I just purchaced a ERBE
 

Hi,
First off I'm 45 and have had both nitro & electric R/C cars, trucks, boats, and planes. (only flew last plane for a VERY short time!) I usually research before I 'impulse buy'. With my most recent R/C cars were HPI Micro RS4s and Losi Mini Trucks, both of those cars were lots of fun with LOTS of upgrades, blah blah blah....
The reason for my change in needs is a friend of mine has a HPI Savage X 4.6. He made a comment that electric trucks/truggys CANT keep up with his Nitro Savage. Well the gaunlet had been thrown down, as he knew I prefered electric over gas.
I have been reading up on 1/10 off road trucks/truggys and I decided on the E-Revo Brushless Edition. I actually got another buddy to get a second ERBE and they will arrive Thursday. To keep us from going STRAIGHT to the dog house with our wives, we are starting with completelty stock w/ 2 7 cell NiMH batteries, and a battery charger that will charge these NiMH and future LI-PO batterys.

Keeping in mind these E-Revos will be used primarily for bashing/racing on a track we are building. (it's nice having equipment!!) We live over an hour away from the closest hobby store. Next month we will both go LI-PO and most likely twin 3S packs.

My questions for you guys are the following:

1) Knowing things break what are some "MUST HAVES" in my pit box?

2) What changes are needed to improve driving/ handling?

3) What are the improvements does the stock ERBE need, to drive aggressively?

TIA,
Jeff

I would love to put your mates savage against my REVO G3R CF
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22158
Than we will see who cant keep up with who.

As far as parts i would stock a couple of shafts and get the steel CVDs for the transmission output shafts. As well as some spare A arms (stock or RPM) and some axle carriers.
Handling wise i would get some stiffer springs i think the ones to get are black and tan but some one else can chime in with the that. I ended up buying one set of everything so that i can tune. You may also want to get the tekno sway bar set.
From here you will may want to change shock oil and pistons

Do some shopping on ebay! You can usually pick up a set of four axle shafts for about $20. Some spare arms wouldn't be a bad idea but I drove a nitro revo for a year and e-revo for over a year and I think I broke 1 set of front arms and one set of rears. A set of axle carriers wouldn't be to bad to have but I only broke one and that was when I hit a pole doing about 40MPH. It wouldn't hurt to have a couple spare shock parts or a like 2 whole complete shocks, it's nice that they are the same on all four corners, just different springs. Many like the Tekno sway bar kit and say it improves handling a lot.

If your running the 7 cell batteries that come with it you will be dissapointed with the runtime, they are only about 3000mah. I have a set that came with my E-maxx, they aren't horrible and if your not geared to high they perform pretty well, I did pick up a set of the Traxxas series4 7 cell packs and they do real well, actually faster that a set of 2s lipos and close to the same punch as the lipos. I would have to say hold off on going for a set of 3s lipos, you may be surprised with a set of 2s lipos, and 5s seems to be a pretty nice spot on your setup, run a 3s on one side and 2s on the other.

Welcome to RCM.

If you're looking for a lot of neat, cheap, and easy to do mods check mistercrash's E-revo build thread. He has lots of great ideas and is very helpful.

The RCM Hybrid diffs are awesome, but will set you back $200 for a pair. Making a 1/8th center hybrid diff was a good experience, and it strengthens the drivetrain and evens the power distribution. Check out the thread on that here in the Revo forums also.