otimusprime

Hey guy's i am looking at gettign into nitro monster truck ive had plenty of electric but im jsut plain gettign bored of them and want a nitro.
which of these is a better truck for a first nitro monster truck.
i want something powerful big and durable i can beat the crap out of.
looking at either the team losi xxl or the hpi savage x 4.6
which of these is better or is there somethign else i should be lookign
thanks guy's.

Airbus 9e

The Losi, not so much that it's faster, which it is by a tick or so, but it will out handle any Savage. The savage you have to just about stop to get it to turn, but the Lsi you can drive almost like a race car....my Aftershock regularly beats my brother in law's savages when we fun race out back...He just can't get the Savage to turn in like my Losi......wait till he see's my Muggified LST 2 witha Big Red and the bigger gears.....

steed2-inactive

i am a die-hard savage fan boy, they are my favourite trucks by a long haul, but between them both i would opt for the losi. the radio it comes with is great, the engine is a beautiful mill, and judging by my atershock the xxl should handle much better than the savage. i love the way the savage handles, very monster truckish, but thats just me. it handles like a dump truck. i will say though, as airbus will agree, the x 4.6 does boogie and has a nice rtr mill (the f not the k, or rtr version not the ss), but the engine that comes with the losi is a common engine for savage guys to upgrade to (lrp 28, same thing). its really hard to compare the 2 as the losi cost's a fair amount more but for good reason, but some food for thought...stay away from the xl. do your research, peruse both website's, read as many reviews as you can, you will be happy either way, and both trucks are great-scott

otimusprime

alright thanks guy's for the respinses question how good does these two hold a tune will the losi hold a tune better than the savage im a losi die hard fan but my buddy has a savage adn i liek it as well. might get the xxl and eventually get a savage as well. thanks though. and what would be a good fuel and good glow plug's for the losi my buddy's shop he seems ot sell the os brand plug's the msot are thsoe any good thanks zach.

ntrain42

Losi XXL is by far vastly superior. Its not even close. XXL is a serious bang for the buck. Far superior tx/rx,the 454engine is leaps and bounds better, tranny/drivetrain, better dual steering servo design, and it handles so much better due to the big bore shocks and a-arm arrangement. Basically the XXL handles like an over sized truggy.

JUCD VPR

I'd get the Losi over the Savage unless you plan on doing some hardcore bashing. But the Losi XXL gets my vote here.

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

Dude, you get a little caught up in the losi stuff. I like the XXL just fine, but vastly superior? Give me a break. The radio is nicer. Not superior at getting the job done. The 454 engine is about on par with the F 4.6. We have been over that one before. The tranny's have one way bearing problems at times. Savage tranny is just as strong.The shafts and drive cups may be a little better, but the differentials are no better now that all the savages have bulletproof gears. The dual steering servo's are ok, but a lot of people upgrade to just 1 good one anyways. It will handle better no doubt, but the savage doesent just flip over everytime you look at it wrong either. Please be realistic instead of being so biased when someone is asking for information.

ntrain42

Oh yeah, vastly superior without question. 100% realistic. And quite honestly, the Savage's do have a flipping issue at our local track, especially when people look at it right or wrong way.

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

More like 100% biased

jackripped

Maybe he should just buy a Tamia Frog ! Far superior to both those machines !

l own savage but not Losi, but l cant say whats definately better sinse l havent owned a Losi, looking at them, probably the Losi is a little better, but what Cummins driver says is true, the difference wouldnt be all that huge on the ground.
A matter of taste shall we say !

SLAYERDUDE

Biased Savage FTW...

Radioman193

ntrain42

Biased, sure, I am, but that is due largely in part to the actual design of the Savage vs. the XXL. When I got back into this hobby last year I had a chance to take home a Savage,MGT and XXL on loaner(one at a time)from my LHS to try out. The XXL was definetly the cream of the 3 overall.

ntrain42

Ive seen your massive RC abuse videos(cool jump btw)and I know your Savage "survived" em without much that actually broke during the sessions, but that truck was in very rough shape afterwards regardless. LOL!

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

Thats fine, but I think you'd really have to own them before you can really say much. Obviously you can get a feel for the trucks handling and driving characteristics just driving them some, but unless you didnt care to break your loaners, I dont imagine you ran them quite like you would if they were your own. You pretty much have to own the 3 trucks for a good amount of time before you can truely make any claims about durability, longevity, etc....

