INTRODUCTION

I’m not doing a review of the 5B in this project (but if I was, it would be a perfect 5 stars), rather I wanted to apply a few trick upgrades to our SS unit to not only make it tougher but yes, make it look even cooler. 

Welcome to Project 5BYT (named perfectly by a member on the BYT forum).

Like I mentioned, I am not reviewing the 5B kit but there are a few items worth mentioning.  I was extremely impressed by the included special tools (special wrenches, bearing tool, etc) that HPI included for the build.  Granted they are not Snap-On tools however they work very well and get the job done.  Also, as with all HPI kits, the individual packaging is really good, but I think they could work a little on getting things separated so you would only have one bag open at a time.  Not a big deal but for those with smaller work spaces, it would be helpful when building the kit.

If you choose to go down the 5B path, I feel very safe to say that you will not regret it, even for a minute.  As many others have echoed, once you have a 5B, the rest of your RC collection will start gathering dust.  This is an absolutely fabulous machine.  While some may say “oh, $900 is too much to spend on an RC”, think again.  Many of us spend $500 on a 1/10th or 1/8th scale truck and then dump hundreds into it to make it more durable, faster, etc.  The 5B is very upgradeable but in my opinion, it is very tricked out right out of the box.  Of course with that said……let’s get to the upgrading!

While the 5B SS comes with a Chung Yang “CY” 26cc 2-cycle engine (upgraded versus the 23cc RTR version), we still felt the need to give our bad boy more power.  For 90+% of 5B buyers, the 26cc will be more than pleasing to drive and know that upgrading this engine is not needed.  This is BYT however, so I thought it was a required move.

When it comes to 2-stroke power, my favorite place to shop is DDM.  The guys there offer stellar service and product knowledge.  I chose the ESP Modified & ESP Fully Ported 27.2cc Zenoah Engine (bb19x, chrome option ....YES PLEASE!) to push our cart around.  OuterWears air filter and pull start covers were added, along with a super sweet DDM billet air filter.  The stock 26cc engine hit E-Bay to help pay for this upgraded engine but I kept the 8,000 RPM clutch setup for use with the new gas guzzler.

Next on the list was an upgraded fuel line system from FullForce RC.  FFRC has eliminated pinched fuel lines going into the tank with some really nice brass piping that install through the existing fuel tank grommet.  They also include all new fuel line and some slick fuel line clamps to keep everything in place, on the tank end and at the carb side.  Our DDM engine is going to be a thirsty dog and this upgrade will make sure it gets all the go juice it needs.  Installation was a breeze and the fuel system works flawlessly.

To beef up the clutch bell area, I ordered an aluminum spur gear mount and clutch bell carrier from GH Racing.  These are really nice upgrades over the stock plastic pieces.  Everything bolted up perfectly and the extra strength will be a good thing with the increased power of the 27cc ESP modded engine and the stress of an 8,000 RPM clutch setup.

The stock SS drive train is impressive to say the least.  The massive gears in the aluminum differential housing along with steel gears in the transmission should handle the power of our ESP modified power plant.  The rear shafts are mega-beefy also.  The included rubber boots for the rear joints are a nice touch and should keep the crud out.

Once again, HPI has the stock SS brake setup super trick right out of the box.  Dual vented discs are included to stop this big bad boy and I’ll leave the stock setup for now and see if it needs improving later.  It is such a slick system, I just have to try it before thinking about upgrading.  If anything, I might add the Integy front brake system on the truck as part of a Stage 2 Project build (stay tuned for that).

When it came to upgrading the suspension, I got a little carried away at the GH Racing store!  They had so many cool parts, I just could not stop adding stuff to my shopping cart!  Here’s a list of what I ordered from GH:

1. front and rear aluminum suspension arms (uppers and lowers)
2. front and rear piggyback shock reservoirs
3. front and rear aluminum hubs
4. aluminum front shock tower support
5. front and rear shock bodies
6. aluminum arm brace

As icing on the cake, I picked up the new FullForce RC rear shock tower brace to strengthen up the rear end.  Let’s get installing!

The GH suspension arms are plenty thick in all the right places and all the holes are pre-threaded, ready for easy installation.  Everything lined up perfectly.  The front lower arms have a nice ball capture feature with poly inserts to keep the lower ball joint moving smoothly.  The inserts are replaceable and that will add some life to the arms, especially in dirty, sandy environments.  The extra material around the shock mounting points is appreciated as this is a stress area and overall, the suspension arms are very well done.  I found nothing to complain about on these pieces.  

