Notorious Notorious V1 getting a new life

[VossieDJ]

I'm looking forward to taking part in the forum discussions and taking you all on my journey of upgrading my recently acquired second hand Notorious.

I acquired the second hand Notorious for a steel on FBM and looked okay on the photos. However when I got it it was a bit worse for wear.

Rather than make a fuss, I thought I take on the challenge of repairing it.

First was to figure out what version it was and finally figured out it is the V3 Notorious, but what a mission to get the manual on line. Through some trial and error I found it on Amian hobbies. Hooray!!!

Now for the fun to begin. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of it all, but in short I took the whole car apart, some of the fixes:

• Centre diff disintegrated- ordered a new one
• Front shock mount held on with wire and bent- straightened and replaced shock mounts
• Diff oil non existing- replaced with 60k/500k/30k wt as recommended by many on the forum
• Shock oil okay but did a refill with 1000wt
• New set of tires
• General clean of everything and replacing rusty screws etc.

Update:

After the upgrades and repairs I took the Notorious out for its first bash. Wow!!!! What a beast. I've not had this much fun with an RC car.

The Notorious needed a bit of a clean and tightening of screws. Locktite needed. Haha

Some more photos cleaned and polished.

 

[Johnny b]

She just needed a little love! Looks great...nice job!

 

[ColosTommy]

Looks like a completely different truck, good job on the clean up and repair.

 

[SrC]

Actually what you have there is the Very first Notorious. It's technically the V1 Noto.
I have that one also. And added the center T2T brace/ parts. Making it a V2 Noto. Along with the Front and Rear HR alloy braces. Not much else is needed TBH. It is very durable this way . The chassis and all. Since it is a Short wheel base, Typhon based chassis.
One good option is getting the TLRT Typhon Chassis as one upgrade. Only $48. from JennysRC.com. You don't really need an $M2C chassis$. Just Overkill for the Noto.
But....I do highly suggest the F/R Alloy upgrade braces and the T2T Brace, absolutely. Must haves at a very minimum. JennysRC has the T2T itself, for very cheap. Like only $3.-$4. usually. Then buy the 2 Mounts for it retail online, Not that expensive to do the T2T update at all.

 

[VossieDJ]

Actually what you have there is the Very first Notorious. It's technically the V1 Noto.
I have that one also. And added the center T2T brace/ parts. Making it a V2 Noto. Along with the Front and Rear HR alloy braces. Not much else is needed TBH. It is very durable this way . The chassis and all. Since it is a Short wheel base, Typhon based chassis.
One good option is getting the TLRT Typhon Chassis as one upgrade. Only $48. from JennysRC.com. You don't really need an $M2C chassis$. Just Overkill for the Noto.
But....I do highly suggest the F/R Alloy upgrade braces and the T2T Brace, absolutely. Must haves at a very minimum. JennysRC has the T2T itself, for very cheap. Like only $3.-$4. usually. Then buy the 2 Mounts for it retail online, Not that expensive to do the T2T update at all.

Thanks for clarifying. There’s not much on the web. Haha

Those upgrades sound like a must, thank you!

 

[SrC]

Yeah I got my V1 Noto durng its prerelease. They were hard to get at the time. The 6s OC was already discontinued at that point,
It actually replaced the Outcast. Essentially the same identical rig. A new Different Notorious body, thats all.
It came with the Arrma BLX and electrics at the time. They were only like $400.'ish list, give or take at the time.
When the V2 came out, I updated it with the T2T. Necessary IMHO. Along with the F/R Alloy braces. It is a tank. Probably spent the least with this rig. Rarely breaks. Still the original SWB chassis. Yet my LWB chassis of my 6s Kraton with braces and T2T has bent 3 stocker chassis'. Only becuase the chassis is longer. The Noto. can be a bear to drive since it is short. Might want to lower the Punch setting at the ESC. It wants to wheelie like crazy. Need a good throttle finger. Being a Freestyle stunt truck. Runs fine with 4s packs also. Something to consider. On 4s lipos is Easier to drive.

 

[VossieDJ]

Update:

After another couple of epic bashing sessions, I noted a few cracks in the body and screws turning out.

I replaced the 3 mm screws with slightly longer where possible and put threadlocker on those that didn't already have on.

I also upgraded the servo mount to alu and tightened the servo saver which seemed to improve the steering performance heaps!

