new center diff mount out of a motor mount.
Installed the RPM rear wing mount.
Installed the 16 tooth pinion, the pinion was not perfectly concentric.
Also ground down the screws sticking up into the battery tray, seen here:


While test fitting the new center diff mount it seemed like the surface where the bearing seats wasn't quite deep enough. If you do this be careful not to go too deep or your diff housing will make contact with the mount.


If you want to use the stock plastic piece you have to either modify it or narrow the re-purposed motor mount.
 
Since that last teardown I have ran a few packs through.
Failures included:
More bent front shock shafts (twice)
Broke a tooth off of my 16 tooth pinion.
Broke the front bumper off.
Rear diff input bearing went out.


Spare parts ordered:
Spare front shocks off of ebay, to have a set with good shafts ready to go. (I have since found the tekno shocks, https://arrmaforum.com/threads/replacement-kraton-shocks.3072/)
Spare diffs from ebay.
Robinson racing pinions
Dusty Motors cover
Spare tires and wheels found here (https://arrmaforum.com/threads/good-tire-option-and-cheap.2444/)
Assorted small pieces and fluids

Work done:
Complete tear down and clean.
Led lights switched
Replace pinion
Replaced rear diff small input bearing
Build spare diffs
Replaced steering rack bushings with bearings
Added a castle fan to the motor
Center skid plate out of Kydex
Front and rear T-bone bumpers

Flex sealed the body
Thin layer of silicone to surfaces that contact the chassis to prevent dirt getting between them and wearing on the chassis.

During my diff building I measured shim thicknesses between TD shims and the Mugen kit. Documented here https://arrmaforum.com/threads/diff-shim-heads-up.3303/











 
Yesterday my tekno shims came in. Part # TKR1222. These are the external shim for the diffs used to set clearance between the input gear and the ring gear. The rear of my outcast seems fine but in the front I added 2 shims in addition to the stock shim.

Today my tekno shocks got here! Part #s TKR6028 (front) and TKR6029 (rear). I put the rear shocks together and I'm waiting for more fluid to do the fronts. I used some 800cst fluid in the rears but there are more holes in the piston than the arrma pistons, so I might end up using thicker fluid. Before I can put them on I'm waiting for my shock standoffs to get here.




 
Last edited:
A little more messing around today. Found just enough 1000cst fluid to do the fronts. These seem to be very nice shocks. They don't have the coated shafts like the option shock kit does but I guess we will see how they hold up. Right now I'm waiting for the bubbles in the fronts...:yawn:
 
Since that last teardown I have ran a few packs through.
Failures included:
More bent front shock shafts (twice)
Broke a tooth off of my 16 tooth pinion.
Broke the front bumper off.
Rear diff input bearing went out.


Spare parts ordered:
Spare front shocks off of ebay, to have a set with good shafts ready to go. (I have since found the tekno shocks, https://arrmaforum.com/threads/replacement-kraton-shocks.3072/)
Spare diffs from ebay.
Robinson racing pinions
Dusty Motors cover
Spare tires and wheels found here (https://arrmaforum.com/threads/good-tire-option-and-cheap.2444/)
Assorted small pieces and fluids

Work done:
Complete tear down and clean.
Led lights switched
Replace pinion
Replaced rear diff small input bearing
Build spare diffs
Replaced steering rack bushings with bearings
Added a castle fan to the motor
Center skid plate out of Kydex
Front and rear T-bone bumpers

Flex sealed the body
Thin layer of silicone to surfaces that contact the chassis to prevent dirt getting between them and wearing on the chassis.

During my diff building I measured shim thicknesses between TD shims and the Mugen kit. Documented here https://arrmaforum.com/threads/diff-shim-heads-up.3303/











Sweet buil log !! How does the fan on the motor go? Is it easy to install ??
 
Sweet buil log !! How does the fan on the motor go? Is it easy to install ??
It is very easy. It just zip ties on and blows air over the existing fins. Maybe not the best choice if you have a motor with a smooth outside though.
 
Got some goodies in the mail.
-Bearings from Avid, now I have what's left of my fast eddy kit and some of these to try as my stock bearings fail.
-Hot racing front chassis brace. You can barely see it in the picture.
-Also finally put my Dusty Motors cover on.


Also found one of my wheels was cracked. I guess I will try gluing it and see how it holds up unless anyone has any suggestions.

