I was just online trying to decided between the LS10 wing and the Mantis wing. Thanks for posting those pics the LS10 wing looks awesome. I just orderd one.

yeah it looks tops! I think ill pick one up too :P

Alright, I've got the battery tray/strap/spur guard/whatever done.

After about 2 hours of making and remaking and refining card templates, I finally traced a pattern onto some 0.5mm alu sheet and cut it out with the dremel wheel, then bent it up and drilled a few holes. It's held down by the posts and also acts as another diff brace.

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With the battery in place:
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Then I cut up a bit of 3mm angle and drilled a couple more holes, then put a bend or two in:

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All the extra alloy on the battery side helps balance it a bit, it was a little motor-side heavy before (only very slight though). Haven't checked the balance yet with the new bits, but I'd say its evened it out a but.

That's looking pretty functional.

I like it!

Looks like you will have a hard time damaging the lipo!

It may even be able to take a bullet!

Haha thats the plan! (the not damaging bit that is :lol:)

Well, tyres rock up today. They look hot as too. I love the 30s dirt hawgs:

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I do like the design of that battery cover type thing- like an enclosed sidepod.

Yeah when I'm bashing it's surprising the amount of sticks and twigs I end up with sticking through the swing arms and such. I thought it would suck a but if I hit some scrub and got a stick through the swingarms and piercing one of my lipos... This should prevent that :yes:

Those castle top Dirt Hawgs look a lot more functional than the older style. I do like the look of the 30 series stuff.

yeah theyre Dirt Hawg II's in old terms - been around for stadium trucks ever since I got into RC a few years back. I only just discovered the other kind - got another set of CRT.5 stock rims and the older buggy Dirt Hawg I's to go all round on the mlst2 - something to wear on the road and light offroading.

Ahh I see what you mean about the castle tops now I think - just realised my old ST DHII's have filled in knobbles... makes sense :) The 1/18th dirt hawgs are also this newer 'castle top' style too - I wish they didnt discontinue the 1/18th edges though - not everyone has a 4wd 1/18th! :)

That makes more sense. I bought a set of DHs last year and they were the filled in tops. They worked good on the steet and other high grip areas, but not so good on actual dirt. The new ones look better for dirt.

Alright, maiden voyage with the sidewinder today. Damn this thing is cool! The motor (9L) stayed quite cool even after multiple top speed runs. Then esc was hot and batteries were warm (sorry no temp gun :P). I added some caps to the ESC and cut out a bonnet scoot for some airflow, and the ESC runs only just warm now. Huge improvement!

I think I might try and get some ventilation on to my batteries though, for 4000mah 20C batteries they got quite warm - although that was driving it as hard as I could (on the road, full throttle/brake bursts everywhere). Timing was set to normal and start power to low. I might have a fiddle with that and see if I can get it to improve much. Gearing is 18/46 and it has a very respectable top speed (running anacondas atm).

Initially the front wheels were unloading easily, so I went to up the oil weight an saw the thin was basically empty stock, so I half filled it with 10,000 and its a lot better now. It will wheelstand on the road but not too easily, only if you plant it. 7k probably wouldve been better if I had some. Still. This thing sure is a rocket! - I'll have to look into getting some better cells or ventilation though. Or I could just gear it down lol - will see how it goes. A few pics: Notice there is a plug hangin around there - I wanted to disable the BEC in the sidewinder, but am guess I still need to have the red wire in for programming purposes. Didn't have a servo extension, only a Y-connecter.

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That spur cover looks sweet. Top job. Haven't got a template at all :yipi: