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Putting a standard 1/10th scale Pinion on a Speed 400
Motor Shaft If you've decided to say good-bye to your 3rd burned out speed 300 and are planning to drop a 400/380 sized motor in your car, then this pinion trick is for you. Since 400 motors don't spin faster than 300 motors, the only way to get more speed out of them is to gear it up. This means big pinions and tall gears. Yet the biggest standard sized pinion you can buy for your Micro is a 14T. And even if they did make bigger pinions, the shaft diameter of a 400 is larger than a 300, so you'd still be out of luck. This is where we turn to the 1/10th scale guys and steal some parts from them. The standard pitch of the Micro spur gear is 48. They come in many sizes from 10 to 40 teeth. Somewhere in the middle is where your 400 motor will work best. What tooth pinion do you need? Well that's where you're going to have to do some experimenting on your own. But I can show you how I've attached each of my 540 pinions to a 400 motor. TO BE CONTINUED... Rear Deck Modification for Big Motors in 140mm WB This mod makes it possible to mount just about any motor into a 140mm wheelbase. Steps are as follows:
Here are the pictures of mine completed. I fit a 400 motor in a 140mm WB with this setup. I don't use the upper deck, but if you want to still use the upper deck, just screw the upper deck into the same location underneath the ears or between the rear deck and the ears. Good luck. And if this mod seems too difficult, just go to a 150mm WB and add two washers to the stock rear deck and any 300 or 400 motor will fit. Mounting TRC Foams To properly mount foam tire of any size you will need a few things: -By, Hyper Tech Raci posted on the YourMicro Forum. Improving Performance from the GH Front Ball Diff So you bought a regular GH ball differential only days before they came out with the adjustable one. Now you're kicking yourself wishing you'd held out just a few more days and got the better diff. Well there may be hope for your old GH non-adjustable front differential after all. If you're car tends to spinout easily around turns, or can't keep going in a straight line to save its life, you need this ball diff mod. The GH ball differential has one very big flaw...no adjustment for tension. So what you wind up with is a differential that acts more like a stripped spur gear. Every time you gas the throttle, the gear just spins and the tires go no where. You end up with nothing better than a 2WD spinout machine. So this is what I did to make my differential work killer. I pulled the thing apart, completely apart. I found a small washer that looked similar to the beveled washer that fits inside the housing unit and against the rubber friction washer. The washer I added fit exactly inside the small inner portion of the housing, yet had an opening that was big enough to allow the outdrives to fit through. I placed this washer inside the diff between the beveled washer and the rubber washer. Then I put the thing back together. Once together I noticed immediately that the differential was quite a bit longer than it was before. The gap between the two halves of the housing was nearly 1/8". It took quite a bit of pressure to push the two pieces together fully. But I knew that if I could get them to stay together, I'd have all the friction I'd need to get power to the wheels no matter the circumstances. The trick is getting the whole unit to stay together. Well as it turns out CA is plenty strong to hold it all together, even with the massive tension from the rubber washer and added washer trying to pull it apart. I set up a simple jig with a C-clamp and a small piece of wood. I clamped the C-clamp onto the ends of the outdrives just enough to hold it in place, without closing the gap. Then I ran a nice bead of CA along the seam between the two housings and tightened the clamp till the gap completely closed and glue oozed out. I wiped up the excess glue with a cotton swab and let the unit dry at room temperature for over 16 hours, just to be sure it was going to hold. When I pulled the clamp off, the piece was solid and stuck together great. With the newly pressurized diff all together, I got my first feel at how well it was going to work. It felt quite a bit tighter. Turning the right outdrive caused the left one to move in the opposite direction and felt very snug and stiff at the same time. So I dropped the unit into my Micro and tried turning the wheels, since I could get a better grasp on the wheels then the outdrives. Wow, it felt exactly like my rear GH ball diff, which took hours to dial in to the perfect amount of friction. The tension was tight. It was firm yet smooth. And no matter what I did, I couldn't get the belt and pulley to slip. Now I knew that power would never be lost to a weak differential. After driving my Micro with my newly outfitted front ball diff for a few days I've come to this conclusion: this thing rocks! Never again does my car peel out unwildly. When I gun it, the car launches straight as an arrow. I can come into turns and pile on the power around corners and the front drives just keep pulling the car along as hard as they can. No more spin outs and no more out of control turns. When everyone says this car handles like a "real 1/10th scale touring car", I can definitely vouch for that. It handles awesome. Which only means that the new adjustable ball diff must be even better so do not hesitate to pick up this little unit from Golden Horizons. Getting the stock differentials to turn smoothly Now as I understand it, the differentials are one of the weakest links in the Micro RS4. When I first put together the rear differential and then tried turning it, I couldn't believe the device would actually work as it's intended to. It felt gritty, and notchy and seemed to get hung up in spots. Those tiny plastic gears just weren't meshing well. So I pulled apart the differential and inspected all the gears for flat spots on the teeth or other debris inside. I sanded down a few little plastic pieces left over from having been cut form the parts tree. I had done this before, but I did it again to make sure it was very smooth around the diameter of the gear. Then I piled in about twice as lube and put the differential back together again. There was an improvement, but after having decided that all the parts looked good, and it was built as good as I could do it, this must just be how the differential works. So then I ran the car with just a set of 4 AA batteries and held one of the wheels still, while allowing the differential to do it's thing and turn the other wheel. It slowed the motor down quite a bit but really broke in the gears inside the differential. Now they turn smoothly enough that I think they'll work fine for the task. The front differential was the same way. Only worse. But after pulling them apart, inspecting the gears and doing a little bit more sanding and a lot more lube, I was able to get the front diffs to also turn freely and not get hung up in any spots. Once again I ran the motor with some AA batteries and held on of the front wheels to break in the gears and lubrication inside the differential. This seemed to help out. It slowed the motor down considerably once again as did the rear, but no more so than the rear so I concluded that both diffs were operating as well as they ever would. One of my first hop-up parts will have to be new differentials for the front and rear. That's all I've got for now. Check back for other tips and tricks in the future. |
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