Savage SS-25 Nitro to Brushless Conversion with Castle 1717!

So I was out bashing with my Savage several weekends ago and went through the typical routine of constantly adjusting the pullstart... yanking out the engine and backplate to clean the one-way bearing.... you know, the typical stuff for these nitros.. I don't know if it was the constant noise and disruption of my kids running around or the wife telling me to hurry up and run the darn thing so we could go home.. the aching hangover from the previous night.. or perhaps the fact that I just installed a new one-way and pullstart and immediately had the chord break on the first couple of pulls... I don't know.. I snapped!! Threw the truck about 50 feet, kicked it, jumped on it, yelled many profanities... and finally just boxed it up and left the area. I immediately drove to the hobby shop with my mind made up to pick up a Flux HP! I had it with this nitro setup in the savage. I've never had so many issues with my dozen or so other nitros (AE MGTs, RC10GTs, RS4 Nitros, etc..) so I just decided I'd try the Flux electric. Well, the hobby shop didn't have a flux in stock.. special order since it is soooo expensive Crying or Very sad

They did however, have a Castle 1717 motor for $69 just calling my name, along with the Mamba Monster Esc right next to it. Compulsive buying urge was still strong... so without thinking about the long enduring build ahead of me, I snatched up the motor and MMM esc and headed home. I was going to make my own brushless converted savage! After all, I really only ended up damaging the handle/roll bar on my savie when taking out my frustration on it! A true testiment to how strong these things are! My plan was to machine all the chassis and motor mount components and spend only money on the electronics and batteries... would it work? Who knows.. but it would be fun trying!!

The following is my build!

How it started out..

I had an old chassis set lying around, so I started chopping out the sides to start mocking up the motor placement.
I then placed the motor in approximately the place that I wished it to sit. I was never a fan of those KD mounts that place the motor above the spur gear or in front of the tranny... I wanted mine to be a low C.G. install.

Only problem with this is that I'd need new chassis braces and as mentioned before didn't want to buy any. Well, I have a CNC mill in the garage (I know.. lucky me), and I have lots of aluminum plate. Here are the chassis plates I made:

They're 1/4" thick 6061 aluminum and stretched a couple inches to the XL's specs.

Next was the motor mount.. I wanted something really strong and with a lot of adjustability. I was going to do can clamps like the Flux, but other restrictions wouldn't allow this, so I made a front face mount.

Now I had to make a deck plate because the stock one wouldn't hold up to my new mount.

Okay, time to mount the motor!!!

Now it is looking like something!!! And now for the battery boxes. Had a AE MGT chassis lying around and after looking at it a while, decided it was perfect to house (2) 3S Lipos. Chopped it into 2 sections, machined down the flanges, made 4 mounting bars and they were ready to go.

Now moving on to locating the ESC. Had just enough room to place that little (big) sucker behind the motor.

Now for the first look with the battery boxes mounted..

At this point I have removed the reverse module, servo, and linkages, as well as the same for the throttle and mechanical disk brakes. I also installed the single speed conversion gear in place of the 2speed set up. Much easier to deal with. I ran with disk brakes for some testing but didn't like the way it interacted with the motor since I couldn't lock out brakes 100%. Reverse would lockout, but not brakes... I am also using the Castle Link for programming..

Now for some higher res pics.. enough of those cell phone pics

More to come in a bit! Still have sooo many more things to work on for this guy. Thanks for looking..

Wow. Very nice build, And thats saying alot from me for an electric Wink

Can I borrow that CNC mill for a little bit? Just a month. I'll take good care of it Very Happy

I like the custom XL builds. The XL length allows so many more custom options.
I hope we get to see some video of that

Nice build, can't wait to se some video Very Happy

That's a sweet rig you got there! The only thing I am concerned about is that the batteries are out in the open and could easily be hit by any number of things and punctured causing them and the beautiful truck of yours to go up in flames. And we don't want that. Otherwise as I said, a sweet truck!

my youtube

this is sweet, awesome build.

please show us pictures of your cnc.

ive been looking all over for a good cnc to buy. something between hobby grade and manufacturing unit. your machine seems to be able of doing some serious aluminum job.

