The Monster Horsepower Villain IV project ...

[gsbuickman]

Hiya Guy's ,

It's been awhile since I've done a boat build thread here on the board since I put my boats on the back burner and decided to focus on other things for the last couple of years. Well, I decided to pick up a couple more R/C's just to have around 2 play with once in a while.

I ended up picking up a really nice Venom King of Shaves ver.2, then I started looking around for another Traxxas villain IV for a project because I just can't get enough of them apparently and I realized just how scarce and expensive they're getting to be so I decided I better pick one up while I still could. Well, now that I have the boat & the last couple parts I was waiting on showed up in my mailbox today I can finally get another Villlain project started :) ..

Alrighty, here's what I have to start with guys, a 30+ yr old Traxxas Villain IV Chaparrel ABS hull that's already been gutted & is still in nice shape. The only Factory Hardware that I'll be reusing are the 4mm driveshafts, Factory gearing and the twin steerable outdrives which is what makes these boats so awesome, everything else will be filed in the garbage can.

The Villain was originally advertised for something like 17 mph in the late 1980's (86'-87') but you were lucky if you actually saw that speed out of them. The Hull design isn't much good for anything over 35MPH so going brushless is a waste of $ and time, even with the newer updated Traxxas villain EX because they never changed the Hull design. They just threw the Traxxas E-maxx Electronics in it and threw a different set of stickers on it and called it good to go.

My plans for the boat are to run a consistent 30-35mph which isn't hard to do these days even with brushed power not to mention there is a real kick in the butt to drive once you get them setup. I'll be using a few Villain EX upgrades, some nice upgrades from Steven and a few other goodies that look something like this :

Twin Trinity Monster Horsepower motors. 40k rpm's @ 7.4v & 80k @ 14.4 but with the factory gear reduction the props spin at half the speed of the motors.

A Traxxas AEVX2 Aircooled esc w/ lvc that'll handle 4s power. The EVX2 marine doesn't have lvc & their notorious for melting the plastic water cooling blocks and frying.

Traxxas #1575 motor water cooling kit & led silicone hose from Steven.

4mm gold-plated bullet connectors for esc to motor connections.

JX PDI-6221 MG servo rated @ 250oz. Even if it's 1/2 that it's more than enough.

11/32" k&s tubing for oversized stuffing tubes that'll accept flanged bearings reducing rolling resistance in the drives and strain on the motors.

Traxxas #1521R motor mounts / blue aluminum motor plate kit that, aligns the drives & eliminates the torsional stress from the old motor mount design

Traxxas #1577 push rod boots
Traxxas #1539R universal joints (2).
Traxxas #1531villain / blast trim tabs

(8) 4x8x3 metal shielded flanged bearings from RC Boys in salt Lake to replace the oilite bushings in the stuffing tubes & out drives reducing rolling resistance in the drives and outdrives as well as the motors and increasing rpm's.

A nice pair of CNC aluminum 48mm 4814250 counter-rotating props, conversion shafts, Drive dogs, prop nuts and bullet nuts from Steven. These should be lighter then the X447's I usually run on Villains which should reduce the rotating weight & optimize rpm's.

I'll be running my 6000mah 35c 2s Rev-Tech lipos on TRX connectors . In this case I think they should be just fine instead of running the usual 5.5mm gold plated bullets I usually run ...