That said I have owned the MGT and Savage long term and I can tell you they are pretty comparable. My father in law has the LST and while i havent driven it a lot, i feel its about on par with the other trucks as well. They all have their ups and downs, and there is no clear cut winner here. Its more based on what you want to do with them than anything.

Eric

steed2-inactive

I personally like the savage better, allthough i have never owned a xxl, I do own a brand new aftershock and do not like the design at all, the engine being in there sideways, the transmission design, the chassis design. I by no means hate it, but i prefer the savage. I think ntrain had a bad experiance with a savage. I once had a revo, that goddamn truck broke every single time i ran it, i absolutely hated it, and i mean everytime i ran it something would break....so it lived on the shelf for 6 months and one day i just decided to do a complete restoration to it....anything that was remotely worn got replaced. The truck has been great, and i am really enjoying a truck i once hated with a passion. the worst part was the restoration ended up costing the same as a new revo or at least damn close to it. I think ntrain , you need to back off on the savage hating, your posts on the savage seem almost violent.... may i ask which savage model did you own? If it was a ss you got the crappy weak diff cups and a ****ty engine. i have had 2 x rtr's, an xl, and a flux. They are down right my favourite truck, but i still enjoy my traxxas and losi products-scott

tjansen

hey im just getting into this sport and i need some help i have been doing a ton of research online and decided to go traxxas route. i know i should go electric cuz they dont require any maintenence but i am a fourwheeler and dirtbiker and nothin beats the niose and smell. wat traxxas truck would work best for me i would have it on road, my yard, and back in my woods on a fourwheeler track so wats the route to go with durability and low maintence and something that will last me

jbooker82

My Feedback: (4)

Yea you know what your talking about since 2 flat chassi plates on edge with the diff housings, and transmission sandwitched between them are stronger than a single flat pan chassi with the suff bolted to the top of the pan.

Oh so tippy.

jbooker82

My Feedback: (4)

Maybe you could constuct a ramp like that and post some pics and vids so we could have something to compair to then.

ntrain42

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Odp5FNrkpk&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube]

You mean something like this?

Quite honestly, Ive seen both trucks do outrageous things and survive, and Ive seen both trucks break parts on much smaller meanderings. It doesn't necessarily prove anything.

As to your first post, please don't try and tell me a Savage handles well. Out RCE and 106 the few that show up for races come in last place everytime. They don't hold a candle to the LST and Revo's for handling.

jbooker82

My Feedback: (4)

Yep their are a lot of varables that go in to if a rc drives away or not. For bruit strenght the savage is still king due to its TVP chassis. I thought MT's were built for bashing and not racing, or that is the reason why I bougt one. Ethire way a Truggy kicks the crap out of a MT on the track.

My first post wanst really attacking the XXL's handleing. It was more of a quesion on how a single flat pan chassis is stronger than 2 plates on edge with the componets sandwitched between them. That is what my first post was about and you seem to have skipped over it.

The pics are there to show how dumb of a comment you made, not to discredit the XXL's handling, or prove the Savage as being superior.

HPI_Savage_RC

Having driven most of the top MTs, I still believe that the Savage is the best basher.

The design of the Savage allows it to be virtually bulletproofed with minimal upgrading. Thicker TVPs and machined engine plate, aluminum rear carriers, a fuel tank that doesn't sit directly in front of the shock tower, stronger hinge pin braces and bumper screws, and you have a truck that will be very, very difficult to break. Check out some of the Flux videos on YouTube; people are bashing extremely overpowered electric Savages in a manner that isn't really possible with current nitro engines, and the platform holds up very well with some minor tweaks.

IMO, the LST is a more "complete" truck out of the box. It doesn't have a lot of the issues the newer generation Savages face out of the box, such as the poorly designed upper hinge pin retaining system, the poorly designed rear turnbuckle system, and the utter garbage HPI continues to supply for tuned pipes. Losi's RTR engines are much better than HPI's, and for years their stock radio gear has been a cut above the rest. The only thing the LST truly needs to be reliable for general operation is an upgraded engine brace.

