GCM Racing Favorite Setups
E-Savage:
We have used too many E-Savage setups to list them here. We like to keep our E-Savage builds around the 4600 grams weight with batteries. This is acheivable with full GCM equipment on board and a brushless motor and controller, fans, and 12 cells. For a Lipo brushless truck, we like to keep them under 4500 grams running weight.
Our successful budget builds include a 7xl 2370Kv brushless motor, Mamba Max ESC, 4 HPI 82055 shocks using 4 6749 springs and 35 weight AE shock oil. We had great success with dual 7.4v 5000mah lipo batteries from 'batteryworld.123' from EBay. Reasonable prices and very good performance. We have also loved the all stock E-savage with the Traxxas 4951x axle upgrade and a RoadBoy Stock Tray Chassis. This is a simple and fun upgraded truck that takes a beating!
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Successful ESC setups:
We have proved by our experience and many customers' experience that most of the carnage incurred in the driveline of an E-Savage is done during braking when using BL systems. The braking power on most ESCs is so powerful that we recommend turning down the braking to 30% on Castle ESCs and a low setting on other ESCs to allow moderate braking that will not raise the rear end of the vehicle or skid the tires. This will help to eliminate much of the drivetrain destruction when using BL setups.
We also recommend that if you are using wheel and tire combos that weigh more than 275 grams each wheel, that you use punch control of at least 50% or more for Castle ESCs and high punch control for other ESCs when available. This will have the same effect as the braking power, but in forward motion, and will not limit your speed at all. Heavy tire and wheel combinations are the #1 cause of broken axles and other factory parts when using BL motor equipment.
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One of the favorite suspension setups we have used is a BL chassis E-Savage, brushed Johnson motors, Exarm Suspension and 4 Aluminum Savage 21 shocks with black springs mounted on the outside holes . We have a short video of this truck in the gallery. It's got so much suspension travel and bump eating ability, it's a great offroader. This is the gravel pit King here. Add Traxxas e-max 3905 tires for the snow and it's great all year! The extra weight of the dual motors and NihM 12 cells battery makes the ride soft, and smooth, which is great for riding in rough stuff.
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It is clear that the slipper clutch is a critical part of any monster truck, and we have found that on most brushless truck setups we use it is necessary to use 2 nuts or locktite on the slipper clutch nut. If the clutch is set nice and tight, with minimal slip or no slip, then the nut will stay in one place for a while. But if you choose to setup some wheelie-eliminating clutch settings, then the slipper nut wanders off the shaft from time to time, and then requires this technique to secure it in the optimal spot.
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RB3 Racer from GCM:
Having 2 team RB3 trucks here, we have used some great performing setups. The best so far consist of our SS towers using Ofna Hyper 7TQ rear shocks all around with the stiff Ofna grey spring. When used with the RacerEx or SS arms, this thing is a corner carving beast especially with offset pin tires. Incredible suspension setup that could be used with any E-Savage based truck and will promise to keep your rig down low and stable in the turns. 35wt oil all around and spring spacers in to keep the arms level when sitting still with batteries installed.
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AX-10 Rock Crawlers:
We have used a couple of great AX-10 setups that performed really well. We started with an Axial Racing ARTR truck, added a Johnson 24v brushed motor, XL-5 ESC, a 2.4g radio, and 7.4 lipo on the battery tray in the stock location. The stock setup seemed to be too stiff in the front, and the tire foams (memory) are also too stiff. We cut a 10 point star pattern into the front foams only and replaced the front springs with stock E-Savage springs (red) and all the shock oil with AE 35 wt. The front shocks were also mounted inboard and the rears stock outboard positions. These mods alone made the climbing performance increase dramatically. We have some videos of this setup in the gallery section. We just love this setup, and it's on par with any other AX-10 setup we have run against, even with NO weight in the wheels.
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Our next favorite is also shown on the crawling page. We liked the ARTR AX-10 so much we used one for a scale build. Using a copy of the electronic equipment in the ARTR setup above, we built the truck on our CrossCanyon 2.2 scaler chassis. We filled 4 Traxxas T-Maxx Bigbore aluminum shocks with AE 30 wt. oil and a Medium TCS internal spring for a full droop suspension setup. All of the shocks are mounted inside of the inboard tab on the axles, and the lower links are mounted just outside of the inside tab, giving great shock action and articulation. This is a really capable climber, and will actually go places and inclines and sidehills that the ARTR won't go. Amazing! The only drawback to the scaler setup is the slightly lower center section will hang up on some stuff if you don't drive the line just perfect, which is less of a problem for the ARTR setup.
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Traxxas Slash:
There are 2 specific Slash setups we like alot. The first is an all stock truck with 35wt AE shock oil, Rear shocks mounted 3rd in from the outside on the lower mount, and front shocks on the outside hole on the lower mount. Great improvement in handling over stock. We also added a 12mm long piece of nitro fuel tubing to the shock shafts in the rear right at the bottom of the shaft, which stops the bottoming out, and seems to have little or no effect on the driving. This truck uses all stock motor and ESC and we used a 5000mah 7.4 LiPo battery and a battery alarm for cutoff. The run times are long, and the performance is great on this truck and there is little cash output over the stock setup.
Secondly, we also use the same batteries on a Castle Sidewinder 4600 Combo mounted in the Slash. This truck uses the full Traxxas Aluminum shock upgrade kit and 35wt oil in the shocks, and we replaced the rear springs and spring spacers with E-Maxx red springs in the rear. This suspension setup was mounted in the same holes as the above truck, and offers some small gains in handling, but more than that the smooth suspension and durability of the aluminum shocks is really nice. At the speeds of the 4600 Brushless combo, the shocks are tested to the limit, and we blew of the shock caps from the plastic shocks several times. The Aluminum shocks eliminate this issue. Due also to the increase in speed, any crashes were taking out the rear bearing hubs, so they have been replaced with aluminum also. This setup is alot of fun for a great price.
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