The GH Racing front and rear hubs are massive and will add some serious strength to these areas.  The rear hubs come with multiple, angled inserts to adjust the rear toe-in.  The dimensions on our hubs were spot on and the bearings snapped snuggly into place.  The bearing tool was not required for installation however you’ll have to give them a good push with your fingers to get them fully seated.  (Note: I built these before my FFRC bearings arrived...the black sealed bearings are stock, FFRC bearings have blue seals.)

While installing the hubs, I upgraded the bearings with the FullForce RC 5B full bearing kit.  The full FFRC bearing kit is compatible with both the RTR and the SS version of the 5B and replaces every single bearing on the Baja.  It is a full bearing overhaul/replacement kit.  All FFRC bearings are grade ABEC 5 or better, lubed with shell light weight oil and are double rubber sealed for super smooth running and increased durability.  FFRC also offers a wheel bearing only kit and at a minimum, I would recommend this for any 5B owner, especially if you have some decent run time on your rig so far.

The FullForce RC Rear Shock Brace is 4.75mm thick versus the 3.6mm of the stock HPI 5b SS brace. BEEFY! All new 12.9 black oxide hardware is included with stainless elastic top nuts for the shocks as well. FFRC did some really nice mill work on the brace.....very smooth edges, all soft, rounded corners, reducing stress risers and making one very nice piece. FFRC took the brace a step farther than the stock piece and the other aftermarket pieces we have seen so far with an extra shock mounting position! $25 bucks is a steal on this one.  It is worth more than that.

The GH Racing front shock tower support and arm brace were added to strengthen the front suspension a step further.  They fit great and should add an extra level of durability to the front end.

The stock SS shocks are sweet and feature 6mm shock shafts (heavier than the RTR 5B version).  With that said, as soon as I laid eyes on the GH piggy back shocks, I knew they had to find their way onto my truck. 

Some info has been circulating around the web about different threads on the stock HPI shock bodies.  Some of them match, some of the fronts do not match the rears?  The 5B SS kit comes with upgraded shock bodies however to avoid any troubles with our new piggyback setup, we opted to also upgrade to the GH Racing shock bodies.  

There are no instructions included with the piggy’s so we contacted GH to make sure we went about the install correctly. 

Here’s the GH Racing Piggyback Shock Reservoir installation instructions:

Instructions:
1. Soak the piggy back shock foam pieces in shock oil. Squeeze on the foam pieces and try to get all the air bubbles out.
2. Remove the piggy back shock reservoir from the piggy back shock caps
3a. Front piggy back shocks: Insert one foam piece inside the reservoir.
3b. Rear piggy back shocks: Insert two foam pieces inside the reservoir.
4. Fill up the reservoir with shock oil.
5. Tighten the piggy back shock cap on the piggy back reservoir.
6. Fill up the shock body with shock oil.
7. Tighten the piggy back shock cap onto the shock body.
8. Unscrew the plug on the piggy back shock cap.
9. Fill the hole with shock oil.
10. Tighten the plug onto the piggy back shock cap.
11. Wipe up any excess oil and you are done

These shocks are super smooth and seem to work great.  I did notice that the stock spring retainers are looser on the GH shock bodies versus the stock bodies but they do not seem to be loose enough to cause any problems.  This is most likely due to the differing threads HPI is using.  A thicker o-ring would help reduce the slop here but I think that would only be a band-aid. The differing threads are causing the loose fit.

The top mounts on all four shocks are also looser than we would have expected. Our guess is that this is because GH is popping an aluminum pivot ball into an aluminum shock body and the amount of "give" is almost nil, so they have to keep this tolerance pretty loose to get the pivot ball into place. If this becomes a problem, it would be easy to address with a washer or by removing the pivot ball and just using a spacer through the top shock mount. Looking at how the shock moves, I am not even sure that a pivot ball is required at this mounting point? A sleeve might be a better design anyway? I'll tackle that question should a problem arise. GH assures us that this play is normal and we should not have any trouble with the setup.

The stock wheels and tires will be used for now however, I would like to make note of a couple of items.  HPI includes firm foam inserts for the rear and soft foam for the fronts. The front foams are long strips of foam that need to be wound around the rim and glued together....mine were almost an inch too long and had to be trimmed to fit the rims. The gluing together deal is kinda cheesy.  Not to be picky but just give me some foams that fit. 

