Shogun Shogun shenanigans

[VaporTrail]

Thanks for pointing out the MMX auto lipo quirk. I haven't run 4S on my MMX, but when I do, I'll know what I'm up against! Cheers!

It's going to be lots of fun combining bashing with racing against race rigs and seeing how they fair. I'm impressed with the Kronos XTR performance - it handles well enough I reckon, it's just a tad on the heavy side. I look forward to either meeting up with some E Truggy owners (rare now in the UK) or doing some time trials of my own.

View attachment 5768
Once all the rigs, drones and planes are in their rightful place - I can get my head back into RC.

We're now awaiting the telecom engineer to visit and activate our broadband - some time between 8am - 1pm. In the meantime, cellular internet actually works where we live now!

The downside is - we have no control over our heating system until it's up and running. The joy!

You're welcome! I probably won't use those packs anymore due to the brontosaurus weight. It really seemed to affect the jumping stability. Low jumps (I mean like really low) you can't tell, but anything over a foot you can see her listing hard to port. It seems to correct out a little when you get the bigger air, maybe around 4ft high, but you can really hear the chassis slap on the landing. It was like watching a 4'11" 250lb figure skater. Maybe if I can get a 5000mAh HV single pack I'll give it a go again, but until then I'll stick with the regular voltage packs. The 5200mAh packs seem to be perfect, unless we're gonna run a long main.

And is that a lorry? Lol! Maybe one day when I grow up I'll be have enough RCs that will require their own removal van to transport. Best of luck with the internet; it all seems like it's so close now.

 

[Horatio]

.....It was like watching a 4'11" 250lb figure skater.

......And is that a lorry? Lol! Maybe one day when I grow up I'll be have enough RCs that will require their own removal van to transport. Best of luck with the internet; it all seems like it's so close now.

This sounds like something I'd probably enjoy watching on TV!!

Erm ...yeah, it's a lorry. In my defence, it was to hand and was easier than loading stuff into the cars. The planes especially aren't all that easy to cram into a hatchback. They barely fit the Astra GTC. No chance in the Suzuki Swift.

Living room is now set-up and we have control of heating and hot water!

I'm loving the new pad and we are extremely blessed to have been selected by the vendor up against 18 other offers.

Sound system setup makes the place feel more homely.

I'll miss the old cottage out in the sticks, but all good things must come to an end.

Our cats have been hysterical through the whole process...

Harry - not bothered, so long as he can find closely matching ginger carpet and trip people up for sport....

Erm.....I'm not sure cats are supposed to operate jacuzzis....

One of them - PJ - kept jumping off the stairs through the bannisters. FFS. Definitely not normal.

However taxing it is moving house and dealing with everything - you can rely on Sambo not to GAF.

Do I look like I G*** a f*** - DILLIGAF?

Harley spent 48 hours under a bed. Not eating. Not drinking. Total shock - big drama queen.

When he finally did come out of hiding, he kept being super cute and demanded lots of fuss from us and the other cats.

Now we're trying to keep tabs on how long they're out for, who's eaten, where they're trying to poop - etc. Day 4 and things are starting to settle down. Well - except for the weather.

 

[VaporTrail]

This sounds like something I'd probably enjoy watching on TV!!

Erm ...yeah, it's a lorry. In my defence, it was to hand and was easier than loading stuff into the cars. The planes especially aren't all that easy to cram into a hatchback. They barely fit the Astra GTC. No chance in the Suzuki Swift.

View attachment 5777

Living room is now set-up and we have control of heating and hot water!

I'm loving the new pad and we are extremely blessed to have been selected by the vendor up against 18 other offers.

Sound system setup makes the place feel more homely.

I'll miss the old cottage out in the sticks, but all good things must come to an end.

Our cats have been hysterical through the whole process...

View attachment 5778
Harry - not bothered, so long as he can find closely matching ginger carpet and trip people up for sport....
View attachment 5779
Erm.....I'm not sure cats are supposed to operate jacuzzis....View attachment 5780
One of them - PJ - kept jumping off the stairs through the bannisters. FFS. Definitely not normal.

However taxing it is moving house and dealing with everything - you can rely on Sambo not to GAF.
View attachment 5781
Do I look like I G*** a f*** - DILLIGAF?

Harley spent 48 hours under a bed. Not eating. Not drinking. Total shock - big drama queen.

View attachment 5782
When he finally did come out of hiding, he kept being super cute and demanded lots of fuss from us and the other cats.

Now we're trying to keep tabs on how long they're out for, who's eaten, where they're trying to poop - etc. Day 4 and things are starting to settle down. Well - except for the weather.

Aye, I'd bet it would be a smidgen more convenient for transport purposes. I drive a rather large Ford F250, so loading and unloading usually isn't an issue. What annoys me is having to make three trips from the inner sanctum out to the truck to load everything and then three more trips after we're done running to get them all back in. I need one of those gigantic containers so that I can just stow everything in there and then proceed to knock everything over both on my way out and then back in.

Place looks absolutely stunning! While I do love being out and away from most of the commotion and shenanigans, your new place does look rather cozy. Cat antics aside.

