FTX Outlaw - Beach Dune Buggy thingy

[Jason1145 3986]

So I visited the north of England, well, Manchester is north for a Londoner, and while in te neighbourhood visited a nearby area called Bolton, home to a great little model shop which kindly introduced me to the FTX Outlaw!

I was sold as soon as he mentioned the price and got the box down.... so I left with it and here it is.

Main headlines are it's a RTR at 505mm long (massive next to my Tamiya's), 2.4Ghz, Brushed 15t motor, waterproof esc and servo, and the esc can run 2s lipo too.

 

I've already experimented with wider offset tyres to improve stability and I like wide vehicles

 

One run on nimh and it's only doing about 15mph.... upgrades to follow but next run will be on 2s to liven it up prahaps?

[Effigy3 1267]

You'll need more than a LiPo to breath life into that thing.  As I replied in the "postman" thread, get a Castle SCT combo and run it on a 5,000 mAh 35C (or better) battery and you'll be loving it.  These trophy trucks are pretty trick.  If I didn't already have an Arrma Fury as a general bash hound, I'd probably get an Axial Yeti trophy truck.  They're pretty sick.

http://www.axialracing.com/products/ax90050

[Buggyjam 144]

1 hour ago, Effigy3 said:

You'll need more than a LiPo to breath life into that thing.  As I replied in the "postman" thread, get a Castle SCT combo and run it on a 5,000 mAh 35C (or better) battery and you'll be loving it.  These trophy trucks are pretty trick.  If I didn't already have an Arrma Fury as a general bash hound, I'd probably get an Axial Yeti trophy truck.  They're pretty sick.

http://www.axialracing.com/products/ax90050

I love those axial trophies. The suspension is slick 

[Dojo Dave 889]

7 hours ago, Effigy3 said:

Yohe'sl need more than a LiPo to breath life into that thing.  As I replied in the "postman" thread, get a Castle SCT combo and run it on a 5,000 mAh 35C (or better) battery and you'll be loving it.  These trophy trucks are pretty trick.  If I didn't already have an Arrma Fury as a general bash hound, I'd probably get an Axial Yeti trophy truck.  They're pretty sick.

http://www.axialracing.com/products/ax90050

Cousin just bought the yeti, He's lovin IT

[Jason1145 3986]

Hahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahha..

Took it for run number two today and broke a rear suspension link landing awkwardly from a jump...... thought it might've survived but nope.... the part only costs £5 or I can get an aluminium version for £20... the actual break was a thin piece that goes round a ball joint.

This is the broken part (aluminium upgrade option)

http://ftx-rc.com/rc-hop-ups/ftx-outlaw-option-parts/ftx-outlaw-aluminium-rear-axle-to-chassis-links-2pc?limit=25

Here is some short video's of it in action.

 

 

 

The 2s lipo did make it a bit more peppy but still pretty slow as I was expecting.... go a full 15 minutes out of it before it broke though and loved every minute of it, the suspension is very smooth,  just seeing it land and squat down was smile inducing...... and then  braking into a 180 from full speed lift it's rear inside wheel like a dog marking his territory.

 

One thing I didn't like was the slow response form the throttle input....this is the stock esc for which there is no adjustment....  there is a lag of about a second which hinders in air control to lift the nose up and this partly helped cause my bad landing which caused the break.

How much are one of those SCT combo's and are they waterproof?

 

 

 

[Jason1145 3986]

Got the replacement rear axle to chassis link in alumiunium, and the holder it connects to, any excuse for an aluminium upgrade, atleast this one was needed.

[Jason1145 3986]

Got to speed run the Outlaw today but my camera corrupted the SD card or something leaving no footage!

It was Slow on nimh at about 25KPH iirc, 2s lipo woke it up with 35KPH.

3s really got it moving at 55KPH but the 15t brushed motor was quite hot after 4-5 minutes of a couple speed runs and then some horsing around.

I'm glad I found this out now and I'll not bother with brushed motors on 3s lipo for this particular car as they really don't like 11.1v of juice being fed to them.

 

Next job to drop in a brushless combo and I might, might have to replace the radio as this Etroniks Pulse steer wheel can't be driven 1 handed with any control as it's literally on the end of the thumb tip for the steering.

[Jason1145 3986]

Took it for another run before making it brushless... this time with a 3000mah 2s lipo which got me 15 minutes run time.

Bent both the rear drive shafts slightly but enough to cause wobbly rear wheels, new ones ordered for £10

So far 2 runs and both had parts to replace!

 

 

[Darat76 265]

14 hours ago, Jason1145 said:

Took it for another run before making it brushless... this time with a 3000mah 2s lipo which got me 15 minutes run time.

