HPI Baja Sandrail Build

North Bend Oregon entryway to the Oregon Dunes Natnl Park

Ohh wee shes pretty. Have fun. Dont forget your gopro!!

Great looking tuber frame. Good work!

Thank you! She has come a long ways since the RTR 5T!

Is that spur gear plastic? Have you ever stripped it?

Have you ever driven a Losi 1/5th scale SC truck? How do the two compare?

its a Hostile gear, plastic yes, stripped one ever? nope. they wear down after tanks and tanks of fuel, but its nice to have a weak point in the drivetrain that easy and cheap to replace just in case you get a good jolt through it (landing on the gas, etc) and it will break first before more expensive parts will.

i haven't driven a losi yet, id imagine its a while different animal and not even comparable side-by-side to the HPI. the 4wd trivetrain makes handling acutely different in certain ways. i still prefer 2wd out in the sand. but i can see where the 4wd would excel over the 2wd on a groomed track.

I see what you mean. I guess I'd rather break a spur gear than some of the other parts in there.

My experience is just the opposite of yours. I don't own a Losi but one of the local guys let me try his. He was the first guy in town to get one. He had already done a bunch of upgrades to it and it was a beast. Tons of power and it handled impressively well for a machine that big. I don't own any gas or nitro RC models but that was one that I liked.

Nice signature photo. Did you do the flames yourself? I used to have a Photoshop plugin that did great looking flames.

i want a brushless Losi 5ive. the brushless motors put out a better torque range than a gas motor, and are better for 4wd, in my opinion. with all the power being divided by four instead of two, you lose wheel hp but gain traction, which means it needs more low-speed torque, perfect for a big fat brushless motor

naw, no photoshop, i just stole the flames off google images, modded them and added a text layer, i need to do a nice one

Some of the newest helicopters are running 14S LiPo batteries. That's 51.8 volts! Can you imagine a electric Losi 5ive on 14S?

I like your new wide flame banner. I noticed that it scales up and down somewhat with the browser width.

14S? jeezo, thatd be what....14-16hp at that scale? divided by four even, thats nutz. the HPI has the Super 5SC Flux, id like to have too, its cheaper than the losi at only $900 and comes 6S lipo from the factory. it haz great potential out of the box.

Mad cats builds a pretty sick 4x4 sc 1/5 scale they are like 5-600 it's offered in gas or brushless or maybe it was red cats somthing like that

I am fairly sure it was redcat racing it comes with a 30cc two stroke or brushless I dig the sand rail build what are you going to power it with

i bought the cage, i only wish i had a decent welder. i sold all my nice tools a few years back when i left colorado. i like the cage cause its steel, and its tough as nails. i'm hard on plastic bodies. it needed a bit of modification to fit just right, and the 4mm bolts that hold it to the chassis was just unacceptable. i took it to my buddies shop and had him weld some 6mm threads on the posts, and cut them to fit better. its solid now and fits like it should.

as far as a powerplant, im gonna build an OBR/ADA billet 30.5cc, though not sure about pipe choice yet. its gonna have to be a rear pipe like the CPI big bore, DDM Fast pipe, or the GBE hornet. i want the fast pipe, but its been out of stock at daves for a while now. might settle for the CPI, many say its a great low-midrange pipe.

ordered the bottom end this morning from OBR. 3-pc billet case, +2 stuffed stroker crank, and billet sealed clutch housing. cant wait for it to get here, gonna look beautiful with the v2 clutch system.

These are gas engines you are talking about right?

oh yes, always gas. im a motorhead and a fuel freak, lol. i have been building gas engines since i was old enough to push a lawnmower. the small two-strokes are my favorite. biggest engine i built was a 2.0L mitsubishi for a dodge neon i drove a while. spent waaay too much on that car. by the time i was done, it was barely registerable as a streetcar. i made mustang drivers cry at stoplights, lol.

Very cool. Nobody is going to expect that from a Neon!

got my bottom end in the mail today, big thanks to the guys at OBR some pics with the TR clutch carrier, and i lightened and balanced a brand new flywheel for it too this weekend. just need to get the top end done now, and pick out a pipe.

had an extra set of brake cam bearings, so i modified the rear bulkhead to accept them for the hinge pin, this really stiffened up the slop and smoothed out the rear lower arm action. worked out so well, in fact, that i ordered a 10pack of the same bearings to do the rest of the arm pins the same way