Vorteks Vorteks Refresh

[dqb]

Finished refreshing my Vorteks today, finally solving the problem (that I created through orig part selection) of it flipping over at moderate or high speed by widening stance through use of extended wheel hexes and fatter tires.

Now that the handling is sorted, will be looking for new combo to drop in. Noticed that castle used the vortex in one of their promo videos

Besides regular maintenance items, updates for this iteration include:
_M2C +5mm Hex’s
_Proline Badlands MX28
_Arrma CVD shafts all around
_steel crown and input gear (rear only)
_new body

MVP product for build was this drywall tape; stuck twice as good as any I’ve tried and made that (awful) task just a bit more tolerable.

 

[RadioHacktive]

I see you've done some mods I plan to do when I get a Vorteks. Very nice! Safe to assume you did the Typhon/Big Rock arms as well?

 

[Velodromed]

Those look like the stock arms which is good, because otherwise they overextend the cvd shafts and stress them out. By the way, the biggest weak point on the CVDs are the sintered (monkey metal) axles. I had broken four while using them with extensions over 3 months. They like to break at the pinhole. I’m thinking now that I was cranking the adapter retaining screw on too tight, which stressed the axle, so be careful there. I was also jumping a lot. It happened both while using m2c and hot racing adapters.

 

[dqb]

I see you've done some mods I plan to do when I get a Vorteks. Very nice! Safe to assume you did the Typhon/Big Rock arms as well?

Cool! Let me know if you want feedback on anything specific; I’ve made my fair share of mistakes with this car would love to help others avoid.

Re: arms, Not yet. That was my ‘nuclear’ option if extended hex and fat tires did not work. Wanted to keep car nimble as my other cars are mostly truggy or monster trucks.

 

[Velodromed]

I got so fed up with them (cvds) that I converted my favorite 3S car into a true 4s car using most of the V2 parts I got off of Jenny’s. Those CVDs are pretty hard-core and I love them. I’m now collecting the parts to do the same thing with my vorteks

 

[dqb]

Those look like the stock arms which is good, because otherwise they overextend the cvd shafts and stress them out. By the way, the biggest weak point on the CVDs are the sintered (monkey metal) axles. I had broken four while using them with extensions over 3 months. They like to break at the pinhole. I’m thinking now that I was cranking the adapter retaining screw on too tight, which stressed the axle, so be careful there. I was also jumping a lot. It happened both while using m2c and hot racing adapters.

Good intel, will re-torque those now to make them ‘nice’!

 

[Velodromed]

Good intel, will re-torque those now to make them ‘nice’!

The more I think about it I’m positive I was causing the stress that led to the axles breaking. I always swap out the flat head screws that they use to secure the retaining pin with a m3 socket head. Those do not strip out as easy. But it also allowed me to really crank down hard on them.

I’ve been pondering about this for the last couple of weeks. I still have four functional cvds left and my granite has stock arms still (with hot racing +10 mm adapters)…so I think I’ll put them on, with the softer technique, and see what happens. Definitely use Loctite on that set screw. Otherwise I know they come loose, which is why I was cranking them down so hard. I like 243 loctite, it’s oil tolerant.
*Clean the screw and screw hole with alcohol or brake cleaner before applying the loctite.

 

[dqb]

The more I think about it I’m positive I was causing the stress that led to the axles breaking. I always swap out the flat head screws that they use to secure the retaining pin with a m3 socket head. Those do not strip out as easy. But it also allowed me to really crank down hard on them.

I’ve been pondering about this for the last couple of weeks. I still have four functional cvds left and my granite has stock arms still (with hot racing +10 mm adapters)…so I think I’ll put them on, with the softer technique, and see what happens. Definitely use Loctite on that set screw. Otherwise I know they come loose, which is why I was cranking them down so hard. I like 243 loctite, it’s oil tolerant.
*Clean the screw and screw hole with alcohol or brake cleaner before applying the loctite.

Makes perf sense - been there/doing that. Appreciate the heads up on these cvd axles as they are new to me

 

[Velodromed]

Makes perf sense - been there/doing that. Appreciate the heads up on these cvd axles as they are new to me

And expensive! Just the axles run 20 bucks a pair

 

[RubberRolling]

Finished refreshing my Vorteks today, finally solving the problem (that I created through orig part selection) of it flipping over at moderate or high speed by widening stance through use of extended wheel hexes and fatter tires.

Now that the handling is sorted, will be looking for new combo to drop in. Noticed that castle used the vortex in one of their promo videos

Besides regular maintenance items, updates for this iteration include:
_M2C +5mm Hex’s
_Proline Badlands MX28
_Arrma CVD shafts all around
_steel crown and input gear (rear only)
_new body

MVP product for build was this drywall tape; stuck twice as good as any I’ve tried and made that (awful) task just a bit more tolerable.
View attachment 259344 View attachment 259346 View attachment 259345 View attachment 259347 View attachment 259348

Very cool mods! Can you fit the badlands on a stock Vorteks without the wheels rubbing on the body?

 

[dqb]

Very cool mods! Can you fit the badlands on a stock Vorteks without the wheels rubbing on the body?

I highly doubt it - I was previously running the narrower belted badlands and even then I had to cut the body to avoid rubbing.

It’s worth noting that the extended wheel hexes and wider tires were the MVP upgrade on this build. The car was miserable to drive before that on all 17mm hex wheels I tried (it flipped over easily in corners, even after maxing out suspension tuning options). Now it’s more like a monster stadium truck, still not as stable as stock wide/flat katars, but a riot to drive and better offroad (someone needs to coin a new phase for that similar to ‘truggified’)

 

[RubberRolling]

I highly doubt it - I was previously running the narrower belted badlands and even then I had to cut the body to avoid rubbing.

It’s worth noting that the extended wheel hexes and wider tires were the MVP upgrade on this build. The car was miserable to drive before that on all 17mm hex wheels I tried (it flipped over easily in corners, even after maxing out suspension tuning options). Now it’s more like a monster stadium truck, still not as stable as stock wide/flat katars, but a riot to drive and better offroad (someone needs to coin a new phase for that similar to ‘truggified’)

Thanks for that...didn't think it would work stock...those tires look like they'd work well off road. We pretty much just bash out on forest service roads etc and am looking at new tire options for the Vorteks.

 

[Andre59]

Need some help looking to upgrade my arrma vortex’s 3s ESC for bashing

 

[lautri]

Need some help looking to upgrade my arrma vortex’s 3s ESC for bashing

I put Granite tires and dropped off a couple of teeth on the pinion gear, added preload spacers for a "taller" stance and it has been great for bashing.

 

[lemonteksunrise]

I got so fed up with them (cvds) that I converted my favorite 3S car into a true 4s car using most of the V2 parts I got off of Jenny’s. Those CVDs are pretty hard-core and I love them. I’m now collecting the parts to do the same thing with my vorteks

View attachment 259355

Did you ever do it to your Vorteks and what parts do you need? Just took my Vorteks out for the first time with Typhon arms and popped the cvd out and bottom shock eyelet snapped. Piece of poop hot racing shocks. What a waste of money. Luckily have some team associated to replace with.