Tamiya Monster Beetle Project

Page 2: Upgrades!

Here's my little pile of upgrades for the Monster Beetle. Nothing too fancy, I just wanted to upgrade the speed a bit. You don't want to go too far or the brittle chassis plastic will just break.

The stock differential, while better than the 1986 original, is still loud and not very strong. The spider gears are housed within a nylon spur gear. I decided to replace the whole thing with a MIP ball differential which is super strong and quiet. It is a direct drop in. You can see the before and after parts above.

After installing the ball diff, the next upgrade is to the silver can 540 motor. I replaced it with a 23 turn Tamiya Super Stock BZ motor. Even though the difference is only from 27 to 23 turns, this thing makes a huge difference in performance. It also has replaceable brushes.

This shows the final before and after. You'll notice I replaced the stock ESC. Even though it was rated to support up to 23 turn motors, I found that it cut out a lot especially when going into reverse so I swapped in a Hobbywing 1060 ESC which works much better.

During the initial build I also replaced all the stock plastic bushings with ball bearings. You can get ball bearings so cheaply that I'm amazed any kit still comes with bushings.

Update: About a month later I went back and reverted to the original motor and speed controller. This chassis is just not up to any more speed. I found a "Torque Tuned" motor in my box and used that. After the fire, I put another Torque Tuned motor in my replacement but I did not bother with another ball differential.

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