The battery trays were made with the intention to add a guard piece fairly soon. I've put over a 100 housr into this already and I didn't quite get everything done before I had to drive it! I do plan on some side bash protection of sorts really soon. Good call, though. I was wondering if anyone would point that out. As for the mill, I have a CNC Automations square column bench top mill (based on a Chinese Rung Fu model) with 3 optical servo motors controlling the xyz axis along with Gecko drives and Thomson lead ball bearing drive screws. I run the Mach cnc controller board along with the Mach2 &3 software. It is the only way to go for hobby use. I use AutoCad 2009 for most of the designing, but any dxf drawing program will work. It is also set up to run 4th axis! I've had to already replace the custom x-axis screw due to some stupidity on my part while learning, but the setup has been great over the years. Not sure if the guys in Michigan are still around who built it, but they did a great job. I can definitely post pics of it. And yes, if anyone is in the Sacramento CA area, they can "borrow it" (bring beer though).

Gonna try and get videos this weekend if it doesn't keep raining like it has all week. Rain isn't a problem, but with 6s batts and that motor, it just dances on ice on those slick roads! I'm still figuring out the controller settings and gearing. It hasn't pulled wheelies yet, probably because of the zero traction conditions and the length of the chassis and the weight distribution that I intentionally did. All I can say is this thing is violent when on the trigger!! Never driven anything so out of control. Puts my Picco engines to shame. On the first test run, the motor destroyed my reverse module, second attempt it destroyed the 2 speed, 3rd destroyed the slipper, and so on.. now I have a solid setup and am even running shimmed HD diffs fr/rr. Phew that was a long response.. sorry about that.

Pics of the mill, computer and workbench...

dude you got crazy skills. what is the weight of your savage?

I can hear the truck whispering "Bash me... Bash me.."

Good luck trying to bend those TVP's.

Thanks! and the weight of the truck officially is....... heavy!!!! I don't know, I estimate it at 18 to 20lbs. All I have is a bathroom scale, and that is only accurate to 2 pounds! Knowing that a stocker is about 14lbs, and a brushless conversion adds about 3lbs, I'm gonna say 18lbs. It hides the weight very well when running. Broke 2 dog bones today (wheel axles) and bent the crap out of the shock tower extensions. Flipped it way too many times. It ran sweet!!!!! Now, gotta edit some video and get it posted. Had my share of neighborhood dogs and kids getting into the mix. This truck is truly a basher and has been reincarnated several times over the 7 years of its life! Not my best handling buggy, but definitely the most enjoyable. Gotta figure out how to post in my signature my original wasp 28 videos with this thing jumping over my Dodge 4x4..

Taking it easy with "normal" power settings...

Chasin the neighbors dog..

more flips and wheelies..

Sheared 2 wheel dogbone ends right off... and broke a wheel hub as well..

Looks like fun!

Just gotta order up a 3 pack of pinion gears to get more top speed. You guys think a 20/48 combo would be too high for this heavy beast??? Thinking of getting a pack with 18T,19T, and 20T

Did some more work to the battery boxes the past couple days. I made some carbon fiber battery covers for my soft case lipos. They are actually carbon fiber epoxied to some 22 ga. aluminum sheetmetal.
Very light and should be very tough.. after smoothing out all the rough edges, I covered them with thick black vinyl tape and some dense foam on each end. Shouldn't chafe the wires.

Nice build. Very Happy

Looks good but I would be worried about something snaging the battery wires. Can you lengthen the box so the wires are protected?

Thanks! Oh, and the battery was placed upside down for the photo. Typically I run the battery with the wires sticking out the top of the holders and zip-tie them to the chassis and they don't stick out at all. I originally did it this way bacause I was worried about the spur gear catching them. Soooo, shouldn't be any issues, although anything can happen. I've already launched it off of things and flipped it so hard that I broke the handle/roll cage and need a new one. The batteries are so well protected compared to everything else that I am more worried about the whole drive training going before the batteries/wires getting damaged! Batteries are cheap, chassis plates can be remade, but good carnage is priceless!!! No worries for destroying the truck! (Its expected)

"Nice truck, I am pretty jealous of that CNC setup you got there!!!!


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