Traxxas XL 2.5 with a 540 Sized Motor

I have been curious about the little Traxxas XL-2.5 esc. I have two in my Redcat RS10 and they're amazing. My only complaints are the brakes are weak and the lack of a switch. Since I had a good experience with it in that vehicle, I wondered how one would work in a car. I could not find any clue to its amp rating so I had no idea what it could take. Because of that I decided to put one in my M02 with a Mabuchi silvervan.

Tamiya TL01 Ford Focus Rally Conversion

INTRO: This is chilout3070's Ford Escort Rally. It started life as TL01 Castrol Supra. He originally built it to the TL01 XB (Extreme Build) spec's here. After a few teething problems the car was shelved. It sat for a while until he dropped it off at the RC Street Source garage to be converted to a rally car. We knew the car would be loaded as the owner is not shy about buying hopu-ps. The car was still very impressive as we had never seen a TL01 That someone put so much love into outside of the internet. The car showed up wearing the rare and very hard to find TL01 Lightweight Chassis Set. If that wasn't rare enough he also installed the Tamiya Long Suspension Arm Conversion, When you buy the conversion it also comes with a swaybar set for the front and the rear. The upgrades didn't end there, the car was also fitted with Tamiya's CVA shocks and alloy wheel hexes. GPM also provided an aluminum driveshaft, universals, and foam front bumper. The last upgrade we found on the car was a full set of bearings.

BUILD: Since our job was to make it rally worthy, we went to work raising the suspension. Once we got that dialed the car needed some off road traction. Tamiya's Rally Block tires fit the bill perfectly. To add a little bling bling the owner wanted to use chrome HPI Stock Car wheels, so we fit the rally treads to them and bolted them on. Of course we had to remove the Tamiya TL01 Speed tuned gearset the owner installed and drop the stock gearing back in to get those big tire spinning and get some torque to the ground to get up steep inclines. Power is also need to spin tires and the Traxxas 20T Stinger motor we installed provided plenty. The no-name Chinese esc the owner was using seemed up to the task of powering this beast, the one we put in the viper is still doing well. The final step was to change the body posts to fit the escort body and detail it. There is a point of contention with those. The owner like long body posts. We like to cut them down. His argument is he may want to change bodies down the road. We say, body posts are $6. The customer is always right so they're long.





PERFORMANCE: The car rips! Take it into the dirt and it throws rooster tails everywhere. I could slide it around a corner and flick the tail around on command. It was very stable with only a hint of push on the pavement. All in all I would consider this car a success. So much so I have most of the same parts to build my own rally TL01. If I were to build it again I would have used shorter spring with spacers so it could be easily lowered for tarmac, and cut down the body posts. I am trying to coordinate a bash session with the owner to get some action shots.

I Need To Finish Another Car Soon...

My TA02 is nearly finished, I changed bodies again and ordered some parts. I need to get some headlight buckets for the new body and maybe a diffuser. The TA04R needs some touchup paint for the body and the rest of the electronics (esc is on it). The M02 needs me to stop being lazy and finish the decals and transfer the gyro from the viper (it doesn't really need it). I have like seven more projects in the wings waiting to be started/finished. I keep playing with and taking pictures of the viper though. Its just so darned neat. Anyways here's the latest pics:

I scouted the Camden Waterfront the other day. That was necessary because I barely woke up before dawn. I had to rush to get down there before the sun came up. I was a little later than I wanted. That turned out to be ok since it looks like I'll need additional lighting to get the shots I want. As before click to embiggin.

Picture Day!

I took pictures of some of my cars. Click to embiggin.

HKS/Ikkitousen Dodge Viper GTS-R

So I like big names. I picked up a rtr CEN SP-1 off the bay for cheap. It was in great shape so I decided it was worth being a project. I rummaged through my never ending pile of unused RC stuff and found an HPI 200mm Viper body. The Mercedes CLK-GTR body that came with it was in pretty good shape but I wasn't feeling it for this project. I'll throw it in the pile and let it turn up later. Now that I had a base it was time to imagineer.



BODY: I decided to do it in pro-drift style with Itasha style graphics. The paint scheme was simple/complex. I used the patterns from broken glass that has "spider webbed" but not fully broken. I picked a spot on the windshield as the point of impact and made lines radiate out from there. I then fractured those segments into smaller fragments. Finally I assigned each fragment a color making sure no two colors shared the same border.

Once the body was painted, I installed Yokomo S15 silvia headlight buckets and some homemade closed cell foam taillight buckets.

Then I mounted an HPI type-D wing and ordered up some Ikkitousen anime decals along with a set of HKS drift decals from my homies in China.


While I was waiting for my stuff from china to arrive I pilfered a few decals from the Tamiya HKS Opel decal set I have. I also picked up a flashing headlight/taillight set from China and installed them.

CHASSIS: I didn't do much to the chassis. I had a pair of Powerline Racing shocks many years ago. Not long after I got them I lost one, for FIVE years. I finally found it at the bottom of my RCCA collection. Built them up and put them on the back.

The front shocks came from ebay. I bought a full set for a different car but one set was missing the extra pistons and rod ends. I emailed the seller and asked him to send the missing pieces but he sent me a whole new set! Awesome seller. I used the blue/stiff springs, two hole pistons, and 50wt oil in them.

I also shimmed the suspension. This car has down travel limiters in the arms and that was nice. Wheels came from China, tires came with the car.

The only thing I did was soak the tires in GOOP hand cleaner for a few days to soften them a bit. I used the stock electronics (fail, more on that later) with a fresh Johnson silvercan.


The last few pieces ordered were a great big Kawada pinion and an e-sky gyro. My only other tricks were to move the electronics to the lower deck and de-grease the bearings.



TESTING: This puppy is fast! The parking lot was wet (It was raining!) but the gyro kept this 2wd beast in line. I could still spin it but only when I was trying. The stock esc is crap. Reverse never worked, you have to use the "set" button to power on/off, and it had a serious case of  "I go where I want" when the radio was off. My buddy gave me one from China so I expect it to feel right at home on this car. The radio was working great but it came with batteries. I accidentally left it on and killed them. One leaked and now the radio is acting up. I'll sort it before I take it out for round 2.









UPDATE: The body wasn't designed to be slammed with headlight buckets. At full lock the tires would jam against the lights and the car would push like crazy. I busted out my fake Dremel and sanded away at the lights. Still rubbed. Now I either raise the body or the ride height. I'll probably go with the ride height since during the first test a wood screw jammed itself into my chassis. The new esc works flawlessly and it has a switch that I mounted on the side of the chassis. Now I don't have to remove the body to turn it on/off. Also this thing beeps for "on" and has a neat little 3 note tone for "radio on". The motor was getting a little warm but some of that was from the tires rubbing adding extra load on the motor. I hope its not geared too tall, as I have a tendency to do that. When I touch up the paint chips on the front lip I'll take some night pics.

More pics here.