I had an opportunity to attend RCX with my kids as it was during spring break. My expectations were set from a 2016 video by RC Sparks:
Shipping your RC car, racing out of town
Our family did our first post-COVID airplane trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. We were there for a week, so I looked up Intermountain RC Raceway (IRCR) – a place I had visited before but never raced at. Their off-road club racing is Wednesday night, so I got the B6 ready to hit the clay.
It was also the first airplane trip that I wanted to bring my RC car on. Normally on road trips it’s a no-brainer. This would be a learning experience – hopefully you can learn from my (many) mistakes.
I could (and probably should) have just packed my car to travel on the airplane as it was only $30 per checked bag – I thought it was going to be $50. Instead I mailed my car to a relative at our destination for $40. If you’re looking for a good video on packing your car for air travel, check this one out by Team Associated:
2WD “Backslash” Wing
What’s a Backslash, besides this: “\”? It’s a nickname for a RC buggy made from the chassis of a Traxxas Slash. Some people call it a Backslash, some people call it a Sluggy (Slash + Buggy). Whatever you call it, the original 4WD variation is the most popular because it’s extremely simple to mount an 1/8 scale wing to the shock tower and change the body to a 1/8 scale buggy one.
I wanted to do one for my 2WD Slash. There are a couple of extra hurdles on the 2WD, like the gearbox being behind the shock tower, but it still seemed do-able. So here is what I did to mount an 1/8 scale wing to my 2WD Slash.
[Read more…]Spec Slash Parts & Settings
After a full year of my son and I racing our 2wd Slashes in the “Spec Slash” class, I wanted to record everything we’ve broken, fixed, upgraded, and replaced. I’ll also include a setup sheet of what we landed on being a fairly consistent indoor off-road carpet track setup.
Spec Slash rules differ by track, so check with your local track(s) before you buy anything. Some allow replacing stock plastic parts with RPM brand replacements, some do not. If you race at multiple tracks, better to error on the side of caution and stick with stock parts. I’ve included both parts here for reference.
[Read more…]Slash 4×4 Crawler (Part 4) Body
This whole project started on the basis of the Pro-Line Jeep Rubicon Unlimited body – it’s a beauty.
So how does this thing fit on a Slash and how do we make it look less like a short course truck?
[Read more…]Slash 4×4 Crawler (Part 3) Powertrain & Tires
With the width of the vehicle worked out, it is time to make it drive like a crawler.
To slow the Slash down to believable crawler speed I actually kept the stock gearing in place (19.23 Final Drive Ratio for the brushed 4×4). Then I added a RC4WD 1:3 Gear Reducer, which would change the final drive ratio to almost 60:1 – a popular ratio amongst crawlers and close to the TRX-4 low-speed setting.
The gear reducer is normally a bolt on part, but there were some tweaks I had to do to get it to fit the Titan 550 motor. First the receiver hole in the gear reducer is too small fo the 550’s standard 13mm bearing enclosure (the part that sticks out right before the motor shaft). Which is strange because the age-old Tamiya 540 motor also specifies 13mm for this part of the motor.
