The Slasher – New Parts and New Motors
To this point, we've been pretty content with Project Slasher's performance after a fairly simple tire change, save for that odd ball rubbing issue. At the time we could never figure out what was causing it to rub or anything. However, we’ll see that there was a cause and that will be detailed later. In the meantime we've turned to three companies to help support our project. With their help we'll achieve our goal of making Project Slasher the ultimate modified short course truck.
First up, let’s take a look at the products provided by RPM R/C Products. RPM makes various plastic parts for the Traxxas Slash and a variety of other RC vehicles. The plastic they use is more durable and comes in colors other than black. For the Slasher, the color scheme we are going with is orange and blue, with some black and white accents here and there on the body. One of the first things to get for the Slasher was RPM’s Hybrid Gear Box.
The gear box is referred to as being a “hybrid” because it uses plastic for the gear box housing and an aluminum plate for the motor hanger. While we had the box open, we went ahead and installed a couple of additional items. First, we installed a Moore’s Ideal Products, also known as MIP, ball bearing Super Diff. This is a locker type system that uses ball bearings, a pair of plates, and a tension spring that adjusts how much it locks. When the truck is in forward motion, both wheels lock and move as one. When the throttle is let off the diff unlockss to act like an open diff. This will allow the truck to rotate for easier on a dime turning.
Thinking ahead, we also installed a Traxxas Steel Idler Gear for our move to a higher torque brushless motor. Finally, we went ahead and installed a ST Racing Concepts CNC Transmission Layshaft. This new layshaft replaces the OEM one for greater strength and changes out the slipper clutch to a Team Associated system. We'll detail the clutch just a little further in.
The reason for the change in plastic is that the Traxxas plastic is known for being brittle and cracking where it attaches to the shock tower or where it attaches to the rear skid plate. We started off using the OEM plastic bumpers and skid plate, but have changed out to the RPM rear bumper, mud flaps, and rear bumper adapter. Again, these parts are far more durable than the Traxxas parts and we got ours in blue. Not pictured, but soon to be installed are the rear brake lights. The lights are simply for scale looks and nothing more.
