Typhon SrC's TLRT Typhon Build

[SrC]

In all my years, among my collection of RC's, I never owned a Buggy of any type.
I considered the Tekno $EB48$ because I prefer to build kits.
The TLRT Typhon came out. With no real fanfare. A roller at that, and it fit the bill. The price was right too.
It claims to be a race ready platform and it is. I don't see any real TLR technology or design anywhere to be honest. It is a Team Durango DEX8 "Light" if I had to describe it better.. Just with TLRT livery all over the place. The factory assembled it fairly well. Yes, Decals were misplaced and peeling off as usual. Nothing new with that. Just one stripped screw at the front plastic brace and the 3 diffs were low on oil. The chassis had a bow in it, noticed right out the box and checked with a straight edge. Turns out the F and R braces were a poor fit and caused this bowing. Perhaps these braces are not the best fit for this TLRT chassis? A hair too longish... Got EXB F and R braces and the chassis bow is gone. Better fit over the Plastic stockers. Go figure. Gained some weight as a result. Overall, this was the best built 6s Arrma I ever received. I would even venture to guess it was made at a different facility? IDK for sure. Nothing else was over or undertightened. No excess Threadlocker anywhere. Diffs smooth perfect. Included spare shims were used when I topped them off with oil.. One each at F and R diffs. A welcome surprise overall to me, since mine was an early release, maybe a sign it wasn't built by the same facility or by the normal labor as with other Arrma's. Perhaps special attention was given for this model? Seems this way.
My objective is to build it more as a Race example of an Arrma rig. As opposed to a standard RTR Typhon Basher as best I can. It will never see a track. 99% of TLRT's will never be driven as such.

Parts list:

- HW XR8 Plus/ 2250kv G3 4274 Motor combo (Sensored)
- 40mmx10mm Alloy motor fan. (without any HS) (AMZ)
-40mm Fan motor mount
-40mm generic PC fan grille. Least air restriction. No, not fancy looking, I agree. Just functional.
-XT90 ESC connector plug
-DS3235 35kg Servo. (Amazon)
- (4) Reefs servo Washers. Item #SEHREEFS50 (8 pack) Used standard M3 12.9 Flatheads with these washers. Servo is rigid now.
-Arrma 25 spline servo arm
-F/R EXB braces. Fr-ARA320564, Rr-ARA320566.
-Arrma Droop screws. M4x10mm. AR727410. Domed. Stocker droop Grub Screws damage/gouge out the chassis droop ears. I always toss these out the box.
-(2) Motor mount mesh screws. (McMaster-Carr) (M4 3mm hex) Stocker M4 2.5mm strips easily. Thank you @Engineer for sending me 4 of them.
-NB4 Radio/Rx. Have on hand for other my rigs. Will Not be running any Gyro with this rig. Just pure driver input. As with any track rig.
- (2) Arrma Stainless Steel Rear skid plates. ARA320625. Using one at the Front also. Yes they are heavy. But as robust as it gets IMHO. Using 2 balances out this added chassis weight nonetheless. No front Bumper will be used. As with all Track buggies, none are used.
- CF spacers for the Rear EXB brace at the wing mounts.
- 2 EXB Diff Drive Rubber Inserts for the rear outdrives. ARA311028.
- I used the included Smaller Wicker bill for the rear wing. Least downforce. Also makes the wing more rigid vs. using none at all.
- (2) CNHL 4s Lipos. Hard case 5600mah 120C Race packs. (1.2lbs/556.5 grams) A steal at $40 each. AMZ. The fit is dead Perfect to the mm.
- Proline Axis Typhon Body. # 3580-00
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Build:

