My new FLM Savage X SS
 

Nothing super special here. I have (soon to be had) an E-Savage that's been brushed, brushless, GCM ext chassis, etc, as well as a 3906 E-maxx that went through the same treatment until I sold it. But I was always breaking nearly every time I ran them when they were brushless. So after my buddy Dewmerz told me how he was looking at getting a Savage and an FLM chassis, I decided to start reading the posts in here. A few weeks later I happened to spot a new Savage X SS kit #883 (no motor!) on ebay. I put in a bid for $250 and walked away. A few days later I won it and promptly ordered a FLM forward chassis. Enough with the history, here's the specs:

Savage X SS kit
FLM forward chassis kit
Mamba Max and CCBEC
Feigao 8XL
RCM heatsink
RCM 16t pinion
RRP 48t spur
Hitec 5955 for steering
Hitec 645 for braking
Spektrum DX3R and 3100 receiver
Neu 4900mah 4s lipo
HPI 3-speed with taller 3rd gear
HPI dual fiberglass disc brakes
Ofna 28mm offset dish wheels
HPI Dirt Bones (strapped)
HPI wheelie bar

Everything else is stock HPI. I had the same issues as some guys with the FLM kit but to me it's nothing major. I was missing the servo support but found that the stock motor plate supports could be drilled out to work and the rear tranny holes didn't line up. It took me 5mins to fix both. Everything else on the chassis was perfect. The only change I may make is milling some holes in the skid plate to allow dirt and rocks to escape, esp under the brake discs.

Since this tread is worthless without pics, here ya go:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3229.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3231.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3232.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3233.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3239.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3236.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3238.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3235.jpg

And my favorite: My new Savage saying goodbye to it's retarded stepchild, the E-Savage. :slap:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3246.jpg

Retarded stepchild:lol::lol::lol::rofl:

Does it have red hair, no teeth, and play the banjo?!:oh:

Nice truck, I had the same issues you did with the missing brace and the tranny holes. Still need to finish mine, almost too nice to run!

:lol: I was going to say "red haired" but didn't want to insult any rc-monster gingers we may have in here! :na:

HAHA, take a look at this: http://gingerkids.org/index.html

Don't use this picture when you sell the e-savage. :lol: Great build Ken.

We'll see how this does this weekend against my LS2P or my Savage if I can get it done in time. :party:

be nice to redheads, for god's sake, they have no souls!:lol:

Sweet ride! I can finish mine this Friday, i expected the stock body would look worse, because of the length of the vehicle, but it looks rather good on it.

Very nice, one of the best Savages of seen

Ok, enough with the ginger kid jokes.....there's a couple of them staring in my window...:eyes: I think they're after my soul...

Serum: Yes, hurry up and finish it. We're tired of waiting! :mdr:

Thanks for the compliments guys. I really love this truck. It's by far the toughest truck I've ever built. I'm really tempted to enter it in the RCCA WFRCC challenge this year. I took home fastest mini last year and would like to take home fastest monster truck this year for RC-Monster, esp since last year should have been a win for RC-Monster, not HPI. I forgot the guy's name who was sponsored by Mike, but he should have won. I hope he'll show up again this year.

I've got a MMM on order for this truck and I think I'll end up ordering a 1521 as well. I wonder if it's even possible to get this tank into the 80-90mph range.

Ok, Dewmerz and I went bashing at the BMX park today and got some pretty good video for you guys. It's unedited and a little long (9 mins) but it shows what this truck can take. The first 2 and a half minutes are me getting used to the truck so you can skip to 2:40 if you want to see the jumps. With the nice long chassis it's really stable and easy to control in the air. It did cog a few times in the air that prevented me from bringing the nose back up fast enough, but at least the brakes worked flawlessly. Remember, this is the first 1/8th scale truck I've owned and the first time I've really driven it, other than 5 mins in my small back yard and another 5 mins in the parking lot of my lhs to set 3rd gear. For such a big, heavy truck, it's really easy to control and very responsive. There's also some video at the end of my E-firestorm on 2s until the MM separated from it's case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJVkNKYJbck&fmt=18

