Rollin' on 2.2s, seriously cheap aftermarket 5-spokes.

[Aiden]

Hi all,

I've been after some new wheels for the ECX Boost. I really like the stock wheels and they look great with the spoiler off, you get that sprintcar kind of look. But after seeing the Bandit VXL setup posted over at that other ECX forum, I was inspired to try a 5-spoke upgrade for my Boost. There wasn't anything wrong with my stock ones, but, you know how it is. Too many hours spent listening to the Fast and the Furious soundtrack in my formative years I guess.

Here's how I did it all for five bucks (Australian) and a little bit of superglue.

I ordered these wheels and the matching 'rear' set from eBay. They showed up and the front rim was too wide (it rubbed the knuckle). So I thought, doesn't matter if I wreck them. I cut off the outer bit of the wheel so that it only had the 3 ribs – 2 on the outboard side and 1 on the inboard. Tried re-fitting the tires after I sanded the front wheels flush (I had cut the excess off with a hacksaw) and they fit great. No superglue on the front, they're plenty tight. And anyway, they're just for pointing the Boost in the right(-ish) direction.



Same deal for the back wheels, you just (carefully) prize the existing tire off the stock rim and fit it onto the aftermarket rim, and then you superglue it in place. I coloured the lip of the rim in with a silver sharpie before I fit the tyres back on.

The existing wheel hexes are a real tight fit. When I did a test fit it took a hammer to get them back out of the wheels. At least they didn't snap! At the moment to get the wheels on and off I place the pin horizontally, line up the wheel with the stuck-in nut and fit it that way. Annoying, but it's doable if you're not too unco.

You might not see it in the photos but the axles actually stick out a couple mil. Easy fix, the standard wheel hexes are about 5.5mm deep, I've ordered some 7mm clamp-on ones and that should take up a lot of that excess axle and give me a stance pretty close to original. All up I will have spend AUD $5 on the wheels and AUD $4.88 on the 7mm nuts. Pretty cheap and cheerful mod with not much of a headache, I'd say. You'd be laughing for about USD $7.

 

[Aiden]

Here's some (hopefully better) shots of the wheels in action and the car. It's really dry and dusty in the car park at the moment which makes doughnuts very gratifying. I should really clean the front shocks but I'm a bit sentimental at this moment about the red dust on them from Wodonga's off-road track last week.

 

[i_r_beej]

Nice! I like the looks of those wheels. Thanks for sharing your build notes, too. It's good to see the end result but even more interesting to read (and see) how it was done!

 

[groove]

Perfect photos,they look good.

 

[i_r_beej]

@Aiden I recently purchased some new wheels and tires for indoor racing. The wheels are AKA brand and I have encountered a problem with the front axles not having enough threads. Your use of clamp-on hexes sounds like it might be a fix and certainly more elegant than a stack of washers under the wheel nut! Can you tell me where you got the clamping hex, what brand it is, part number, etc? Thanks!

 

[mrc82]

Looking good!!

 

[Aiden]

@Aiden I recently purchased some new wheels and tires for indoor racing. The wheels are AKA brand and I have encountered a problem with the front axles not having enough threads. Your use of clamp-on hexes sounds like it might be a fix and certainly more elegant than a stack of washers under the wheel nut! Can you tell me where you got the clamping hex, what brand it is, part number, etc? Thanks!

Hi mate! I bought these ones (link here). They took ages to arrive and they certainly help the wheels fill out the space on the axle a bit better.

They are actually quite nice considering they're a China special. I did have to do some finagling with the pins to get them to fit into a couple, not sure if these are seconds from a name brand or just typical Chinese QC but they look the goods at least.

The thing is, I was able to get the nuts tightened down on my wheels without the use of these nuts - this was more so that I'd have less axle exposed. I think this will give you ~1.5mm wider stance and push the wheels out a little more but you'll have to see how you go; may end up needing even wider nuts. The thing that is tricky is that using my eBay-fu, I was only able to find these 7's and then some 12's which might end up being way too wide. See how you travel but yeah if it's only a millimeter and a bit that you need to fill out, these knuckles would do the job.

Sorry I took my sweet time to get back to you, I was actually waiting for them to arrive when you first asked (had been running with the stock knuckles) so I wanted to test them out first and get back to you.

 

[i_r_beej]

No sweat, @Aiden. While I was awaiting your reply I stumbled upon the Traxxas Slash hubs (#3654) They're plastic but are 7mm deep and provided the additional depth I needed to solve problem I was having. I can now get rid of the spacers I was using under the axle nut! But thanks for replying anyway-- that kind of information is always useful!