New Guy Sounding Off

[Flooznie]

Hello Everyone,
My name is Paul and I'm brand new to the forums. A little about me, I'm active duty Navy Chief, been in for about 15 years now. I just pulled the trigger on a Traxxas Spartan and I've been using it in the lake behind my house. I have a set of Venom 5400mah 3S 20C lipos, and I got another set of Traxxas 3S 25C 8400 mah Lipos as well. The boat seems to be pretty quick, but I want to make it faster, significantly faster. The guys at the Hobby store advise against it. They tell me that if the boat goes any faster, it would be uncontrollable and turn into an airplane. My question, what would you guys recommend? I've seen quite a few things, but I'm fairly new here, so I'm not familiar with which modification correlates with what. What I don't want to do is just buy random stuff that doesn't go together and just waste money. Thanks in advance.

Paul

[Flying Scotsman]

Paul, welcome, but do not spend any more cash on that boat...buy a new boat and better batteries....search this site as it has great information.

Douggie

[Darin Jordan]

Paul,

Welcome! Please accept my deepest gratitude for your service to this country!

You'll find lots of useful, as well as some useless, information here... Have FUN!

[Flooznie]

So, when you say get a better boat and better batteries, which would you recommend? And would those batteries I bought be capatible for other watercraft?

[ozzie-crawl]

I have never seen a spartan or had anything to do with one but most rtr can do with a prop upgrade.

[DPeterson]

Welcome aboard Paul.

In the rtr area you can't go wrong with anything Aquacraft or Proboat. You will get great support from the boating and racing community along with support from the manufactures themselves.

I am not a rtr guy but got a chance to run the new AQ Revolt mono over the weekend. This is the first rtr boat I have been impressed with. I drove it hard and it took everything I threw at it. This will be a competitve racing hull in the hands of some veteran racers.

Proboat has the Impulse Mono available. I have not driven one but I think it looks fantastic. And the design team behind it knows how to put boats on the water.

You will also find that these boats are 4S versus the Traxxus 3S. This is a speed gain right there.

Good luck.

[electric]

Hello Everyone,
My name is Paul and I'm brand new to the forums. A little about me, I'm active duty Navy Chief, been in for about 15 years now. I just pulled the trigger on a Traxxas Spartan and I've been using it in the lake behind my house. I have a set of Venom 5400mah 3S 20C lipos, and I got another set of Traxxas 3S 25C 8400 mah Lipos as well. The boat seems to be pretty quick, but I want to make it faster, significantly faster. The guys at the Hobby store advise against it. They tell me that if the boat goes any faster, it would be uncontrollable and turn into an airplane. My question, what would you guys recommend? I've seen quite a few things, but I'm fairly new here, so I'm not familiar with which modification correlates with what. What I don't want to do is just buy random stuff that doesn't go together and just waste money. Thanks in advance.

Paul

Really, just buy some 3s batteries with a good high C rating 40c (check out the battery section for "good" sport brand for a good price) and invest in a good prop. Maybe a sharpened and balanced x442 or so and you should be good to go(check the Traxxas section for more). The boat you bought had a LOT of motor/esc issues when it first came out so there are a lot of hard feelings about it. The more recent version was revised and appears to be working much better. I drove a friends a few weeks ago with a x442 prop and it was very fast and a lot of fun to drive and was taking a beating and still holding together. Enjoy the boat.

Next one should be a fiberglass boat as they are very durable and can be patched pretty easily. Have fun!

[sanyijr]

Paul,

Welcome! Please accept my deepest gratitude for your service to this country!

and But Paul, give us a little more to go with. What are the conditions on the lake. And to be clear, you are running the 3S in series? So 6s on the Spartan? Based on the Spartan forum, that will not last long....

But if you give some more info on what you want to achieve and budget, there are many ways to go...... based on water conditions, $$$ and personal preference, the guys here can surely "nudge" you in the right direction.

Sean

[Flooznie]

The lake is about the size of a football field, not too much trash and maybe about 20 feet deep. The 3S batteries are being ran in parallel, not in series, so I don't think that it's putting that big of a load of the ESC. I heard about the 6S's melting the Castle electronics. As far as budget, I really don't want to empty my wallet completely just yet, but wondering what the biggest "bang for buck" mods are. There seems to be lots of folks who do not like this particular boat. So, if that be the case, modifying my current boat significantly doesn't seem like a viable option. I do however, like the idea of spinning a different prop on it. I might have to take a look at the Aquacraft or Proboat models as well. Fiberglass does sound better, especially when it comes time to make repairs.

[Russ Williamson]

Hi Paul,
Thank you for your service to our country, it is much appreciated! My oldest son is a Chinook heli mechanic in the Army stationed in Savannah, GA. It has been very good for him!

Welcome to the world of r/c boating! It, without question, is the best segment in this great hobby!
You made a good first purchase and run the Spartan as long as you can. Better yet, get a family member, friend, neighbor or somebody to also get a boat. 2 on the lake triples the fun!
Would suggest to do small mods one at a time. Possibly get you an on-board data system to monitor each run. Adds to the fun. Would also suggest to jump on the Spartan forum on this site. Lots of info.