Total damage after 15-20mins of hard bashing? 1 broken rear dogbone, 1 partially blown rear shock cap and a slightly dented lipo. Instead of making a front lipo brace last night like I should have, I ended up playing GTAIV. :oops: Well, just as expected, that worthless little piece of delrin failed and my lipo slid into the spur gear. The also worthless maxamps "lipo cover" did nothing but thankfully Neu put nice thick wood spacers at the end of the pack that kept the cell from fully impacting the slipper nut. The damage isn't as bad as it looks. I actually peeled back some of the shrink wrap to make sure the cell wasn't damaged. The shiny thing in the pic is strapping tape, not the cell.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3262.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3261.jpg

Dewmerz came up with an idea to use the remaining stock motor mount support to add extra bracing for the skid plate and lower chassis while also freeing up two nice aluminum tabs to use for a lipo brace. I used a piece of scrap fiberglass for the lipo brace until I go back to work next week and make a proper plate. Don't even plan on using the stock delrin stopper in the front. FLM really needs to make better braces. It really doesn't take much, esp for them. I have to make stuff the old fashioned way, with a mill! I'd kill for a CNC machine! :diablo:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3258.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3259.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3260.jpg

Overall, I couldn't be happier. This is by far the best RC investment I've ever made. :yipi: The 8XL did get up to about 180F, but not any higher. Power was great and runtime was a lot more than I expected. No regrets at all. Best truck ever.

Ken's Savage was really cool to watch today. It handled the big jump much better than my LS2P did and had really good runtime. The truggy just couldn't match the ground clearance.

The broken dogbone on the Savage was minor compared to my over jump on the double casing the LS2P hard enough on the peak of the next one to tweak the chassis and pop the center CVD during flex. :yipi:

If I can get my Savage done by Sunday hopefully we'll do it again.

Damn, that was close with that lipo.
Great to hear that you are having fun

Nice video!! That truck looks to be doing great for you. :yes: Too bad about the battery, but at least you'll be able to fix the problem for future bashes. Can you tell me how the long the wheelbase is... from center of front wheel, to center of rear wheel please?

I was lucky it was only cosmetic damage to the lipo.
The wheelbase is about 388mm or 15 1/4". Almost the same as the new XL. I'm also considering the new Super heavy-duty driveshafts #100415 from the XL if I break another driveshaft.

Did you have to do any mods to get the FLM center skid mounted?

Mine doesn't seem to fit and I'm not sure if it's the kit, or me missing a step.......

Nothing special on mine to get the center skid mounted. It's a little tight but it fits in there. Is it not fitting length or width wise?

Well, my Monsters finally showed up. :mdr: It's kinda weird holding it in my hand. After waiting over 2 years for it I had actually given up on it ever coming out. Kinda like the DX3R. :lol: Too bad I'm still waiting on my Neu motor...

I soldered up the 6.5mm bullets and a Dean's plug for the battery and programmed it with no issues. The weight with connectors was 4.6oz which was only 0.6oz heavier than my MM with CCBEC with connectors. The footprint is only slightly larger too as you can see by the pics. Thanks to the internal BEC and fan I was also able to get rid of a y-harness and free up a port on my receiver. Overall everything looks much cleaner.

And I finally have 10awg wire to match my Neu battery. :yipi: I should be able to run it today to see if there is any improvement. I'm running the exact same settings, motor and battery. What I'm hoping for is that the Monster gets rid of the cogging issues I was having.

On to the pics.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3270.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3275.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3278.jpg

Receiver before and after pics:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3263.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3273.jpg

Since Castle was once again stingy with the stickers:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3276.jpg

Castle: what's up with no stickers?!?! Don't you know they add horsepower? :lol:

I've made a few updates to my Savage. :mdr:

XL super Heavy duty axles
Tekno Neu 1515/1Y
6s Trakpower (3packs in series)
Aftershock shocks w/aluminum caps
XL 52t spur gear

I haven't run it yet, but should get a chance this weekend.

