Yeah, no problem, that's a 1:1 fit. It's easier to go that route than to do the conversion as described in you link.

a 52T spur will push the motor 2.5mm farther over to the side and get you an addional 2.5mm of battery space. Also with the bigger spur you can go another tooth or 2 bigger on the pinion to get the same overall gear ratio (or close to it) getiing another1mm or so in battery space. It might not sound like much, but that extra 3-3.5mm will allow me to fit my TrueRC 8000mah 5s pack right down in there for a nice tight fit. It firs now, but its litterealy touching the side of the motor and I'm afraind the heat from the motor may have an ill effect on the battery if its touching. The 3mm is just a little breathing room for this big lunkewr of a pack. The 5000mah Enerland based packs drop right in and fit like a glove with no worries at all.

Serum,

I stole the idea for those little legs on the motor mount from knotted, who is doing almost the same build. I just used some Shoe Goo to attach some spacers to the bottom of the motor mount. This raises the 1521 so that it doesn't hit the vertical plate on the motor side. It isn't a problem with a 1515 but the longer can on the 1521 required more clearance.

As far as cost goes for this thing.............................its still adding up.

Just the power system: Battery, ESC and Motor add up to a little more than a grand.

I need my head checked basically..............

I picked up some screws I needed from the hardware store today at lunch, and my balancer for the flightpower came in today so I should be up and running soon. My 5.5 bullet connectors should be in tomorrow or Wednesday. I would have just soldered as someone suggested but I am still finishing painting the body and getting the last bits together.

Hi,

I have a set of conversion on the way too. Looking at the few posts above, I'm a little worried about my battery choice now. I bought 2 5S 5000mah packs from HK & they are advertised as 160mm X 51mm X 40mm. The 51mm width is a concern if it has the potential not to fit. Can I turn the battery on its side so that the height is now 51mm while the width becomes 40mm ?

Regards,
Joe Ling

Yep. No problem height wise for the 51mm. Should work w/ no issues. And with a little setup work you should be able to fit the 51 in there too. Its tight for the 51, but you should be able to get it to work depending on your gearing.

Hi jhautz,

Thanks for the quick response.

I just saw in another thread started by knotted that HPI will have big bore shocks for the savage. 2008 is going to be good year for my savages. Bought 2 of these in 2006 & have not played with them much at all in 2007.

Regards,
Joe Ling

BTW are these the Zippy lipos? I recently bought 3 of the 4s 5000mah packs I use in one of my buggies and they are pretty nice for the $$. Only a couple cycles on them so far they seem to be not bad for the cash.

Just thought I'd post an update. I installed the electronics last night and programmed the MGM using the USB link, which is a very cool feature I think. I reversed the motor wires because the motor was spinning the wrong way and got everything ready for an indoor test, just to see if everything was working. Well I managed to screw something up with the motor direction because it was still wrong and this time the motor drove the spur in the reverse direction and stripped to teeth off the 1st gear (the only plastic one in the three speed). Not only that but it broke the one way bearing which now is a two way........

Lesson - When you are dead tired don't work on your expensive RC stuff.

So tomorrow I will have another 1st gear and should be good to go. I still haven't built a barrier to stop the battery from crashing against the spur in the event of a major nose dive... Probably work on that tonight.

I also ordered the 52T hardened steel spur from Golden Horizons. As jhautz talked about it will add some needed space between the battery and the motor. I must say the metal on metal pinion/spur setup is really noisy and vibrates everything. The sound is pretty harsh. Kershaw sells some 5mm mod 1 delrin pinions with brass centers that might be worth trying. I just don't know how they would hold up though, probably not last long.

Sweet! Do you have any updated pics?

I did a little test run around the living room last night at midnight. Its pretty much done with the exception of some tuning and whatnot that still needs to happen. But... the snow is flyin here now so I will ave plenty of time to get to htat before it gets a propertest run.

I actually went for the plastic spurs again. I got the 52T stock and a 51T delrin one on the way. I'm thinking the delrin one will be good for durability without some of the metal spur drawbacks. But in reality i dont think think a metal spur will be a problem, I run them in my buggies and they dont seem any louder than the plastic that I can tell.

(Truthfully I was to cheep to spend $25 on a metal spur so I went for the $10 delrin one instead :tongue:)

The transmission can only accept one direction of rotation unless you lock it, right? If it's spinning the wrong way, sounds to me like the diffs need to be flipped.