 

[Horatio]

Aye, I'd bet it would be a smidgen more convenient for transport purposes. I drive a rather large Ford F250, so loading and unloading usually isn't an issue. What annoys me is having to make three trips from the inner sanctum out to the truck to load everything and then three more trips after we're done running to get them all back in. I need one of those gigantic containers so that I can just stow everything in there and then proceed to knock everything over both on my way out and then back in.

Place looks absolutely stunning! While I do love being out and away from most of the commotion and shenanigans, your new place does look rather cozy. Cat antics aside.

Thank you! We've put a lot of effort into making it look nice and I have to say, it's quite a pad. We've got most of the stuff sorted. The garage is being used as a holding area whilst we go through things, so I reckon it's going to be a couple of weeks before I get 'the shop' up and running.

Need to sort out a work bench and proper lighting - but I'm on it.

 

[CCB-MN]

This sounds like something I'd probably enjoy watching on TV!!

Erm ...yeah, it's a lorry. In my defence, it was to hand and was easier than loading stuff into the cars. The planes especially aren't all that easy to cram into a hatchback. They barely fit the Astra GTC. No chance in the Suzuki Swift.

View attachment 5777

Living room is now set-up and we have control of heating and hot water!

I'm loving the new pad and we are extremely blessed to have been selected by the vendor up against 18 other offers.

Sound system setup makes the place feel more homely.

I'll miss the old cottage out in the sticks, but all good things must come to an end.

Our cats have been hysterical through the whole process...

View attachment 5778
Harry - not bothered, so long as he can find closely matching ginger carpet and trip people up for sport....
View attachment 5779
Erm.....I'm not sure cats are supposed to operate jacuzzis....View attachment 5780
One of them - PJ - kept jumping off the stairs through the bannisters. FFS. Definitely not normal.

However taxing it is moving house and dealing with everything - you can rely on Sambo not to GAF.
View attachment 5781
Do I look like I G*** a f*** - DILLIGAF?

Harley spent 48 hours under a bed. Not eating. Not drinking. Total shock - big drama queen.

View attachment 5782
When he finally did come out of hiding, he kept being super cute and demanded lots of fuss from us and the other cats.

Now we're trying to keep tabs on how long they're out for, who's eaten, where they're trying to poop - etc. Day 4 and things are starting to settle down. Well - except for the weather.

Place looks amazing!

 

[VaporTrail]

Thank you! We've put a lot of effort into making it look nice and I have to say, it's quite a pad. We've got most of the stuff sorted. The garage is being used as a holding area whilst we go through things, so I reckon it's going to be a couple of weeks before I get 'the shop' up and running.

Need to sort out a work bench and proper lighting - but I'm on it.

Welcome! Sounds like it's gonna be a proper Shenanigans HQ.

I do almost all my RC work in a spare room. There's a table in there, but it's been overrun with storage items. The bed is still free, so I usually just place a cloth on bed and then start working on the rigs. The wife hasn't noticed the numerous thread-lok stains on the mattress yet, but she doesn't need to know that, does she?

And last night, I was looking at the plastic zip-loc bag that has the MT410 shocks in it. The MT410 is still sitting on top of the Outcast 8S, waiting for a new chassis, shock towers and rear DS. Gave me the idea that while I'm saving up the money for the conversion, I may as well try the Tekno shocks in the Shogun. It won't be too hard of a swap; it'll take me about as much time installing the shocks as it will me waiting for the air bubbles in the shock oil to clear out.

And I also got the nutty idea to purchase CF sheets and trace out the Shogun shock towers. I'm sure that'll help lighten her up even more.

 

[VaporTrail]

Had another run with the Shogun this weekend. I changed out the 1850 HS motor with a "Castle" 2200. I left the pinion the same (15). It's definitely still zippy, but the electronics didn't really like the set up. After a race pace 12 minute run:

esc: 175
motor: 149
Batt: 130

I also seem to have a bit of a leak in my rear shocks, so I'll also address that sometime this week. The bladder probably needs to be readjusted. The chassis slap was much louder than before, and I also noticed that the rear was a bit more springy on the jumps. I had to keep on the throttle for a bit longer than I normally do, but when I did that she jumped like she normally does. She seemed to be doing pretty good around the track. Much care is still needed to properly navigate the infield; the Shogun is still pretty fast so paying extra attention to your speed is a must. Otherwise you're either gonna blow through the apex or whip your tail out on the exit. I turned down the power a notch on the MMX to 80, and it seemed to perform alright.

For this weekend I'll be switching back to the 1850 motor and maybe add one or two teeth to the pinion to negate some of that torque. I think I'll also try switching out to 60/50 shock oil to get a little more grip and make the landings just a hair less violent.

 

[VaporTrail]

Ran the Shogun again this weekend with the new motor. I think I'm gonna have to either go with a slightly larger pinion or go up in KV on the motor. The 1850 is nice in that it runs cool (132F), but good gravy...it's still a torque monster. More of a brute than the stock Kuron motor, although that's to be expected since the Kuron is a 2025KV.

