Kraton Updated: Arrma Kraton / Outcast 4s

[MrLimey]

I find it strange that these new aluminum bodied servos being introduced on the 6s Bigrock and 4s refresh are 25T instead of 23T. It makes me wonder if these are rebadged servos by the same manufacturer that makes all the off brand aluminum bodied servos on Amazon. I don’t see what’s in it for HH otherwise. Call me a sceptic but hard to believe they are doing this out the goodness of their heart to make their servos more compatible with industry standard horns and it just complicates interchangeability of their servo offerings.

good to know. I'm generally of the mind that you drive it until it breaks and then replace what broke with a better replacement.

But on this potential Outcast 4S V2+ build I'd like to maybe add a few hop-up parts ahead of time.

Do we think the M2C Racing brace will fit without modification? What else will this thing need to not break? Hopefully without adding much, if any weight

The current brace offerings don’t look like they will fit. The new reinforced chassis has thickened areas at the front and rear of the tub that protrude slightly whereas the OG v2 chassis is flat bottomed like other length 3s chassis. So backside of braces won’t be the correct profile. It’s always possible this reinforcement will strengthen the chassis enough braces are no longer a necessity. Or brace manufacturers can modify their design. Only time will tell I guess.

 

[razorrc]

I find it strange that these new aluminum bodied servos being introduced on the 6s Bigrock and 4s refresh are 25T instead of 23T. It makes me wonder if these are rebadged servos by the same manufacturer that makes all the off brand aluminum bodied servos on Amazon. I don’t see what’s in it for HH otherwise. Call me a sceptic but hard to believe they are doing this out the goodness of their heart to make their servos more compatible with industry standard horns and it just complicates interchangeability of their servo offerings.

Probably both. Spektrum servos are likely already made by someone else, they changed their specs/supplier and decided this was a good time to change to 25t.

I made it a point to always show their unusual spline count in my videos, and dropped a star in the rating because of it. At some point it costs them support $$$ every time someone upgraded their servo in their Arrma and called in complaining it didn’t fit.

 

[hobo]

Just realized that the center diff is ALL metal. It is all round a better design than the darned diffs in 6s vehicles up to 2023. Sealing the 2 metal diff cases with a single gasket - who would've thought of that. 6s ones come with plastic center diffs that will literally melt, or at least deform and lose the seal. They could've reused the F/R plastic ones but instead chose the right way. Good on them. Surely less diff explosion stories with the 4s line.

never melted a centre diff on the 6s line yet in 7 years. broke plenty of pins though

One thing you also have to remember part of that premium price that Traxxas charges is the fact that the cars are made in Taiwan and not made in China. RC products from Taiwan are always going to be more expensive than similar products from China. China really is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to quality of rc products imho. HPI is the same way. Why do you think the Savage Flux XL is an $700 truck?

Say what you want about the quality of Traxxas parts, after owning nearly 30 cars from numerous different manufacturers I can attest that stock Traxxas parts are no better or worse than stock parts from most every rtr rc on the planet. The only rtr rc that I have ever seen that had above average components out of the box is the HPI Vorza. What would you expect from a ready to run race buggy that hasn't been neutered down for the ready to run market?

I found the front and rear hubs to be a weak part on the vorza and the dogbones are way too thin. but I suppose its an old buggy design

 

[MrLimey]

Probably both. Spektrum servos are likely already made by someone else, they changed their specs/supplier and decided this was a good time to change to 25t.

I made it a point to always show their unusual spline count in my videos, and dropped a star in the rating because of it. At some point it costs them support $$$ every time someone upgraded their servo in their Arrma and called in complaining it didn’t fit.

All good points. And if they changed or expanded their supplier(s) sticking with a 25T is no doubt cheaper as the supplier was certainly already producing those.

looking over the v2.5 manual the esc seems to have gained a lot of features including adjustable lvc which is great.

It feels a bit haphazard the Mojave didn’t get this new esc and servo though. There was a new 4s v2 manual when the Mojave launched that was for all 3 4s trucks. And now there is another new 4s manual with these v2.5 that has no Mojave in it. So a total of 3 slightly different manuals all available somewhere on the various HH owned company websites.