-All 3 diffs were low on oil. Topped off with 10k I had here. Close enough. Will refill after a break in. I used my Shock Vacuum Pump to bleed out any air.
- Motor and Electrics fit no issues. ESC can be tight. But HW includes a mount bracket I attached to the stocker Arrma ESC mount. I used double sided tape in addition to the 2 screws of the HW mount.
- TLRT comes with the Oversized Rx box. Fitting any Rx will be no issue.
-DS3235 Servo mounted up fine. The Included servo spacers were not needed. Servo floats above the chassis and the servo arm is flat and horizontal.
- I used some Teflon Tape inserted into the suspension ball ends to remove any Steering slop. Common with Arrma. I always do this with my On road rigs. More precision.
- Wheel alignment was horrible out the box. Nothing new here. F/R Camber and F Toe set for Zero degrees. I left the stock Hing pin mounts in place unchanged. ( Pills)
I had to remove the 2 lower Pivot Ball washers to get the Front camber correct.
-Front Shock Droop set to 98.4mm. (Eye to Eye length of the shock) Rear Shock Droop is at 119.2mm
- Front shock preload is 7.1mm (spring collar spacing) Rear preload is 14.3mm spacing.
- Wing is in its stock position. (high and foward setting)
- I found some loose screws here and. Yet no other stripped ones aside from the one Front brace screw at the Steering Top Plate. Fr. EXB brace uses an M4 screw. I flipped the Steering Top plate over to access the additional M4 hole for this brace. Once flipped over, the Top plate is clearly printed with the "EXB Compatible" logo. So the TLRT Typhon does have one EXB part among all the supposed TLRT parts.
- When I removed the Steering top plate, I did confirm that there are (4) sealed rubber BB's for the Steering bell crank instead of Brass bushings. No other 6s Arrma includes these BB's. A plus. Race inspired for sure.
- This TLRT Typhon is supposed to be lighter than the RTR Typhon. It is. But by comparison to most Race grade kits it fares a bit heavier than most at it's price point.
In full running weight, this came in at 9.4 lbs/4287 grams. I am running a 150 amp XR8 Plus so there is some added weight there for sure. (XR8 Pro being lighter) Keeping with 4s on this platform. It is balanced out perfectly in this way.
- Pinions are NOT included. I did some rather quick math and used an 18T to start out with. I have a full selection of pinions here.
- Using my SkyRC Digital Cross weight scale, ( full running weight) Lipo in place strapped, Plugged to ESC. Body on, Body clips in place, thIs TLRT Typhon was "Dead ON" with 50%/50% Cross weight and with 43%/57% F-R bias weight . I did no adjusting. Nor did I add any ballast. This rig came out perfectly balanced. Impressive at this price point.
Arrma did the right thing for sure. TLRT is not a basher like the RTR variant is. The pill setup is not forgiving to hard bashing abuse. This is more for technical driving. As such I will be running it at my usual Baseball Infield. Small jumps etc., as you would find at a track. Wish there was a track nearby. None exist anymore, where I live.
I have yet to drive it. It has been cold and wet here. Snow and all. Need to paint the Axis body when the weather gives me a break. Need at least mid 50F's for painting. IMHO.
18F degrees is not cutting it right now in Jan. NYC.

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Pictures:

 

[🇺🇸 DΞזΞפּ 🇺🇸]

very nice, and thanks for the list

 

[SrC]

More pix ...
I used the Arrma SS Skid Plates, both front and rear. Thanks @Engineer for the find. I never seen them before. An obscure Arrma part not listed well as an upgrade part for some reason..

Front 3mm Lexan Tower protection. Scrap I had lying around. Painted Tamiya PS-31 Smoke Tint. Shock Standoffs retain it.

4s Lipo is 1.2 pounds (556.5 Grams)

Running weight is 9.4 pounds. (4286 Grams) A bit heavier than I wanted. But balanced out perfectly.

Removed much of the Decals. The body pops more so. Many don't like the color. I was on the fence also. Why I have PL Axis to custom paint. But in reality, once you see it, out the box in person, the colors are nice. I always liked bright color rigs anyway. Easier to see. I hate black.

Using my Tamiya Shock Vacuum Pump, the diff oil has so much air to remove for a proper fill of oil. Any air left, displaces oil volume. Won't fill properly if any air is left in the oil. Why many diffs end up underfilled at the factory, IMO. They fill them up fast, but by the time you get the rig, they are not really full, after the air/oil settles.

Shipped in an Arrma TLR Brown Box. Box within a Box. All Arrma sealed tape.

CF Rear Brace spacers. I had some scrap CF rods, cut to size.

I removed the sloppy peeling Window Decals and cleared the windows of paint. I prefer Clear windows. I like to see the ESC Status light without having to remove the body all the time. Time consuming to remove paint without damage. Another topic altogether.

CNHL 4s. A steal at $40 each. Came with T-plugs . No biggy. No deal breaker. The price is great. I just soldered on my own XT90's.

Steering Top Plate once flipped over for the EXB front brace, it is clearly marked EXB Compatible. Nice included upgrade touch.

These are the proper Arrma Droop Screws. Everyone needs to get rid of the stocker Grub Screws. They just tear up the chassis Droop Ears.

This is my 3rd HW XR8 Plus. I love these ESC's and motors. No, not cheap for most Sensored setups. But a big difference IMHO. U Pay for what you get.

A FL. break. The Gulf Coast.

 

[parcou]

Excellent write-up and details....

 

[N.Mango]

Kinda jumped out at me there at the end.