It you put the diffs in the savage around the wrong way it won't be able to roll freely. Sounds like he did something I have done a few times. Unplug the wires to swap them around but plug them back in exactly the same way again.

Correct MTBikerTim. The diffs are in the correct direction. The motor had so much torque it broke the one way bearing and now it is a two way bearing.

I took the truck out for a quick spin tonight right here by my condo. Not exactly the best spot to run a truck but I wanted to just see if everything was working. The truck ran great. The power was awesome..... The area I was testing in was way to small to really get a feel for what she is capable of. It was a little wet as well so was trying to avoid puddles.

This weekend I will get some time in at the local park and get a friend to shoot some video. It is early yet, but I think this thing is going to be awesome!

Awesome it will be great to see some video. Try and hit some jumps for us.

I made a barrier as discussed to stop the battery from hitting the spur during bashing. I used a dremel and cut it out of a piece of carbon board. I attached it to one of the posts supplied with the kit using zip ties and CA.

It is pretty sturdy and I feel confident it will hold well. The lipo is nice and snug in there now.

A few more

Now that I know how to reduce the size of my pics here are the ones I linked to earlier.

more....

and more.....

Serious beast there. It really looks bad a$$ with all that FLM stuff.

Do you have a scale to throw it on? I'm curouis what the weight difference is between that and mine with the plastic arms and bulks.

EDIT: Man that gonna be some serious power thith the 1521 and 6s.:tongue:

Very cool, I really have to get pics of mine up on here!

Bye:mdr:

Well I ran it tonight at a local park. It was dark but the park had a few lights. This truck is awesome!! The forward conversion does a really good job of keeping the nose down. I am running the stock bonz tires and wheels. The spur is a 47t and the pinion is a 19t and the transmission is the 3 speed. The truck was a blast. The Neu 1521 barely got warm. I think there may be plenty of room for more gear. Everything was going great when.......................... one of the wheels went flying off. It was too dark for me to find the 17mm hub. I am hoping that the local hobby shops will have a replacement in the morning.

I need to balance my wheels. They vibrate A LOT at full throttle. The duct tape I used inside of them is holding up great, NO ballooning.

When I got home I went ahead and replaced the 47t steel spur with the Golden Horizons 52t steel spur that came in. The Golden Horizons is a much nicer spur. The stock 47t that comes with the Savage X SS is really skinny. Due to how thin it is I could already see the wear on my hardened pinion. The Golden Horizon spur has much wider gear teeth, and I think it is going to have a much better wear characteristic on the pinion.

I have a variety of pinions coming from Mike. I will have everything up to 25t to play with.

What is the easiest/best way to balance my wheels?

BashOn your my hero!

I wish I was you so bad man! That savage is awesome man!

Make sure theres a vid

You can use a prop balncer and clay, or some sort of puty to balnce thewheels. Or get an old hub and bearing and use that to find the heavy area of the wheel.

I do need to weigh this thing. Maybe I'll just stand on a scale holding it and then stand on a scale without it.

To update where I'm at:

I've run the truck several times. It is awesome and I hope to get someone who can video it soon. Some of you may have read that I had some problems with my Neu. The can was coming loose from the front end bell. Luckily it is threaded so I have used some blue loctite based on Neu's recommendation and hopefully it will hold. I am also working on getting the pinion set for the best combo of low temps and good top speeds. I thought I was going to be able to put more pinion on it, but now that the ground is totally dry and the truck gets traction the motor temps have increased. It is going to end up around a 19t or 20t. I am also finishing up a plate for the motor mount to sit on so I don't have to use those spacers to get the 1521 to fit. I noticed that the motor mount flexed a bit under throttle and I think it is due to having little support with just the spacers. My battery barrier (to stop the LiPo from hitting the spur) came of and was lost during my last bash so I am making a new one and using Epoxy to secure it to the stock post.

As far as the power goes, this trucks got it. Even with the extended chassis I think I could almost do a full backflip from a standstill. I put a brand new body on this truck and its already ruined after only 3 batteries through it. You really have to be careful with the throttle or the truck ends up on its lid. Even at speed it will flip right over, which is cool I guess but when it flips the truck ends up sliding forever on its top. It destroys the body. I just put a wheelie bar on it to help keep things under control.

That pretty much sums it up for now. I'll get the video I promised soon.

