HPI Stage I

I had my Wheely King for less than 24 hours and already I wanted to tear it apart ... what a surprise.

HPI does a decent job with their stage I build for the WK but there were a few things I ran into that they didn't mention. The parts I mention will be in addition to what you'd need for the HPI build, so please keep that in mind. I'm not going to repeat the details they went into but I will point out a few things I noticed.

PARTS & SUPPLIES NEEDED
8x 1" 4-40 Bolts
4x #6 Washers (more if you remove your wheelie bar)
HPI 86059 Balls(2 extra)

TOOLS
Dremel with Cutoff Disks

1. The very first thing I noticed after getting my WK home and wanting to lengthen the wheelbase was that HPI didn't seem to mention anything about making a longer steering link. That is the link from the chassis to the axle I am talking about. I know a lot of you will end up moving the servo, but if you don't want to you don't HAVE to. The 4-40 all thread you pickup will work in place of the stock link, so I got an extra foot of it, just to mess around with.

2. Speaking of picking up things, I think it's a good idea to get extra stuff when you are shopping. An extra bag of HPI 2mm E-clips can't hurt. I also got plenty of all thread (6-32 & 4-40), bolts & washers. You never know what you may lose behind the workbench. I found that my local shop had 4-40 allthread but not the 6-32. The two Home Depots I went to didn't have 4-40 all thread and at the second one I noticed they do not even sell it. Although the first local shop I went to had 1 bag of the T-max yokes I needed two so I got to drive all over the city. Next time, I plan ahead a little better and made some calls before going into a store.

3. Anyway, after making the longer front links I noticed that when I went to reattach the chassis end that the chassis was being tweaked inward. This is not what I want:


4. The HPI solution is to use a few washers but this meant very little thread engagement on my screws. My solution to this was to use a few of the 1" 4-40 bolts and some washers. You can avoid having to use the 4-40 bolts if you leave as much material on the original spacer as possible when you cut it. When I did the back half I cut the links off the spacer, then cut the spacer in the middle of the balls and shaved it down as needed. Much, much better this way:



5. When trying to do the rear stretch I noticed that my rear shocks were in a bind. The HPI page didn't mention this and my lower links were about 1mm shorther and my upper is 5mm shorter than theirs so I don't know why they didn't have this issue. To fix this I wanted to move the shocks back (without having to get a custom chassis). After removing the top screw in the shock I started thinking about where I could remount it when I found a suitable hole incorporated into the wheely bar mount. Keeping the wheely bar in place I removed the screw and used the longer 1" bolt along with two washers to mount the shock:


6. After doing this on both sides I realized I had made the WK ride higher in the rear, which I didn't want. I went ahead and removed the spacer on the shock and it dropped down to a reasonable height, but was now lower than the front. To level out the front I once again moved the shock and removed the spacer. I removed the 2nd screw fromt the front(ties into the servo mount) and replaced with a 1" 4-40 bolt. Instead of washers I used some spare HPI balls I had lying around, but small washers would work fine. I also had to cut awat a bit of the WK frame for clearance.


7. After moving the front shock and removing the spacer, my WK front end was still too high. I used the dremel to cut off 2 rounds from the springs:


8. As an added bonus I have a lot more droop in the suspension than I do stuff. This enabled me to move the lexan body down to the lowest mount configuration, which helps hide the frame a little better. In the end, my wheelbase came out to 12" and I have 3.2" of clearance under the chassis center.