Strada XT restoration

I got my XT Evo Brushless from Ebay today for £31.

The complete box had the following..

2010 Brushless Strada XT EVO

• Bent Front and rear Shock mounts
• Bent Shocks
• Bent Dogbones
• Bent rear Diff
• Cracked front chassis
• Broken Front Bumper
• 2 Smashed Body shells.

Not so great I hear you say .. but actually not to bad once you read the next list.

Also in the box

• Brand new Rear lower arms
• Brand new Front shock tower
• Brand new front bumper
• Brand new Dogbone 
• Brand new front C-Hub
• Brand new rear Hubs
• Several used but in good condition spares
• Lipo Charger 
• 2 x 3000 Lipo 6s batteries 
• 4 x Wheels Used.
• 2 x Wheels brand new

So ... the spares alone would cost £35 approx to buy.. the charger is about £30 and the batteries if good are £30 ... re-sale so far £95

What am I going to do now then?...well... I'm gonna use all the new spares and I already have a set of silver alloy CNC machined shock towers and I have a set of alloy machines shocks. I have also just ordered the following.

• Silver Alloy Front Gearbox mount  
• Silver Alloy Rear Gearbox mount
• Silver Alloy Steering set
• Silver allow C-Hubs
• New Chassis
• New Dogbones
• New front lower arms
• New Rear Gearbox

All of that has cost £60

These parts will give me a pretty good XT with some nice hop-up's. I'm going to finish it off with a low cost HPI brushed motor and ESC for £30 and a nice new shell that I will spray up for a cost of £15.

Total parts cost £105. If I did not go alloy it would have been only the cost of the gear box, Chassis, Body and electrics, about £50 but I wanna make this new truck look and run as good as my other Strada's so it's well worth the extra spend.

I'm going to test the charger and the batteries and sell them, hopefully will make at least £30 and I'm selling the brand new pair of wheels for £10 so when all is added up and using parts I already have  I'm only spending about £30 to rebuild this XT ... not bad at all.

I'll post some pics and a video soon.

Street run

Had a great street run today with the XB Evo .. did some grass running too along the side of the road. The grass is just that little to long to be honest but the XB did great. I'm really happy with how it was running, really wish I had a track near me as I think I have a great club car here. Was running a little warm but I think that's due to the grass.

Was great fun as always and My neighbors kids came out to watch so I'm going to get a a truggy set up for them to try soon :)

Maverick RC has a facebook page...

Excellent news Mav fans.. there is now an official facebook page

MVK Facebook

They are running a comp atm for a iON giveaway so go give them a like.

Full family shot..

Here is the full HPI Maverick Line up..

Front row, Left to Right

Maverick Strada XB Gold. My main buggy, Alloy Shock Towers and front C-Hubs updates, Gmade 85mm big bore shocks all HPI internals ESC, Servo and Saturn 20T motor.

iON XB Buggy with MT wheels. I've also updated the C-Hubs with the brand new Gold Alloy parts which are excellent.

Maverick Strada XB Classic, Blue anodized Shock towers and I have a set of new shocks ready to go on. All HPI Internals once again, ESC, Servo and 20T Saturn. This Strada was a £28 Ebay find that I've restored and it runs like a dream now.

Back Row, Left to Right

E-Firestorm, has Edit Alloy parts everywhere :)

Jumpshot. The brand new 2wd monster truck from HPI.. it's amazing!

Wheely King. The mad as a box of frogs monster... love this thing.

And at the Back, last but not least ... The Maverick Scout.

Looking fine!

Two XB's almost ready to chew dirt ...

My Gold based buggy is now almost tuned in. I've actually just tonight ordered some amazing Gmade 85mm shocks. I have Gmade shocks on my Tamiya Stadium Blitzer and they are amazing so I decided to splash out the £60 to cover all 4corners of my XB Gold.

The current Grey alloy shocks on the Gold will go onto the XB Blue.

I'm also stocking parts now to hop up an XB Silver!!! ... I'll have 3 XB's soon yay!!

New Tyre sets are all on order too...

Parts have arrived...

I will post pics soon but my gold alloy have arrived.

I will be using the front C-Hubs, shock mounts and turnbuckles .. but not the front or rear hubs. The fitting of them is just not that great, trying to get bearings into them is almost impossible, just way way to tight. I don't have a dremel so can't do much about it. Trying to fit the smaller bearings was just not doable..

Shame... If Maverick did a set they would probably be perfect... but these were HSP but I'd hope for better.

Still, the primary parts are very good and I'm happy with them.

A 'New' EVO XB ..

So new is not really the case :)

I got a bargain on eBay, £30 including postage I thought was not bad.. the pics showed general ware and damage... and the seller was open about the scratches on the chassis so I knew I was getting a well used car but that's fine. I already have a set of blue ally up grades I wanted to use anyway.