 

[SrC]

I did clear out the windows. The decals were all screwed up. I like seeing the ESC Status light through the body. I hate covered windows.
I also added a lexan piece to shroud the front shock tower. Retained with the Shock Standoffs. Buggy rigs get the most damage at the front tower. 3mm thick scrap I had lying around. I painted it Smoke Tint to blend in. (Tamiya PS-31)
I hope my build will inspire others with a TLRT or RTR Typhon.
I'm open for all questions and comments. Like or dislike.
Thanks for reading my Build thread.

 

[N.Mango]

I did clear out the windows. The decals were all screwed up. I like seeing the ESC Status light through the body. I hate covered windows.
I also added a lexan piece to shroud the front shock tower. Retained with the Shock Standoffs. Buggy rigs get the most damage at the front tower. 3mm thick scrap I had lying around. I painted it Smoke Tint to blend in. (Tamiya PS-31)
I hope my build will inspire others with a TLRT or RTR Typhon.
I'm open for all questions and comments. Like or dislike.
Thanks for reading my Build thread.

One question unless I missed it. Is the chassis bowed a little?
Oh sorry one more question...how do you keep that boyish good looks?

 

[Engineer]

Nice build and I’m glad you got the opportunity to do it! Meticulous work and it shows!

What did you use to protect the front shock towers?

 

[SrC]

This HW 2250kv G3 motor clocked over 2300kv consistently several times FWIW. Fair HW specs. Very low BB noise levels. And the Phase timing was very close to each other. Hard to find this quality in a motor. I considered the 1900kv version. But it was on B/O for so long. This 2250 track motor would work great on longish fast sweeping tracks. Weighing 9.2 lbs, I could even revamp the gearing (Pinion and Spur) for some speed running, with 6s or 4s.

 

[K-BASH]

More pix ...

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damn brother,that's not new york!!!!!I'm jealous......my first thought is pinacolota

 

[Yas]

Super clean build! I've always wanted to try a sensored setup in a more premium kit like this. Also it looks epic wearing the street tyres

 

[SrC]

One question unless I missed it. Is the chassis bowed a little?
Oh sorry one more question...how do you keep that boyish good looks?

Boyish good looks?...Well I like to play with Toys. It helps... Ty.
Yes the chassis was bowed up at the center out the box. I noticed that the RTR Stamped 6061 6s rig chassis sometimes are not perfectly flat and I accept that for the pricepoint these are. Just that The TLRT chassis played with my head at first. How could a CNC'd 7075 chassis be bowed I asked myself?
I put that thought on the shelf for a bit, then when I was checking screws and all and found a stripped front brace screw strippped at the St Top plate, I removed the screw and the chassis straigthened out some. Then I removed the rear plastic brace and the chassis was flat. So the plastic stockers were too long somewhere, ever so slight as it was. EXB braces dropped in, now no bow in the chassis.

Super clean build! I've always wanted to try a sensored setup in a more premium kit like this. Also it looks epic wearing the street tyres

TY. Those visually appeaing wheels are actually crap AMZ cheapos I use for the bench. Worthless. Junk actually. Just my Setup wheels for the bench and wheel aligning. The rubber is junk. Bought 3 sets , need to be glued and all. I destroyed 2 within minutes running only 40-50mph. (Noto and Kraton) The rubber shreds apart. I even belted one set, Still junk and rip apart. Putting them on my Lim and Infr. would be a major fail.
Sensored setups have a very smooth linear power band. Very tunable. No noticable cogging effect even at the slowest throttle input. Best for technical driving. Never run sensored setups in the wet stuff! Far from water friendly. Gets costly. The sensor lead pinouts get corroded easily. But I don't have that problem. None of my stuff sees the wet.

Nice build and I’m glad you got the opportunity to do it! Meticulous work and it shows!

What did you use to protect the front shock towers?

@Engineer thank you for the inspiration and push to buy this rig. I followed much of your lead.
The TLRT is a sleeper and great deal as rollers go. Just not as a true basher. I hope others will understand this.
The front tower protection is just some 3mm scrap lexan I fashioned to size and sprayed it with Smoke Tint to blend in. I placed some 1/4" foam padding underneath at the tower. Need at least 3mm or thicker lexan to work IMHO. Probably not a permanent solution. Depends how hard I drive. Cheap enough to replace. I wish there was an upgrade part available for Buggy Towers.

 

[SrC]

damn brother,that's not new york!!!!!I'm jealous......my first thought is pinacolota

Siesta Keys FL, 2 months ago.
Needed to get out of NYC for a spell.
Plenty of drink there for sure.
Over there, no one is freaking out over Covid. I never saw any one wearing a mask. Not once after I left Tampa Airport.
NYC is all screwed up. Coming home made me realize it even more.