It was also a pretty rough run. I popped a pillowball, ended up on my lid enough times that I cracked the Finnisher body. I also ran the 48.3, but the servo blew out on that one, so I had to go back to the Shogun.

Drivability-wise, the Shogun is shaping up nicely. She rotates pretty good in the turns and can handle all but the most egregious of ruts and bumps at speed. I'm going to try removing the center brace (near the motor) to lighten her up a little more; hopefully I don't end up with a bent chassis. If it does bend at least I have a spare, so I'm not too worried.

Going back to the HS motor, that thing will upset her line if I mash the throttle right away. She'll wiggle her butt enough that she'll wander, but all you need to do is let off on the throttle and make a steering correction and she'll go back to straight. Transversely, I could buy another Xerun motor, but at 164 bucks, I think I'd rather try a more budget friendly motor first. Maybe what I'll do is put the Castle 2200 motor back in and see how she drives with that. I have a feeling that's going to be money.

And as a side note, if any of you are running the MMX6S and have it on auto-lipo, be aware that a HV 4S lipo will be read as a 5S. You'll get to do a couple of throttle blips before the voltage cutoff (I set mine at 3.8v per cell) kicks in. I had to adjust the voltage cutoff from 3.8 to 3.5 in order for me to run it. Kinda annoying, but oh well. I was running 2 HV 2S packs, and she did not like the weight distribution. Guess I'll use those for my touring car now. Going to change the XR10 Pro I have in my touring car to a Mamba X so that I can make use of that extra voltage.

Ran the Shogun against a Losi 8ight Te 3.0. She did pretty good once I started to get the hang of the HS motor, although I did oversteer a couple of times. Once I got that smoothed out she was definitely in the running.

I forgot to add the outcome of this. I removed the center brace, the one that runs on the chassis right up to the center mount. You would not believe how much flex there was in the chassis. I'd say that on the first good auger, the chassis will bend up. Seeing as to how there wasn't a huge gain in weight savings, I opted to put it back on to keep the Shogun nice and stout. I think you can probably get away with fabbing up a brace made of CF, though. That should keep the weight down and the chassis from flexing. You'd need a pretty long piece; it'd have to run from just in front of the rear diff all the way to the center mount.

I haven't had a chance to change out the motor yet. Hopefully sometime this week I'll be able to get to it.

There's also plans in the works to have the track resurfaced with clay. That should make it nice and smooth like some of the tracks back in the states. When that's done, I'll also be adjusting the ride height to get the CoG a bunch lower.

 

[VaporTrail]

I haven't reported back in on this in a little bit. Oops.

The Shogun is still running strong. Had a bit of an issue with the rear end getting a little light and sending the back end up on the jumps, so I decided to change the shock oil. Previously it was 50F and 40R, but I decided to change that up a bit and go with 60F 50R.

My oh my what a difference! Now I can lay on the throttle and her rear end won't get squirrely unless it's a fistful of throttle right off the bat. She's much more controlled now. And navigating the infield? It's like she has suction cups in the front. Easily whips around the turns and stays planted. I'm starting to drive it like how I drive my onroad cars. She's going to be a handful to deal with if I keep on practicing.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, the ET48.3 still holds the edge in handling...but only when she's actually running. The weekend prior she broke a front shock standoff. So in three weekends that I've run her: stripped servo 1st weekend, burned servo second weekend, broken shock standoff third weekend. I had the audacity to put a "GATEKEEPER" sticker on her. Pretty soon I'm gonna change that damn sticker to "Housekeeper", with all the time that she spends being repaired.

Meanwhile, the Shogun keeps on trucking.

 

[VaporTrail]

Finally had a chance to run this weekend. Only ran for about 2 hours, but the Shogun is still kicking butt. No changes since the last time I ran her about a month and a half ago. I think I found the winning combo, so I'll stick with that for now.

As an aside, I also took out the Python to give her a shakedown. She's running a Tekin 4030 (4268 size) 2650KV motor, Max6 esc and 3S. It also has the Muraco 52T spur and medium truggy rear springs all around. 60F, 50R for the shock oil. Runs decent, but seems to be pretty springy in the back. Oddly enough, the back seems to bottom out more quickly than the front. The ride height is a little lower in the back, so I think I'll play around with the settings to make them a little more even. Maybe that will eliminate her rear end being springy. She handles the infield pretty good, though; nice and sharp through the turns. Also stays pretty planted on the throttle, so it looks like I'm making progress in getting her to handle.

 

[VaporTrail]

I was just thinking: perhaps I'll use truggy rear shocks in the rear for the Python. It appears that the rear travel is pretty short on the Python. Bottoms out quickly and doesn't seem to have plenty uptravel. I suppose I could adjust the springs to give it more ride height. I guess I'll fool around with it and see.

I also have a SCT410.3 that's just kind of sitting around. Perhaps I'll take the shocks off of that and see how they work on the Python? Or maybe I'll just wait until I scratch together enough money to purchase a set of Typhon shocks.

Might also switch out to a HS 150A esc. The Max6 is nice, but it sure does look absolutely massive in the Python chassis.