The prob with it once I got it out of the box was the little stuff you can't see on photos, I was ready for some of it but not all :)

The shock mounts I thought might have some bend in them but wow... ones almost 60 degrees hahah and the shock pistons are very very bent on all four corners..the dogbones are also like boomerangs and I'll need to get new for them also...

The main thing though are the diff cases, the lower mounts on both front and back have been split :(

So what I was hoping to be a clean, polish and bling needs at least another £20 of parts. I'm still happy with the buggy as overall it's still a bargain at £50. The drive train is fine, the diffs are perfect and it's going to make a fantastic loaner to my friends...

Just always be prepared for more jobs then you think when you buy second hand.

Check out the bent pistons on the shocks... oh and the shock mount shown is the least bent one! It looked okay on the eBay photo haha.

And now... the front end with the parts I've had for a while.. I still need to get a new diff case but that can wait for a couple of weeks.

By the start of August I should have a nice blue bling and updated runner for a loaner and my own gold bling updated and tuned runner/racer ... they will look really cool on the pit shelf that's for sure.

iON XB has it'sbling ...

XB Evo re-build started

This weekend I finished the clean of my XB Evo and put the basics back together. I also got a new shell painted for it.. I only had black and orange spray left from my last paint job so went for something simple. I'll be doing my iON Xb shell kinda similar later on but want to use a dark metallic grey on that one.

iON Hop ups arrived.

And here they are.. the brand new hot off the shelf iON alloy hop ups. They are superb. The brushed gold anodized alloy is very lush and I'll be fitting them very soon so I'll post up dates as I fit them.

I ordered these from Modelsport UK and it took 5 days for them to get here which is excellent service.

Official news!

I've recently heard from HPI UK that along with the iON updates for this year the Strada range are also going to be getting further updates.

Last year we saw all new waterproof electronics and some body styling. This year I think we are going to get some hardware updates. I think we are going to get ABS composite molded shock towers and along with this probably an ABS composite upper deck. Pretty sure the diff's and other primary drive train elements will stay the same but I just feel the time is right to drop the pressed alloy parts and go for composite... I sure hope they do.

I'd love to see a desert truck added to the stable too... It must be coming :)

Buggy service

So I decided I'd give my XB a bit of a clean... turned into a complete strip down :) ...

The best thing about stripping a car down is you can get every part of it clean and inspected. I drive my XB with a bit of respect for the terrain as to not 'try' and damage things but you just have to have a good thrash from time to time. My XB had tiny gravel and grit everywhere so doing this strip down has allowed me to give everything a pretty deep clean.

While it's like this I think I'll mill some CNC carbon fiber shock mounts and replace the alloy. I do have access to a CNC machine so can create my own hop ups. I'll post some pics at a later date once I have them milled. For now the XB will get a Diff service now too and then it's ready for the rest of the summer :)

On reflection....

I will still mill some carbon parts but to co-ordinate my Strada XB with my iON XB I've splashed out and ordered some new alloy parts.. all anodized gold/orange .. These parts are HSP oem parts from eBay, you can get them in several colours from purple to red... I love the Orange!

I've also ordered some new shoes...

Bling! ...

I'm a huge fan of hop ups .. I do try to stay functional when up grading so tend to stay away from alloy suspension arms etc but I do think alloy hubs, drive shafts and dog bones are a good thing to consider.

So when I saw these new iON alloy upgrades I almost spat out my beer... the soft gold anodizing is possibly the best choice I have seen from ANY manufacturer and will match my usual Grey,White and orange colour schemes sooo well... I've already have the front & rear hubs on order.. can't wait.

It's about time....

I've had Maverick RC cars for years... I own Buggies of two different scales, I have a Truggy and a Monster truck... and I go slow with a Scout rock crawler... I also own over 20 other RC cars but have recently noticed that a huge amount of my time actually driving anything is usually behind the pistol grip controller of a Maverick RC car ...

So it's bout time I did a blog dedicated to the brand that I love to thrash, bash and even race from time to time...

Many people including me think of brands like Tamiya, AE, Schumacher etc when they think of iconic brands... but I truly believe that Maverick and of course other brands that share the same OEM chassis types need some love as they are far more involved in sharing the love of RC then many give them credit for.

Even though I will be focusing on Mavericks here as they are local to the UK and for me have the best looking products I think I should tip my hat in this first post to Himoto and HSP who actually design and manufacture the base chassis for 90% of these cars... Without them we would not have the quality products that have helped keep RC alive.

I would also like to thank HPI UK for bringing the Maverick brand into the mainstream. I have several HPI cars and I'm so happy that Maverick are part of that amazing RC family. HPI's service and support are second to none in the RC industry and I will always show my support for them.

So.. first post over.. hopefully some bash vids soon and a bash report on the new alloy upgraded iON chassis will follow...as soon as the parts I've ordered arrive... :)