 

[SrC]

I'm vaxxed and soon getting my 3rd booster. And no more boosters from there. A personal call. I don't fault others for making their own choice whatever that is.
But, I will not wear a mask for the comfort of others because they are NOT vaxxed. They need the mask if anything. Depending on store rules and restaurants of course. Stores just better provide me with a mask if they want my business. There are more and more restaurants that allow any and all to come inside whether vaxxed, masked or not. They post big signs outside stating this. Fighting The City rules. That seems to be the rebellion right now here in NYC. Those businesses are making more money now. It became a coalition. They are Surviving and thriving now. I support that. I worked for NYC Gov't. It will always be a mess here. Nothing new. I don't follow Mass Formation. I believe in Community Immunity at this point of the Pandemic. (natural herd immunity)
Masks are for show. They do absolutely nothing. I laugh when I see people alone in their cars with masks on, on the highway. They are just making themselves sick. Only Social distancing works. Micron is just a type of Influenza. We will all get it at some point and not die from it. A sign that the pandemic is becoming Endemic. Weakening. The regular flu is actually causing as many deaths right now. Been that way for years. Its all a Dog and Pony show with the dark data that's published. Just me. Sorry for the rant.

 

[Edough13]

Sweet rig @SrC awesome overall build for sure! We going to get to see any running videos soon?

 

[SrC]

^^^ I am begging to drive it, with videos and all.
I'll put on the 53/107 Hoons for the street and the first shake down run. Evaluate from there. It will end up in the dirt where it belongs.

 

[Yas]

I'm vaxxed and soon getting my 3rd booster. A personal call. I don't fault others for making their own choice whatever that is.
But, I will not wear a mask for the comfort of others because they are NOT vaxxed. They need the mask if anything. Depending on store rules and restaurants of course. Stores just better provide me with a mask if they want my business. There are more and more restaurants that allow any and all to come inside whether vaxxed, masked or not. They pot signs outside stating this. Fighting The City rules. That seems to be the rebellion right now here in NYC. Those businesses are making more money now. Surviving. I support that. I worked for NYC Gov't. It will always be a mess here. Nothing new. I don't follow Mass Formation. I beleive in Community Immunity at this point of the Pandemic. (natural herd immunity)
Masks are for show. They do absolutely nothing. I laugh when I see people alone in their cars with masks on. They are just making themselves sick. Only Social distancing works. Micron is just a type of Influenza. We will all get it at some point and not die from it. A sign that the pandemic is becomeing Endemic. Weakening.

Wholeheartedly agree with this! I've seen someone driving alone in his car with one hand holding a scarf over his face - even with the windows up. Not only was it just completely pointless anyway, he left himself with just the one hand to drive

We get a lot of passive-aggressive moaners and whiners in the UK when they see someone in a store without a mask on. If they're that worried they shouldn't be out in public anyway! It's more like they try taking the moral high ground and think they have the audacity to exclaim it. I just think logic and reason really do leave people when they're in fear

Anyway, back to tinkering with my toys...

 

[N.Mango]

One question unless I missed it. Is the chassis bowed a little?
Oh sorry one more question...how do you keep that boyish good looks?

Boyish good looks?...Well I like to play with Toys. It helps... Ty.
Yes the chassis was bowed up at the center out the box. I noticed that the RTR Stamped 6061 6s rig chassis sometimes are not perfectly flat and I accept that for the pricepoint these are. Just that The TLRT chassis played with my head at first. How could a CNC'd 7075 chassis be bowed I asked myself?
I put that thought on the shelf for a bit, then when I was checking screws and all and found a stripped front brace screw strippped at the St Top plate, I removed the screw and the chassis straigthened out some. Then I removed the rear plastic brace and the chassis was flat. So the plastic stockers were too long somewhere, ever so slight as it was. EXB braces dropped in, now no bow in the chassis.



Good to hear the chassis wasnt a problem. It didnt look like a big deal to begin with but good to know it was just a over tweaked thing and not a true bend.
Looking badass!

 

[🇺🇸 DΞזΞפּ 🇺🇸]

Siesta Keys FL, 2 months ago.
Needed to get out NYC for a spell.
Plenty of drink there for sure.
Over there, no one is freaking out over Covid. I never saw any one wearing a mask. Not once after I left Tampa Airport.
NYC is all screwed up. Coming home made me realize it even more.

When I went to Key West, I thought is this still USA? It's freaking wild and it was Fantasy Fest

 

[Doom!]

@SrC That was one comprehensive write up! nicely done.