baja 5b master build thread

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rcnut14

I give bad advice
Messages
1,297
Location
lancaster county, pa
ok, so I'm finally gonna post this build here... I'm currently in the middle of it so ill catch y'all up to speed. just an fyi its not gonna be a super crazy build I like to upgrade as I break stuff

so about a month ago I bought a 5b off of my local facebook for a decent price...
its in pretty solid shape, dirty but not horribly ran. has the optional tribal body from hpi which you don't see too often, as well as proline trenchers on the rear and a turtle racing pullstart. so really close to stock which I like as I like to mod myself:)

anyway, I ran a it a little and she runs like a champ... however I did snap an a arm jumping it. I had ordered rpm a arms all around but decided to epoxy said arm just to run a little more, actually has held up surprisingly well! but after running it straight for about 20 minutes I had the screw that holds the pinion to the clutch bell break. I think what happened was the clutch was worn and over heated the bell causing the bolt to shear. upon further inspection, sure enough clutch was worn.....
and so the build began! I started by ordering a king motor desert buggy style cage with body panels and duratrax lockup b5 tires( I'm prolly gonna order the same proline rims that the rear has for the front as well) here's a sneak peek...
the cage kit basically makes it into a 5t. it has the 5t side stone guards as well as front bumper included, and required to mount the cage. the only thing it doesn't come with that the 5t has is the rear plastic dirt guards and skid plate, so I had to order those( I mean I could run without them, but a lot of dirt tends to collect around the motor mounts so its not a bad idea)

this past weekend I got the body panels painted up.. and stickered up...
 
the flames I got from a custom online decal shop called fast decals.com. they sell all sorts of vinyl decals and they do custom work. they were not too bad of a price and they have a paint stencil material that I got them printed in, that way I could paint the flames on. it was my first shot at masking an rc body, it didn't go bad. but it was a hot day and the paint dried very fast, so I had to remove the masking after it was pretty much dried, which peeled some paint off as well. so if you look close you can see plenty of imperfections, but overall I'm happy with it.

then I got the rpm arms in... and i went ahead and pulled it all apart, cleaned it, and put it back into slider form
and cleaned up the motor.. a new filter is on it's way

and thats where I'm at right now! should get the rest of the parts in by to weekend!
 
Looks good. I had planned on gettin either a 5B or a 5T at one point. But, after seein how they jump, 9 times out of 10 they lawn dart to the ground. So, I changed my mind.
 
Looks good. I had planned on gettin either a 5B or a 5T at one point. But, after seein how they jump, 9 times out of 10 they lawn dart to the ground. So, I changed my mind.

yea after driving it I've noticed it tends to be nose heavy for sure. I have a pipe coming for it which will add some weight to the rear, so we'll see if that helps at all. the roll cage also does have a place to mount a spare tire, so its possible that if I go that route it could even it out as well.
 
alright, so I got it finished saturday (sorry I didn't updater sooner its been a busy week)

anyway, I got the clutch on
and after that is was really just a lot of reassembly ( and frankly a ton of help from the exploded views). nothing special to note.

all back in running shape
then of course with all the stone/mud guards and such
I did have to cut away a little of the pullstart guard to fit the TR pullstart
I don't have a picture of this but during the first run the bottom skid plate (which is a 5T part, it connects the the pullstart guard) was sagging on the sides of the cassia as its not very well supported and actually ripped off when it caught on a rough bump. so I added a screw where a body pin would normally hold it on and drilled a hole on each side of the skid plate and used zip ties to pull the sides up and keep them even with the chassis so they no longer catch on stuff
 
and here she is all done! it runs great, tuned it a little bit but it runs like a champ and is so fun to drive
the throttle servo did go out the other night, not sure why. I noticed it was stuttering a bit after a tank then during the next run the next day it pretty much just stopped responding. so ill run over to my LHS and pick on up prolly tomorrow. it is the stock on so its not that surprising.
 
Looks good rcnut. My thoughts on the the nose dive issue when jumpy is the fact that it's only 2wd and not 4wd. You don't have the front wheels being powered to help control level flight. Just my thoughts on it.
 
