brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

Let me start by saying that I Own 4 FGs 3 Harms and 1 HPI. I love them all! They all are good and crapy in their own way. I don't care which is better than the other and I don't want to hear aobut it. They'e loud, big, fun and fast. But I'm always looking to improve them. I hope that we can keep the politics of brand loyalty (which seems to pop up on every Baja thread) out of this thread. The only thing I want to see here is mods you have made to your Baja.

I recieved my baja this Monday. I took it out on Tuesday bashed it around. I was running it through the woods covered in leaves and branches and woodchips; all that good stuff that likes to wedge itself up in your drivtrain,suspension, and engine. It was awesome! I jumped it, flipped it crashed it and bashed it around. I even got it to do some barrel rolls. At the end of the day I was able to drive it home in one piece. I hope to get some video footage this weekend.

Here are some things that I noticed about the Baja during my cleanup.

This car uses a lot of body pins! At first they are a pain to get off until you band the clips, then you can grab them with your fingers. I am still undecided about this design. We will have to see down the road after a body pin has been removed a couple hundred times if the plastic parts are still holding up. On the plus side the plastic pin recievers are easy and cheap to replace. This is better than stripping out a more expenssive plast part.

My first mod to the car was to cover the pull start vents with fiberglass mesh (screen door mesh). I glued the mesh to the inside of the pull start so that it looks stock. After my run through the woods the cooling fan area was completely full of dirt, leaves, etc... The fan was even beggining to rub causing a squeeling sound.

After cleaning the engine out and putting it back together I tore apart the front end. I wanted to look at the steering setup. I dont like that the linkage from the servo to the servo saver is not horizontal with the chassis. The linkage comes in at a rather steep angle. Based on rough calculations I would say that 15 to 20% of the force potential from the servo is lost due to this configuration. I also see a potential for the servo saver to fail (become damaged). Right know I do not have a solution and will leave it alone until It becomes a problem or someone comes up with something better. In tearing apart the front end I decided that I am going to replace the steering servo with a Rhino Digi 4. I have a question about this servo compared to the Stock HPI SFL-10 servo. HPI claims that their servo is capable of 25kgcm = 347ozin. I am going to guess that this is holding force and not dynamic. After all the servo only has plastic gears. According the to Multiplex's website the Rhino is rated at 320ncm = 453 ozin (static). This seems like a no brainer except on Towers website they rate the Rhino as only having 203ozin. I'm guessing that this is maybe a dynamic rating. Can anyone vouch for the Rhino before I put it into my car? Another obervation. When I was taking the front end apart, all of the screws that are used to hold metal to metal frame parts together are almost impossible to remove. I stripped out the first screw and ended up having to drill out the head. I pulled out the torch for the remaining screws. The torch works well but it is sketchy with all the plastic on this car.

Once I get the car back together and running again this weekend I will begin finding a way to modify a set of FG front brakes for this car. I know that there are aftermarket brakes already available for this vehicle but they are way overpriced.

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

Here is the front end torn apart

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

The stock servo. There is a metal gear conversion available for about $26

hellya

Timmahh

Brice, First Thing I ll say is Kudos for your NO BS Stand. and Congrats.. i wont have mine here until next week, so i ll be following along until then.. only brakes i seen to date are on Ebay, and yes at 290.00 are TOO FREAKING Expensive. whats the cost of the FGs? i heard 165lbs in UK which is just as pricey if my usd/lbs coversion is right. a Guy on another Forum has already put on a set of the FGs. Looks great, though im not sure about operations yet. he hasnt reposted since he put them on end of last week.
one thing many suggest to date is to remove the starter, clean out the greese, and use a dry teflon lube. it will help eliminate dirt in the ps, that causes it to slip. its all i got at the moment, beside an X Can and retune. still waiting to see what ONeil Brothers come up with for a tuned pipe. the 29cc Conversion kit for 60 bux also appears to be a inexpensive power upgrade too.
Timmahh

JRexA

You can also find the front brakes here:
http://www.rc-car-online.de/5b_ht_bremse_eng.htm#2

From what I see on the pictures they are better than the FG standard brakes.
Also, to my knowledge, at the moment they are the only one that makes such a set, which makes it possible for them to charge a Premium price.

HeatFire

lol he havent posted about the brakes cos HPI sent hitmen to kill him for using parts from other brands
about the fan part.. aluminium net is a lil bit more beutiful.. and by the way.. i "glued" my on with silicone.. just to take off if i wanna but then om the outside.. were they should be.. cos now dirt just stick in the.. hmm pits:P
and by the way.. that rubber thing on the tank in front off the filter.. my on the Marder started to leak (they look alot alike may be other kind of rubber) but i put some liquid gasket under there and now it's perfect.. the liquid gasket expands some if exposed to fuel.. perfect im thinking having a leak on the baja could make the filter not letting the air in and maybe it would do some more:P dont know but i wouldnt wanan expose it to fuel

TurtleRacing

Congrats & I like the disclaimer right at the start also!!! I put the same screen on my starter also & removed all grease from the starter & sprayed it with dry lube. I also went one step further & went to Lowes & got a foam filter for Shop Vac, cut a long slice & rapped it around the starter, then took another piece & put it in the body vent, this stops the crap from getting back to the starter. Also, I can't take any credit for this, JeepFreak came up with this, if you'd like to see pics let me know. I've only bashed mine good & hard through one tank & it's doing awesome so far, few minor issues, nothing major at all! I'm very happy with it. I removed the extension pipe & there is a huge difference in performance!@ I know it wouldn't spin the tires while it was on & now it rips them up!! I will definately be doing some mods & can't wait to hear about more of yours! Appreciate you sharing!!