 
It has been warm for a while here finally melting most of the snow and ice, still muddy but not too bad. I was drilling my shock towers for the tekno shock standoffs yesterday and I couldn't resist running a pack through it. I tried to stay out of the mud, but still got it muddy enough to have to spray it off. No failures and my glued wheel held up.
So after all the mud I decided to do some rear mud guards. Here is what I came up with this morning, you can see I got it a little hot with the heat gun around the screws but other than that they turned out nice.



I used pretty short screws in the lower arm but still had to increase the depth of the holes a bit in order to keep the screws from bottoming out.
 
Which Dusty Motors cover is that?
Is there one specifically designed for the Outcast?
 
Got some heat shrink off Amazon big enough to do my soft case batteries. I got the idea somewhere off YouTube but I couldn't find the video again.

Also got my smc 7200mAh 3s batteries in the mail yesterday. There was a discussion on another thread here on how to make them fit. Most people simply push on the tab to unclip the battery lid but I decided to take the dremel and just make the notch a couple mm taller to accommodate the batteries.

 
So I went to the skate park this afternoon and ran a couple packs through. It was about 70 degrees outside so not too hot but still the warmest weather I've run it in. I forgot it was spring break so there were more kids than I was expecting at the skate park. I only got a few big jumps in and then I gave up on the skate park and started running in the grass. After about 10 minutes it just quit. I could tell it wasn't the LVC so I shot the motor temp and even with my little fan it was up in the 170's. I let it cool down and tried to take it easy but this happened again after a bit. Brought it home and set up a jump on the shorter grass and was still getting hot. It shut down 2 more times. I am running a 14 tooth pinion, this shouldn't be too much for it should it?

https://arrmaforum.com/threads/motor-temp-issue.3394/

I just read through this whole thread. Good info but a bummer that the heat goes up so much with all the guards in place. I'm sure me running in the grass didn't help anything with extra load on it.
 
On a positive note there were no major failures. Normal body damage, had to glue a couple spots on the tires. The steering servo has more play now, it may not be long before it gives up.
 
Switch to 12 tooth standard pinion.
I will give that a shot. It will just be somewhat disappointing if I can't run a little more than the 12. The 14 is nice as far as handling goes because it is still capable of backflips on smallish jumps. There's some people that run around on the 16 all the time. Maybe before I try the 12 I will try to run it without the dusty motors cover.
 
We do standing backflips with the 12 tooth, at least we did with the stock arrma one before it cracked. The new traxxas one I got keeps slipping on the shaft so I can't do backflips right now, but even my 7 1/2 year old son could pull off standing backflips. I can't imagine needing anymore speed than that personally.
 
We do standing backflips with the 12 tooth, at least we did with the stock arrma one before it cracked. The new traxxas one I got keeps slipping on the shaft so I can't do backflips right now, but even my 7 1/2 year old son could pull off standing backflips. I can't imagine needing anymore speed than that personally.
Best I could get it to do was to flip over on its top with the 12 tooth. I have yet to see a video that states they are running a 12 tooth pinion and doing standing back-flips. Right now it will do it with the 14 tooth with relative ease, without being as violent as the 16 tooth.

I ran a partial pack through it this after noon without my dusty motors cover and it made a huge difference. Motor was 140 after running hard for probably 20 minutes.
I did notice that the pillow ball on one side was partially pulled out. I will look at that later to see if it is stripped in the A-arm or if it just needs threaded back in.
 
Best I could get it to do was to flip over on its top with the 12 tooth. I have yet to see a video that states they are running a 12 tooth pinion and doing standing back-flips. Right now it will do it with the 14 tooth with relative ease, without being as violent as the 16 tooth.

I ran a partial pack through it this after noon without my dusty motors cover and it made a huge difference. Motor was 140 after running hard for probably 20 minutes.
I did notice that the pillow ball on one side was partially pulled out. I will look at that later to see if it is stripped in the A-arm or if it just needs threaded back in.

I wouldn't think you'd have a problem with the 14T pinion. A bunch of guys are running the 16T in warm southern weather with no major issues on temps reported. I've heard of the Dusty Motor covers impeding air flow a bit. That coupled with the dirt guards and high sidewalls probably are enough to cause your heat issues.

I have a 14T RR installed on mine. Cold here though so can't comment on my own temps.

If you haven't already, try turning your punch up to 9. Will make a big difference in pop on take-off and in air adjustments. That coupled with 6s should be plenty of zip.
 
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