I then went at the body:

• Sticking down all the decals peeling off, windows etc with plastic glue. Wasn't sure it would work but seems to work.
• Put some extra decals on the body, wing and side walls
• Glued the cracks with superglue gel, this only seems to work where the body isn't bent away from the crack. Not sure if it is worth trying to fix cracks in lexan?
• Painted the truck bed black which came out okay.

I then thought a bit of reinforcement would be good to keep this body going for as long as possible and saw another post https://www.arrmaforum.com/threads/another-hey-i-got-my-body-lined-post-patriot-liner.59280/
, but couldn't find the product in NZ. I found Raptor underbody coating which seems to be a similar product. Hope it works, haha.

Decided to paints the chasis with the raptor aswell and make a couple of sacrificial aluminium strips front and rear. Hope this protect the chasis a bit.

Some photos attached.

 

[VossieDJ]

Yeah I got my V1 Noto durng its prerelease. They were hard to get at the time. The 6s OC was already discontinued at that point,
It actually replaced the Outcast. Essentially the same identical rig. A new Different Notorious body, thats all.
It came with the Arrma BLX and electrics at the time. They were only like $400.'ish list, give or take at the time.
When the V2 came out, I updated it with the T2T. Necessary IMHO. Along with the F/R Alloy braces. It is a tank. Probably spent the least with this rig. Rarely breaks. Still the original SWB chassis. Yet my LWB chassios of my 6s Kraton with braces and T2T has bent 3 stocker chassis'. Only becuase the chassis is longer. The Noto. can be a bear to drive since it is short. Might want to lower the Punch setting at the ESC. It wants to wheelie like crazy. Need a good throttle finger. Being a Freestyle stunt truck. Runs fine with 4s packs also. Something to consider. On 4s is Easier to drive.

That's a good point. Its a crazy truck.
I started it with 4s, had two batteries that were the same, wired them with new XT plugs and man was it fun. As the 6s I got with my 2nd hand purchase was dead, I got 2x3S batteries to see what the Noto can do. Wow! If you're not use to it, the power takes you by surprise. Haha

I then figured out it was pretty easy to set the punch. I played around. First taking it to almost full , then taking it back to about 20% which proved to be most fun and with all the power could still pop wheelies (but not flip) mid acceleration

 

[SrC]

Yeah the wheelie thing is a novelty at first. All that power, nose lifts so easily, etc.....But then you realize it actually slows you down, harder to drive a straight line, wears out the diffs and tire blow outs become a thing. You will soon learn about. Hopefully sooner than later, before you break drivetrain parts.
I run my diffs with 60k front/ 500k center and 20-30k rear. Most guys here are running these diff oils. The stocker oils are just too thin for hard bashing.
The Stock oils are 10k/100k/10k, FWIW.
Have you checked them yet?
Have the Oils on hand when you do. I bet they will be low on oil. The front and rear diffs will also need to be shimmed. There are threads here and vids in regards.
Enjoy.

 

[VossieDJ]

Yeah the wheelie thing is a novelty at first. All that power, nose lifts so easily, etc.....But then you realize it actually slows you down, harder to drive a straight line, wears out the diffs and tire blow outs become a thing. You will soon learn about. Hopefully sooner than later, before you break drivetrain parts.
I run my diffs with 60k front/ 500k center and 20-30k rear. Most guys here are running these diff oils. The stocker oils are just too thin for hard bashing.
The Stock oils are 10k/100k/10k, FWIW.
Have you checked them yet?
Have the Oils on hand when you do. I bet they will be low on oil. The front and rear diffs will also need to be shimmed. There are threads here and vids in regards.
Enjoy.

Thats how I ended finding the forum, with most recommending similar to your suggestion. The centre diff was literally disintegrated.

So with my new centre diff order I also got the diff and shock oils.

 

[SrC]

When the body cracks, Just use Gorilla tape where needed. Many use Shoogoo Or E6000 and mesh drywall tape. I don't bother anymore. Waste of time and $$ IMHO. I just tape as needed. I find it still cracks with the Shoogoo method. You can tape up areas that will foresee cracks and splitting. The rear bed edge area is what splits apart right away. As well as the A pillars at the lower windshield. The scratches add character. It is painted silver on the inside and Blue on the outside. So it looks like it is Real metal scratched up. That is by design. Arrma calls it Blue Real Steel.
Have fun.