MnMikeRC

Here is an idea that I like for all of my cars and it is a water resistant pre filter for the air filter.

chevyman_de

And they're better than FG's tuning brakes as well. Believe it to me, we would prefer a price under 200 Euro, but it's not possible.
The combination of pads and rotors, billet levers, stud bolts and steel bushings alone represents a price of almost 100 Euro, and there's a lot more in the kit.

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

I like the pre-filter, where are those available?

Also I would like to see pictures of the FG on the Baja. I have some ideas but it's always nice to see what other people are doing.

I am itching to remove the exhaust extension on the muffler but I don't want to spray oil all over the rear end of the vehicle. Is this a problem for those who have removed the extension?

1saltykracker

i have removed the extension and after two tanks of rich fuel ...no over spray at all..i thought it would also

Timmahh

thing is, unlike nitro, 2 cycle doesnt spit nowhere near the oil thru, it mostly burns up in the cylinder with the gas. use good mix, and the mess is minimal at best. 250.0l sounds unrealistically expensive. unless it was hydrolic. them maybe, but not cable operated.
Timmahh

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

I made a decision today to do some custom modifications to my muffler. From the beggining, the extended exhaust looked kind of weak. It was almost as if it was an afterthought on HPI's part. I decided that I was going to chop off the small .550" dia pipe and weld on dual .750" pipes coming out the back of the buggy. I know that there is a lot of jibber jabber out there about the flow on this exhaust system. I don't know who is right and once again I don't care. To avoid any arguments over my design lets just say that I made the modification because it looks cool and not because it improves performance.

On a side note I was playing around with and FG MT muffler and pipe. If you don't mind having the exhaust coming out towards the front and to the side then this might work. it would require some fiddling with the brake line though. You would also have to modify the roll cage as the muffler sticks up too high. Overall though I think that this is also a pretty cool setup.

I just finished welding up my custom exhaust. It looks pretty cool and more realistic of a dune buggy. I will post pics in a couple of hours once I get my car back together.

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

So I'm finished working on my car for the weekend *knock on wood*. I went ahead and replaced the HPI servo with a Multiplex Digi Rhino 4. I'll have to see how it does. I finished installing the muffler. It looks awesome. The pictures don't do it justice.

I must say that I am very impressed with how fast this vehicle goes together. I had the car pretty torn appart and was able to reassemble everything in less than an hour. Some of the things that make reassmbly speed along include the modular radio gear. Having everything on one sub-assembly is a drem come true. It was so easy to replace the servo and set the position of the servo horn. I think that another thing that helps with assembly is the fact that for all the screws with nuts the nuts are rest in sockets on the recieving parts.

My next mod will probably be front disk brakes. I've seen the specs on the brakes listed above. I think what I will do is machine my own rotors (70mm) and use the FG calipers. The calipers should be pretty easy to get to work using an adaptor plate to fit the HPI knuckles.

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

And Another Picture . . .

bigger the better

Not sure of performance but looks cool! Looks as if you made some type of new Xcan.

P.S. Great job on the Posts! Love to see someone give the real skinny and be honest about the likes and dislikes without all that bashing.[sm=thumbup.gif]

Update us when you try out your new exhaust.. Good luck!

Timmahh

yes how is preforming.. that is more of what i would expect the location to be for a trueer scale apperance. how about a coiled up tuned pipe? could it be done.
Timmahh

hndaman1

My Feedback: (6)

Brice, nice job on the pipe.But have you noticed any power loss? Cause you opened the exhaust up more, two smokes need some sort of back pressure. post your results. please.....................

Timmahh

ok, now im confused
Timmahh

J_D

you can;t just open up a 2 stroke exhuast and expect it to be better. i think timahh on the hpi forum i saw u post about a better breathing engine having more power. 2 strokes require resistence in the exhuast to create backpressure, other wise the fuel goes stright thru the cylinder and doesnt get used.

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

I have no way of documenting performance without someone tearing me a new one for stating any kind of improvement because I didn't test my engine on $20000 XPRZ-6400-Do-Dad With ANSI and ISO calibration certification within an hour of using the engine. I knew this would happen which is why I will never say anything about performance. I will say this though; it looks cool and it make more noise. When I get video later today maybe you can get a feel for it.

USABaja5B

I'll take one if you make any more. I don't need performance, I need the cool factor.

Timmahh

yea JD, thats my quandry, backpressure or the possilbe lack there of. i d love the bling cool factor. but not at a cost of a motor every 2 or 3 months.
Timmahh

brice_arnold

My Feedback: (6)

OK peeps here is the first video from todays footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcX400JC1AU


I just have to say that I had a lot of fun with this car. The muffler is awesome. It's so loud it sounds like the Jetpro on my FG MT. My wife kept telling me that it needs to be quieter (she was shooting the video). I have some more footage of crashes from today. As soon as I get these together I will post in another thread. Once again I was able to bash this car around and still drive home in one piece. We'll see how it does tomorrow. One day at a time. I'm still waiting to break something. To me a broken part means a new upgrade or improvement potential. The only wear that I've noticed is the drive shaft boot has worn through. Might look at another brand of this.

In the mean time I will get started on the brakes.