Have fun and be sure NOT to swim after that boat. Get you a fishing reel and cast after it or put a tennis ball on a reel. Just do not swim after it.

Thanks,
Russ

Hello Everyone,
My name is Paul and I'm brand new to the forums. A little about me, I'm active duty Navy Chief, been in for about 15 years now. I just pulled the trigger on a Traxxas Spartan and I've been using it in the lake behind my house. I have a set of Venom 5400mah 3S 20C lipos, and I got another set of Traxxas 3S 25C 8400 mah Lipos as well. The boat seems to be pretty quick, but I want to make it faster, significantly faster. The guys at the Hobby store advise against it. They tell me that if the boat goes any faster, it would be uncontrollable and turn into an airplane. My question, what would you guys recommend? I've seen quite a few things, but I'm fairly new here, so I'm not familiar with which modification correlates with what. What I don't want to do is just buy random stuff that doesn't go together and just waste money. Thanks in advance.

Paul

[sanyijr]

The lake is about the size of a football field, not too much trash and maybe about 20 feet deep. The 3S batteries are being ran in parallel, not in series, so I don't think that it's putting that big of a load of the ESC. I heard about the 6S's melting the Castle electronics. As far as budget, I really don't want to empty my wallet completely just yet, but wondering what the biggest "bang for buck" mods are. There seems to be lots of folks who do not like this particular boat. So, if that be the case, modifying my current boat significantly doesn't seem like a viable option. I do however, like the idea of spinning a different prop on it. I might have to take a look at the Aquacraft or Proboat models as well. Fiberglass does sound better, especially when it comes time to make repairs.

You know Dave, If you are sure about running 3S, upgrading to a good prop and 4S would be a HUGE increase in speed without endangering reliability.... But I agree with Russ' approach. Little here and there and you will be good. 3S though is a little on the low side at 11V. 4S with the right prop woudl get you into the low 30s (mph)

Sean

(but I would defer to the Spartan forum for methods and means) Good Luck

[JIM MARCUM]

Welcome aboard Chief. Old Navy Corpsman here.

I suggest you search for a local FE boat club & meet up with them at their lake to learn the ropes. We FE boaters like nothing better than talking about our boat builds and how to make them better. Check the NAMBA website for a listing of clubs in your area.

While a lot of us on OSE are hard core RC fans and FE boaters who love to push the limits and are into race level boats, you can still have a blast with the boat you have and make it faster with mods that can be transferred to another boat if you want to. To help dial in you current boat for more sustainable speed we need to know:
1. ESC brand & amp rating
2. motor size (can dia & length in millimeters) & KV (kilovolt) rating
3. details on your prop. If it's plastic, it should be replaced with an Octura X4xx series prop - which one to start with depends on the answers to the first two questions.

The quick & dirty way to go faster is to go to up in LIPO voltage - 4S 35C or higher in your case. You will need to keep a close eye on your ESC/motor/LIPO pack temps as you make changes - buy an IR hand thermometer (Home Depot or Harbor Freight) and check temps after a few hard passes. ESC & motor should be <120 degrees, LIPOs <100. Give that a try first and see if that improves your speed. Please let us know how that works for you.

The goal here is to have fun, and you can have a lot of fun with the boat you have now. Good luck. JIM

[domwilson]

Hello Paul,

Welcome to the forum. If this is your first boat, I would get accustomed to it first. Learn to drive and service it. When you are comfortable, Maybe go to 6s. See how you like that. Depending on your budget, and desire, seek out information and recommendations for a better class boat. You'll get lots of good advice from a number of people on this forum. There are some on this forum who have done mods to this boat. But how much you want to spend (time and money) on this or another boat is entirely up to you. Good luck in what ever you decide.

[silvermansteve]

thank you for your service. do you have a recent spartan -- by which i mean one with the revised electronics? if so, can this not handle 6s? traxxas's website says you can run 6s in this boat, yet everyone here, including you, is talking 3-4s. if you want to go faster, why not follow the manufacturer's direction and run 6s? check your temperatures. 3s must be too slow. you have the batteries, just run them in series. you'll go much faster. maybe i am missing something here? let's see what others say. any people running a spartan on 6s?

[electric]

thank you for your service. do you have a recent spartan -- by which i mean one with the revised electronics? if so, can this not handle 6s? traxxas's website says you can run 6s in this boat, yet everyone here, including you, is talking 3-4s. if you want to go faster, why not follow the manufacturer's direction and run 6s? check your temperatures. 3s must be too slow. you have the batteries, just run them in series. you'll go much faster. maybe i am missing something here? let's see what others say. any people running a spartan on 6s?

I agree. The old motor and esc were failing quite often on 6s (Two 3s batteries in series), but I ran my friends revised one, new motor (castle) on 6s with a x442 and it ran great. The deal is people are probably going on all the discussion on the orignal version and not taking into account the boat has new internals. By the way, I am not a "Fan" of the Spartan at all, just stating what I have seen.