Hey feedback is welcome, I appreciate the thoughts.

I love the gorilla max setup btw, I have a lot of respect for the designer and looking at the bits as a machinist, the cost is totally justified. I just can't bring my self to bash a rig setup with something that nice on it...



Couple of things.

1 Yes I agree that the speedo is in a place I am not crazy about, I am working on a mount that will put it up in the front just over the rear of the shocks, plan was to offer it free to any who bought the original kit, cost of the carbon for the plate is minimal, the motor mount and tranny lock were the harder bits.

2 Batteries flying is not a problem when you velcro the crap out of it, I use velcro on the bottom of the batts, and pull the straps tight (unlike in the pic), and I have had zero probs with them sliding. That said, I agree it would be nice to have a pan there but it could significantly increase the cost. Well,
wait...

Idea! I know bling is king but I could probably machine a battery 'tub' from delrin pretty cheaply, something one piece possibly, shouldn't really increase the cost too much, would the possibly users of a kit like this scoff at delrin plastic instead of carbon plates?

3 Balance. (just to credentialize, I am an aircraft guy first so I am sensitive to this more so than many), are we talking about lateral or for/aft CG on this thing? The batts in Nimh form were mounted fairly far forward on that plate, and the for/aft balance was darn close to the back of the transmission is that too far back? If you are talking about lateral balancing, the ESC and motor are only 3 oz less (and mounted on the opposite side) than the two Nimh packs I had in there so lateral balancing wasn't really a problem for me, are you suggesting that 3oz is a prob? I am not an experienced racer so I wasn't able to feel much handling difference but I could be off base, give me some guidance.

The metric pinion gears are not a problem for me now, didn't have the lathe when I did this, now I can bore any steel pinion to the diameter I want (just doing a reaming operation on it). So I should be able to support any motor shaft size. Gear I found along with the alu mount for it are actually cheaper to buy than most of the reasonably sized metric gears I was able to find on my source.

Gear ratio, I worked backwards, I used the basic recommendations from Novak as the target, I used the knowledge from Traxxas site of what the 2nd gear ratio was, divided out the stock pinion to spur ratio, and multiplied back in the new pinion to spur ratio. I have it pretty much right based on motor temps, current loading, and general speed and torque.

As for the mechanical brake, I didn't like dealing with the reverse shifting and braking stuff, it was purely choice, I had no need for the second gear and I prefer the electronic braking. You could easily keep these components in and just use a motor mount too.

ANyhow thanks for the feedback and the idea, I might try some stuff with delrin to see what I can come up with instead of the carbon plates...