However, for whatever reason, the LST never really hit the extreme basher market. As a result, there are limited options for durability upgrades. Unless you have access to metal fabrication equipment, you're basically stuck with the stock chassis decks and hinge pin braces, which are known to fail under heavy jumping. Most of the plastic parts are more susceptible to damage as well, though RPM does make replacement arms for the LST.

In terms of performance, the LST has a significant edge in handling, mostly as a result of superior suspension geometry. The Savage handles well enough for general bashing, but sucks on a track without the HPI RSC kit and a 4 shock setup.

The OP mentioned that he wants to beat the crap out of the truck, so I'd suggest a Savage.

HerrSavage

nitrobashers.com was a cool Australian basher website a few years ago, and those guys took bashing to levels not outdone by anybody , and mostly with LST2's.. Back when people were modding Savages and other MT's like crazy, if you took an LST2, put a Dynamite engine brace, some RPM's and a New Era roll-bar(the NE roll-bar IMO makes the LST2 chassis as sturdy as anything.. Never had a broken plate or side-rail or hinge-pin holder or whatever in 3 1/2 years..) and some yellow or RC Raven shock springs, nothing would have made a better basher.. With the Savage you had to double your investment in the truck - literally (Nitromods diff upgrades here in Germany cost a fortune..) - just upgrading the drivetrain to be able to handle even a lowly 28 engine.. But yeah, in the States slapfafro and beaverstick and redneckbashers and co mostly ran Savages.. They made great videos.., but just because they ran Savages doesn't mean LST2's can bash with the best of them - or even do it better.....

ps lstforums in the US was always more racer-oriented, so people maybe didn't identify the LST2 with hard-core bashing as much - unfortunately.. Though had they seen what some of these Aussies were doing, they would have...

ntrain42

The TVP actually has one big weakness Ive seen, and that is from side impacts. No of course your not supposed to hit things sideways, but ive seen a few Savage's wrap a pole of some type hard and come out pretty badly bent.

The Losi LST's chassis is actually kind of a hybrid box design. It has vertical side rails like the TVP chassis that is sandwiched by a top and bottom plates forming a box style chassis. Its actually quite rugged, a bit more than I think people want to give credit for and when used with a roll bar like the NE one does not flex at all up front.

And as for my comments being dumb, far from it, the Savages have a much higher COG(and do so without any more ground clearance)and just can't turn at speed like the LST's especially for racing. And what holds true for racing, also holds true for bashing. The few people here who still own Savage's are constantly flipping over their trucks from hard turns they couldnt handle and landing jumps where the suspension just wasn't on par with the LST. In all honesty the LST os more like an oversized 5th or 6th scale truggy than it is an 8th scale MT, and it shows in its handling.

HPI_Savage_RC

Yeah, I recall watching some of their videos, they had some pretty good stuff.

Very true, just a couple of years ago, the Savage needed some pretty extensive upgrades to handle powerful engines, but these days, with the BP diffs and HD dogbones being shipped as standard equipment, I think you would be hard pressed to find any R/C with a stronger stock drivetrain. As much as I dislike electric, I have to admit that these new brushless systems have completely redefined the term "adequate durability".

I primarily browsed North American based bashing forums in the past, and you're right, there has always been minimal discussion of the LST on such sites. I'm actually quite surprised by the lack of 3rd party aftermarket components available for the platform.

A TVP design typically needs some form of solid lateral bracing to maintain strength in all directions. Most Savage owners install an inexpensive center skid plate with aluminum cross brace mounts, which takes care of that issue. Some people still manage to bend the TVPs, but there are a plethora of nearly indestructible aftermarket options available for the extreme bashers.

Losi almost nailed the ideal box frame design, but unfortunately they decided not to use a full plate on the bottom of the chassis, leaving the plastic rails prone to failure at the juncture between the 3 lower plates. I have seen the plastic rails snap several times, even with the NE roll bar in place, usually resulting in the upper deck bending as well.

I've posted this picture a few times before, but it effectively illustrates what I'm talking about here:



The Savage's poor performance on the track has more to do with its roll center than its center of gravity. Adding HPI's racing suspension conversion kit will drastically improve handling, and switching to a 4 shock setup will increase suspension performance on normal sized track jumps.