Pics:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3332.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...e/DSCF3334.jpg

Something's gonna break for sure!

Mmmmm. Lotsa batteries. Mmmmmm
Something's gonna break for sure! Yeah but it will be fun,fun,fun!
Good luck with her- looks great.

Hmm, not very safe all those batteries....
Why not just an 6s lipo pack...??

This can move especially when crahing and jumping....

Greetz,
Joram

I agree with Joram.
I would not trust those velcro straps to hold all of those batteries.

Looks like he has velcro stips or something in between each pack to reduce the chance of them sliding around. I've seen the same thing done with just 2 packs for racing, and it works well enough.

Maybe it can, but why not using a 6s lipo, they're made to use just 1 pack and not a lot of singe/double sells:no:

But that are not all the things... You need to connect 3 batteries to 1..:bad: connector....
I buy for my savvy a 6s Zippy pack. Not 3, 2s packs, :lol::intello:


Greetz,
Joram

Well, if you'd like to give me $300 for a 6s pack my Paypal address is.......

I didn't buy 3 2s packs just to do this. As it stands I have 4 Trackpower 2s 4900 packs, 2 Neu 4s 4900 packs, 1 Maxamps 3s 5000 pack, and 1 Orion 2s 3200 pack, not counting all the small lipos I have for my minis and crawler. I just wired up the Trackpowers to try out 6s power on the 1515/1y. I actually went back to 4s since the 6s was just overkill with that motor. On 4s it's still got gobs of power and will top out around 45mph which is plenty for a MT.

BTW, there IS velcro between each pack and I used stoppers to keep the packs from shifting. Even in really bad crashes (like nosing it off a 15ft jump) the packs didn't budge and the hard cases held up better than my Neus without cases.

300 dollar is a bit much:p

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...00mAh_25C_6S1P

Greetz,
Joram

Hmmm...$300 for a proven, quality pack like (flightpower or neu) or $118 for a questionable pack.

Quoted from the website you posted:

"Test run with average of 50A or 10C. The battery did OK and voltage were holding at 20.9v even at the end of the cycle with 45A draw. However, Eagle Tree logger shows only 4000mAh were used while the pack reads 21.8v or about 97% depleted. I would say these are at best 4200mAh @ 10C not 4800mAh at 25C as advertised."

If that's the case I'll just run the Trackpowers, thanks.

in my 3.3 Revo conversion I run a 1515/2.5d w/ a FP 6s 5000 pack and than I tried a Zippy 4150 R 6s pack and IMO there is not as much punch and the Zippy does run warmer but not bad for the price.....I think will stay with my FPs though...you dont have to buy new packs often.....

Are there too some 6s lipo packs who are not as expensive as the Flightpower?

so about 200 dollar?

Greetz,
Joram

if you cant afford the FPs you can go with a Zippy 6s 4800 pack

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...00mAh_25C_6S1P

I thought the Zippy weren't good??? I'm going to run op NEY 1515 2.5d... so i need enough power...

Greetz,
Joram

Have you had any trouble with over heating?

do you run reverse
are you still using the manual brake

where can i buy these straps?rc monster have them?

do you have reverse in the truck if so what kind what brake are you using

I got the 12" straps from Fry's Electronics. I use 8" straps for my 4s lipos.

I don't have reverse and I'm using the stock dual disk brakes. There should be pics of my brake setup on the first page. I haven't had a single problem with the brakes.

Are u still running the 3-speed with it on 6s?

I was running it on 4s for a while since I had to go back to a MM while my MMMs were back at Castle. Then I did a complete tear down and rebuild, cleaned everything, and replaced some tweaked parts. BTW, the 3-speed is still perfect.

I'll post some new pics when I get everything back together.

have you ever try the xl savage extended aluminum axles

Have you got those packs Velcroed together so the cant slide forward and damage the plugs?