Typhon My simple Typhon 6S V5 build

[Funky]

Forewarning: This is a very plain and boring build.

Bought a Typhon 6S V5 as my first Arrma car. Had a few quality control / poor factory assembly issues yet have overcome these hindrances, understand the car better, made some improvements along the way and now love driving this steroid induced beast.

What I did:

• Filled near empty diffs with factory specified oil. 7K, 10K, 7K.
• Rebuilt and oiled shocks.
• Corrected loose pinion mesh.
• Fitted EXB chassis, front and rear chassis braces and spacers, front suspension mount brace.
• Obligatory toe, servo, endpoint etc adjustments, tightening of screws etc. Bound to my DX5C.

My near future plans (still waiting for parts to arrive) are fitting Duratrax Lockup tyres, the Basherqueen carbon fiber set and the blue Typhon body as I prefer the blue colour scheme over red.

Nothing drastic but man she drives so much nicer now than she did out of the box. Kind of a semi EXB Typhon now. Looks great, performs great, I'm happy.

 

[SrC]

Nice job. I can appreciate the hard work it takes to make these rigs shine out the box. With much effort, they become night and day better.

 

[Funky]

Thanks @SrC

It was a pig to drive out of the box, unpredictable under power and just went where it wanted to. It's on rails now, very easy to drive and anticipate, and very fun!

 

[SrC]

Being a scratch kit builder at heart, every Arrma rig I ever got needed a complete once over. Out the box they are all unacceptable to me. I like Arrma products, don't get me wrong. Great price point in reality.
Just not truly RTR.
More like NRTR's. (Not Ready To Run)
Need major wrenching out the box in every one I ever bought. If you don't, they drive like crap and will crap out sooner than later, costing you much more.
I am just too picky I guess.
Tekno and other brands spoiled me over the years.

 

[Funky]

Totally agree. I'm showing my age here but it was all kit form when I started out in the hobby, many years ago. Miss those days, we had great looking buggies in the late eighties, early nineties.

I'd totally be happy for Arrma to offer their products in kit form. At the end of the day you're going to be taking it apart at some point anyhow, for repair, maintenance and upgrades etc.

Based on my RTR Typhon experience I think if it were in kit form it would have saved me some time in the long-run as I'd have built it once, and built it right.

Initially I was excited by the RTR prospect, but unless it's assembled to a high standard from the factory it's a headache in disguise.

 

[Sphexish]

Well, they do say that 'plain and boring' wins the race!

Wait... Do they say that? Or was it something with 'slow and steady' instead?

ANYWAY.

It sounds like you've covered the basics first, before moving on to stuff like fancy wheels and carbon fibre thingamajigs, which is both very sensible and... pretty much the exact opposite of what I've been doing. Heh.

So I'm going to take this thread as inspiration to do some more much-needed maintenance and tuning to my own rig -- starting with checking the fluid in the diffs and the mesh of my pinion gear.

 

[Funky]

Definitely inspect your diffs. They're all easy to remove and even if you don't feel motivated enough for a full dismantle and rebuild, just topping them up with oil makes a huge difference in performance. Likewise with a simple mesh alignment. Purrs like a cat now rather than sounding like a rusty chainsaw hurdling down the street.

 

[Sphexish]

Definitely inspect your diffs. They're all easy to remove and even if you don't feel motivated enough for a full dismantle and rebuild, just topping them up with oil makes a huge difference in performance. Likewise with a simple mesh alignment. Purrs like a cat now rather than sounding like a rusty chainsaw hurdling down the street.

Will definitely give it a try!

I don't have any history with RC other than an ancient Nikko Turbo Panther buggy I owned in the eighties, so I've honestly been rather intimidated by the prospect of taking things apart in any significant way. Basically afraid I'm going to mess something up that was pretty much hunky-dory to begin with.

But the more I read things on here the more I realize that things in these RTR rigs are generally neither hunky nor dory.

 

[SrC]

^^^ got to jump in and get your hands dirty. RC is about wrenching. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Things that took you an hour to do will be done in 10 minutes. Doing it blindfolded. Trust me. We were all new at some point.
These rigs are made to work on. And fairly user friendly once you figure it out. And have a nice set of Handled Hex drivers. Never use the L wrenches. They Slow you down, are awkward, and strip your screws.

 

[Funky]

No way, I had the exact same car!

I had the white one, this one here:

Preceded by the JetHopper which was my first RC car and what initiated my passion for RC cars.

Followed by many Tamiya cars, and a Team Associated RC10 which I raced, still have trophies somewhere burried in the garage. It was my pride and joy.

 

[Sphexish]

^^^ got to jump in and get your hands dirty. RC is about wrenching. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Things that took you an hour to do will be done in 10 minutes. Doing it blindfolded. Trust me. We were all new at some point.
These rigs are made to work on. And fairly user friendly once you figure it out. And have a nice set of Handled Hex drivers. Never use the L wrenches. They Slow you down, are awkward, and strip your screws.

I kind of knew that going in (I did do some research beforehand, bless my heart!), but actually taking a screwdriver to a brand-spanking new toy worth over 300 euro-bucks does require a modicum of courage at first.

I'm a programmer, dude; I'm used to working with virtual nuts and bolts!

On the plus side though, I've definitely acquired more diverse and decent-quality tools over the past few weeks (including those essential hex drivers). So sloooowly we're getting there.

No way, I had the exact same car!

I had the white one, this one here:

View attachment 131048

That's really an amazing coicidence, haha. I had the white one, too! Saved up for it for ages, as I recall. Though the only competitions it ever raced in were with the RC of the boy who lived across from me.

Recently went on a nostalgia-fueled online quest to figure out which one I had back then, and found out that it was a Turbo Panther. Sadly, I don't own it anymore -- sold it on a fleamarket in days of yore, along with all my G1 Transformers that are now worth their weight in gold on Ebay.

 

[Funky]

New wheels arrived. These look and feel nice, will test them out and report back on their performance.

 

[Funky]

Test run with new tyres complete.

Wow. These wheels are brilliant. Glued properly, HEAPS of grip (I was doing wheelies) and one battery pack and a thrash on the street later and they still look like new. Cheaper than Arrma tyres and I prefer the spoke look.

I'll exclusively use these tyres from now on, I reckon they'll last a month easy as opposed to one day on Arrma tyres.

 

[Sphexish]

Test run with new tyres complete.

Wow. These wheels are brilliant. Glued properly, HEAPS of grip (I was doing wheelies) and one battery pack and a thrash on the street later and they still look like new. Cheaper than Arrma tyres and I prefer the spoke look.

I'll exclusively use these tyres from now on, I reckon they'll last a month easy as opposed to one day on Arrma tyres.

Thanks for sharing your conclusions! Those sound good.

 

[Guy on a Moose]

Reading this and having built an mt410 last month, I’ll be tearing down. my typhon v5 when she arrives. I have 50k 100k 1m silicones. I haven’t been able to source anything in between 100k- 1m

 

[Funky]

I've given up on mine, sadly. It just seems to be possessed. It really doesn't run well. I don't know if that's how they are or if mine is just a dud. Accelerate and it pulls left, hard. De-accelerate and it pulls right. Coast and it travels slightly left or right pending it's mood. It just isn't as nimble or responsive as I'd like.

I might actually sell it as I've replaced it with a Corally which better suits my driving preference. Smooth as silk, predictable and able to be controlled whilst still being crazy fast.