Also, thanks to knotted I ran the automatic setup option on the MGM. This truly helped a lot. I started feeling like I wasn't getting the power I should be. I sent knotted a message and he made some recommendations. If youy have an MGM and you haven't run the automatic setup option do it! It added a bunch of power to my setup.

VIDEO I want some video please!!

That sounds fantastic. The savage wheelie bar should help keep your bodies a bit longer. The wheelie bar works really well.

How how much run time are you getting and whatcapacity batteries are you using ??

I am running a Flightpower 5000mah 25c 6S lipo, the one in Mike's store.

I know this sounds unrealistic and next time I will time it but it has to be 25 to 30 minutes. Even then the MGM Lipo slowdown wasn't engaged. I could tell the top speed was dropping off so I stopped running it. I have only run 1 full pack through it, every other run I stopped long before I had to for whatever reason.

I checked the voltage of the pack when I got home after 45 minutes or so and it was close to 24 volts, so I didn't over discharge it.

I could not believe how long the truck was running, and I was being harsh, constantly stopping and starting. I guess the Neu motors efficiency really helps in this area.

Well a 6s 5000 lipo should be roughly equivalent to a 4s 8000 lipo. I can get 25-30 mins out of my trakpower 4s setup (4900mah) with an 8xl, so your runtimes may be longer than you think. Plus higher voltage does cut down on the amp spikes, that hekps too. That 6s pack will most likely last a while too, much less stress on it than a 4s setup.

Thanks for the reply!

That's an impressive setup. After hearing this I am thinking I will change my mind on my setup again. I think I will run 6s lipo as fitting the a123's is going to annoy me.

A few pic that show the new barrier I made using a stock chassis brace and some fiber board. Also check out the heat sink I got from tamjets.com.

A few videos to follow...

Jumping a bit at the local park...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdJCBYswTLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX4mKfaxelE

Nice heatsink. BUT wow $49 for it!?!?!

Need more video!!!!

got a more specific link to that heatsink?

BashOn, could you tell me the total weight of your Savage without the batterie please??
I want to convert my XSS too but want to know exactly the weight of this beast just to compare to my e-revo before to do it.

So please if you can give me the exact weight without the li-po, because i'll use my 5000, 4s in it.

Thank you!

David

Serum here you go..

http://www.tamjets.com/original/prod...roducts_id=368

I posted this in the Brushless MGM thread but I thought I would add it to my build thread so if you already read it, sorry about that...

Well I ran my truck yesterday with the updated 22418 and my Neu 1521. There is a huge difference in power now! I knew that I was not getting all the power that this setup was capable of. Before the truck was impressive, now it is just plain ridiculous.

I don't think that everyone will notice as much of a gain. MGM had said that the issue was with large motors that pull a lot of current. I'm just guessing that a 1515 might be a bit more punchy, but anything over that will be quite a bit improved.

My run was cut short (I knew in my head that something was going to break!) when the threads that hold my shock tower to the FLM bulkless failed and the shock tower came loose after a poorly landed jump. I think the screws that come with the FLM are too short because they only seem to engage about 1/3 to 1/2 of the thread. I am sending my hybrid bulkhead to FLM today and ordering some longer M4 screws. I can't wait to get this thing back out.

Another benefit of the new software on the MGM is that my motor ran super cool. Now that it is getting enough juice I am sure it is more effecient. I was hoping it would run cooler but I didn't know it would be that different. I ran the MGM software when I got back and sure enough the numbers were much improved from before. I don't have the saved screen infront of me with the exact numbers, but I can say that for the first time the data had a number for the "current at full throttle". Peak amps were up near 400 and max RPM was 37500ish. Before the upgrade the max RPM I would have after a run was in the 32000 - 33000 range.

All in all I would say that the upgrade was worth it. My controller was dead at the time anyway. There is the risk of loosing your controller in the mail if you do the $10 declared value thing. I think I would only send the controller in if I knew that I was missing power that I should have or I was running the controller in "cutoff" mode and the truck was constantly cutting off even with high quality lipos (due to the current cuttoff, not the low voltage lipo protection). Remember that my controller ran without cutting off in "reduce RPM" mode, it just performed poorly. In cutoff mode the truck was useless. I can't comment on the brakes, I use mechanical.

Shon

And David, I know this is the most delayed response ever, sorry....

I don't have a scale to weight the thing. Once I get it back together (read above) I'll stand on the scale with and without it to get a rough estimate.

Shon