Bent both the rear drive shafts slightly but enough to cause wobbly rear wheels, new ones ordered for £10

So far 2 runs and both had parts to replace!

this is the down side to cheaper cars, yes they provide a lot of fun, yes they are cheap to buy, and yes they are cheap to repair, but ordering replacement parts after every run, or every other run, quickly adds the cost up, also having to replace parts often becomes annoying and tedious, so the fun factor starts to dissipate quickly....

[Jason1145 3986]

On 13/05/2017 at 1:29 PM, Darat76 said:

this is the down side to cheaper cars, yes they provide a lot of fun, yes they are cheap to buy, and yes they are cheap to repair, but ordering replacement parts after every run, or every other run, quickly adds the cost up, also having to replace parts often becomes annoying and tedious, so the fun factor starts to dissipate quickly....

That's so so true..... for people who can tame their driving or risk taking and just drive it quite calmly in a safe area they can get away with run after run of no breakages... I wish I was that person!

I always push it, how close to that post can I sweep around it, that jump looks harmless etc etc... but the largersize of this is still quite amusing after my long Tamiya craze so it's still winning me over for now  

Just swapped in a GoolRC 3900kv brushless motor and GoolRC 2-3s brushless esc - the install all went pretty smoothly, tested indoors and it seems spritely on 2s.

This GoolRC combo cost £31.63... absolute bargain.

This is my first time to really take a look at the gearbox motor area of the truck and to see how that all fits together with the motor mount etc... it's all decent enough, none of the screws stripped and it seems solid, 12 screws to get the motor out though!

I might get the alloy motor mount to replace the plastic one as I'm fitting a hotter motor now, just to help with heat dissipation and reduce any flex there might be.

The 15t brushed motor i removed was a longer 550 can, my 3900kv motor is only 50mm long so I used the same motor heat sink from the 550 motor to help keep things cool.

I saw the receiver box has that gaping hole for the wires to exit which makes it in non Waterproof for me,  I will need to sort this out somehow in future as I prefer a Waterproof RC that can be washed after use.

i needed to cut the battery tray to allow my 2s lipo battery leads to exit but this was easy with some lexan scissors.

 

So the rear wheels still wobble from the bent axles but I might still test run this new system before the replacements arrive.

Things I want to know are the top speeds on this 3900kv motor with a :

 

2s lipo with 17t pinion - 32.9 MPH (53KPH)

2s lipo with 23t pinion

 

3s lipo with 17t pinion - 44.9 MPH (72.2KPH)

3s lipo with 23t pinion

 

I'll do some testing for these answers soon.

 

Pictures of the install to follow.

[Jason1145 3986]

 

[Jason1145 3986]

And here it is on 2s lipo with only the 17t pinion... must go order the 23t oinion and really open her up.

3rd run and no breakages! Still running with the 2 bent rear drive shafts but it didn't affect performance.

loving this buggy.

 

[Country Mike 120]

Amazing torque there! May need a stiffer spring on front to force wheel down on opposite damper. I need brushless and lipo... sold totally. 

[Jason1145 3986]

Glad you liked it Mike and thanks for the advice, I quite like watching it squirm like that tbh

[Jason1145 3986]

2s lipo with 17t pinion - 32.9 MPH (53KPH)

 

 

 

3s lipo with 17t pinion - 44.9 MPH (72.2KPH)

 

[Country Mike 120]

Love it! 

[Jason1145 3986]

Wow... nearly a year and I still haven't replaced these two bent rear drive shafts despite having the parts ready!

Took this Outlaw out yesterday for some jumping off my little ramps and it's still great fun..... playtime was ended though by a broken rear plastic drive shaft, it snapped on a landing.

I have the aluminium upgrade drive shaft part for this so now it's a good time to fully repair this truck...... I also have the blue aluminium chassis to replace the black plastic one so if I have time that will get done too.

One problem I found was the esc..... a Gool 60A (Orange version) - the response from inputting throttle has a lag which caused me a few crash landings as it was too slow to react and lift it's nose from nose dive jumps... normally the input should be instant to lift the front wheels up mid air... I need to dig out my programme card for this (think it was only for the 60a and 120a GoolRC ESC's) and see if changing the punch level wil fix this or not.. not sure.

Lately I've been involved in only Tamiya cars and I miss jumping a bigger RC like this... I'm also considering getting a new RTR 2WD Monster Truck (brushed Kyosho Monster Tracker or a brushed Arrma Granite Mega) , but 2wd monster trucks won't be able to self correct in the air as well as a 4wd MT.... but there are no cheap 4wd Monster Trucks out there... are there?

[kwkenuf 184]

Changing the punch in that esc will definitely liven it up!  One word of caution with it,  keep that esc away from water.  I toasted one on only its fourth run.  Had it in a Stampede and was running through snow.  After about 15 minutes it started smoking.  Granted there was snow packed around it, but I don’t think that should have affected anything, especially with the waterproof claim.  Other than that,  after fiddling with the settings,  it wasn’t too bad for a cheap setup.  I think the motors good, haven’t had a problem running one with a HW esc for a while now.