Looks good rcnut. My thoughts on the the nose dive issue when jumpy is the fact that it's only 2wd and not 4wd. You don't have the front wheels being powered to help control level flight. Just my thoughts on it.


yea thats true. I'm hoping adding some weight to help with that might help some but I'm not sure. I'm not racing so it doesn't matter if its a little heavier or not. I'm just hoping to get to a point that I can jump it without being scared of breaking something. tho even if I can't get it to jump well I'd still be ok with that, its a blast to just rip around with and I enjoy driving 2wd:) I race 2wd too tho so I'm partial to that

there are 2wd's that I've driven that jump very well, but they've all been either brushless or nitro so they can get more speed (and torque) to the wheels quicker. so yea, I'm not quite sure if it'll work or not.
 
My son's Losi Strike is a 2wd SC truck and sometimes has a tendency to lawn dart on jumps. Also could have to do with ramp design also. But, I also have the ESC programmed at 60% full forward since he's only 6 and still in the learning stages.
 
yea so far I've noticed at least with this truck it seems to do better the faster I go it doesn't nose dive at least as much.
 
alright, so Ive been doing some small stuff to the truck over the past 2 weeks. first my throttle servo died (it was stock). not sure why, i just noticed it was stuttering a ton after a run and sure enough on the next run it just gave out. it didn't have any rubber grommets so it could've been shock that killed it, or just age/ it being a crazy stock servo (i think we all have had an hpi servo die at one point)

so I picked up a savox 1256 way stronger and way faster then stock, the truck has great throttle response now. I never noticed lag with the stock servo but boy it changed the feeling of the throttle.

second I ordered the proline six spoke rims for the front. I wasn't going to, but then I saw they are now discontinued but proline has a small stock of them they are selling off for a small discount. so I figured i'd grab them while I could.
and finally today the jetpro pipe came in! I ordered it almost exactly 5 weeks ago. well worth the money and wait! https://i.imgur.com/MMWeAX5.jpg It's a racing pipe I believe v2. I like it cause its not obnoxiously big and it stays all within the roll cage. plus it will keep the CG in the center and it looks pretty good too:)

so I ran it a little tonight and tuned it to the pipe, pretty east just about 1/8 of a turn on the hi speed did it. it has much better high end now and its accelerating much better too (plus it sounds amazing). right as I got it all nice and tuned tho, the pinion screw broke again. this is what originally broke that mad me realize a had a worn clutch and prompted me to rebuild the truck in the first place. I had upgraded to a 12.9 grade bolt but I guess its not enough. so just when I thought I was happy with the truck, I guess I'm upgrading more yet :LOL: as it goes in the hobby.

I'm gonna go with a TR v2 clutch setup. not only does it give you a new bell and pinion that use a m6 screw instead of the m4, it has some other features I would like like cooling the clutch much better (they claim 60% lower temps, we will see but anythings better), larger clutch bearings, and just a stiffer more robust setup.
 
really good! ive ran the same tread ( lockup) on my SC truck for awhile now and they are great for general bashing. they are definitely lower profile vs the trenchers that were on the back, which for this truck is what I want I don't want a ton of tire roll. duratrax tires are really good (not as much of a fan of their rims) they are a pretty middle of the road compound, similar to prolines' compound.

you might want the try the six packs at least for the rear if you want a more general off road tire . the lockups are better for dirt. though they only really have traction issues in wet conditions, other then that they grip pretty well.
 
really good! ive ran the same tread ( lockup) on my SC truck for awhile now and they are great for general bashing. they are definitely lower profile vs the trenchers that were on the back, which for this truck is what I want I don't want a ton of tire roll. duratrax tires are really good (not as much of a fan of their rims) they are a pretty middle of the road compound, similar to prolines' compound.

you might want the try the six packs at least for the rear if you want a more general off road tire . the lockups are better for dirt. though they only really have traction issues in wet conditions, other then that they grip pretty well.
I will definitely have to check them out. I appreciate the thorough response in regards to the tires. Right now I’m using trenchers and they seem pretty good. Only got about a half a tank on them before a rock got in my flywheel (no engine outerwear) only one for pull start and air filter. Prob going to do screen mod to help prevent that from happening again.
 
yea no problem man!

ouch! I didn't know that was a thing. I'm assuming it got in at the stock plate that the pullstart mounts to?

my truck came with a turtle racing pullstart and assembly which is enclosed, so I've never had that happen
 

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