2013 - HPI Savage XS
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My Savage XS is finally done.
Well...saying it's *finally* done is a bit of an exaggeration, because for most of the time I owned it I was perfectly content to use it in stock form. Of all the vehicles I own, my Savage XS has been the most drama-free, requiring almost nothing in terms of maintenance. Almost all of the upgrades I did to it were done in the past two weeks, when I decided to upgrade a bunch of parts as long as I was giving the drivetrain an overhaul. Prior to that, the only upgrades it really *needed* were: CVDs for the wheel axles, because the dogbone stub-axles were starting to split apart; metal body posts, because the front plastic body post kept breaking; and new tires, because the stock tires were kind of slippery.
Actually, the tires were the very first upgrade I made. I originally went with Pro-Line Gladiator 2 tires, which had great traction, but they wore down pretty fast. Pictured below are the other tires I originally considered, Pro-Line Dirt Works tires, which I have decided to try as a replacement for the Gladiator 2's. (the Dirt Works' also look more truck-like.) I used normal tire glue for the inner beads, and flex-CA for the outer beads, so we'll see how that holds up. I also fitted the Dirt Works tires with Pro-Line's 2-stage 1/10 truck tire foams, to try to minimize wear on the outer shoulders of the tires without making the tires rock hard.
As you can see, one of the mods was the addition of front and rear running lights; the Savage XS doesn't come with rear light buckets, but some creative wrenching made it possible to fit an extra front bumper and front light buckets to the rear bulkhead. The light kit was bought from RC-Lighthouse, and the LEDs were replaced with brighter LEDs (the rears in particular were replaced with wide-angle LEDs) from SuperBrightLEDs.com.
The stock Castle Vapor Pro ESC and 4000KV motor worked fine, but eventually I wanted a quieter motor and an ESC with a startup program to smooth the motor's operation at low RPM. Tacon's two-pole motors have coreless windings, which solved the noise problem and improved coasting, and Turnigy has a 120-amp ESC that's just the right size and has the startup program I want. As an added bonus, the Turnigy Trackstar ESC is compatible with the program card I have for my mini vehicles -- *and* it has a secondary port, normally used for the cooling fan, that can be used to connect the program card without having to fish-out the servo harness from the radio box.
Also, the stock servo was replaced with a Hitec HS-7955TG servo, which is a big beastly thing that makes sure the wheels are pointed in the correct direction no matter what terrain the tires are resting on. (even carpet.) A Futaba GYC430 accelerometer was added to stabilize the vehicle; even with the 2-pole motor, the Savage XS can still do backflips, which means it can also go WAY faster than is safe, so the accelerometer helps to make sure that when I hit the brakes, the vehicle doesn't just spin around backwards, flip over, and go cartwheeling until it hits something (or someone).
I replaced the shocks with HPI's optional aluminum shocks. The stock plastic shocks worked fine the entire time I had them, but I just prefer aluminum shocks because they're stronger and more-resistant to flex in hard impacts, so the shock body won't let as much shock fluid sneak past the sides of the shock pistons. The springs carry over from the stock plastic shocks, since I didn't know if the springs that came with the aluminum shocks had the correct spring-rate.
All of the drive cups were replaced with the Heavy Duty option parts, with the exception of the diff input cups, which were actually replaced with center-driveshaft CVDs. I'm not sure if the HD drive cups are actually made of harder steel, or if the nickel-plating is enough to make them last longer all by itself, but either way they've got good reviews, and they're enough of a pain to change that I decided I wanted them to last as long as possible.
I also replaced all of the bearings, which had metal seals instead of rubber seals, with rubber-sealed ceramic bearings, so it should be rolling smoothly for a good long time.
Modifications made since the original post:
One last addition, since I finished this build and discovered the 2-pole motor still has more than enough torque to cause lots of trouble: a wheelie bar.
A single-wheel isn't the most stable design, but it's durable enough to survive when the vehicle cartwheels and lands directly on the wheelie-bar, and that's more important to me than stability when wheelie-ing; it's really just there to reduce wear on the rear bumper and give me a better chance to regain control of the vehicle before it flips over and skids on the roof.
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