Also, one of the rear beadlock rings was goofed right out of the package, hole was too large and the screw went right through the ring.  The plastic injection process used to create this part did not work so great.  I was able to add a super small washer to fix that.  The beadlocks are kinda cheap however they did hold up during our project testing / beat runs.

Not big items but kind of annoying on a truck of this caliber.  If you are jumping into a 5B, just know that the beadlock rings are pretty low on the quality scale, at least the ones in this kit were.

The 5B SS kit comes with a metal gear, water resistant steering servo seems to do a great job for a stock unit, especially with 6 volts put into it.  No need to upgrade anything here….I’ll wait until it gets tired or breaks.

The SS kit does require a throttle/brake servo.  Due to cash flow restrictions (AKA my wallet was getting thin), I went with a JR Z650M for my throttle and brake duties.  It works quite well actually but ideally I would like to eventually upgrade to a servo with more torque.  Our receiver will be a trusty Novak XXtra synthesized FM unit.  It is a 3-channel unit and I’ll get into the 3rd channel usage shortly.  Powering the servos is 3000mah NiMH hump pack from HPI.  After a few cycles, it gave the 5B long run times of at least 2-3 hours. At that point, I would normally be out of time for beating and would always recharge the pack before my next adventure. I have no doubt that the 3000 pack would go 3+ hours without any trouble.

The receiver, hump pack and steering/throttle servo all fit onto or in the HPI radio box, which can be fully removed from the truck with a couple of quick pins and unsnapping the steering linkage.  This is a killer feature and will come in handy when it is time to hose down the big rig.

I picked up a killer LED light system from HBZ USA for my 5B.  My plans for the lighting would go beyond the typical plug and play setup.  6 volts of power would simply not be enough to light up the dual LED clusters and rear LED tail lamp.  More power Scotty! 

By playing around with the lights on the bench top, it became apparent that 11 volts would be the hot ticket and REALLY get things illuminated.  I also wanted to be able to turn the lights on and off via my controller (this is where the third channel comes into play) so I picked up an HPI 327 LED light controller.  The only problem with the 327 is that it is not made to handle 11 volts, rather it is made to handle about 6 volts.  So I needed to use the 327 controller to trigger a relay (transistor) which would complete a circuit and deliver the 11 volts. 

It should be known that I am not an electrical expert, nor will I ever be.  This is the beauty of having a top notch RC web forum with lots of helpful and intelligent members!  Kevin Van and Nitrofool really gave me the direction and instructions I needed to complete this part of the project.  You can read up on it here and hey, this is not an out of the box lighting setup so if you are not comfortable with doing this stuff, don’t do it!  It would be real simple to just wire this lighting system up with 11 volts and have an on/off switch on the truck.  Here's how we wired it up! This is a dual battery setup, one for the servos and one for the lights.

I am really glad I went this route and the cool factor of making the 11-volt, high powered HBZ LED lighting system controllable via my transmitter was worth the trouble (in my opinion).  Again, the HBZ system can easily be installed with a simple on/off switch or simply plug and unplug your battery that runs it.  You do not need to go this crazy to make the HBZ lights work on your truck however, you will need to power them via a separate battery.  I used an 11.1-volt Apogee 1570mah lithium I had on my shelf.  HBZ offers an 11-volt lithium battery for this system.  The Apogee I used is no longer available so the HBZ battery would be the hot ticket. 

Note that the HBZ LED kit also includes a slick little switch you can add to your throttle/brake servo so the rear tail lamp will only come on when the brakes are applied (very cool).  I chose to skip this switch and leave the tail lamp on all the time for increased visibility after the sun goes down.

The HBZ light kit is great.  Each LED has close to 8 feet (you read that right) of wire so you will have plenty of extra wire no matter where you choose to mount your lights.  I did have to modify the stock HPI buckets a little by removing the inner plastic peg and drilling a hole in the bucket to run the wire through.  Easy stuff.  I used a small drop of CA glue to secure the included LED protective lenses into place.  In hind sight, ShooGoo might have been a better option here in case I ever had to remove the lens cover.

I'm now working on a single battery setup with a Castle BEC and when that is up and running, I'll post up a new diagram and pics!

Not much to improve upon here really.  HPI delivers a killer gun metal gray finish on the SS chassis and it is a very solid piece.  I like the triangle detail pattern on the sides to reduce weight and give it a more finished look. However I did not like the idea of tons of debris getting wedged inside the chassis and adding to my cleaning times. So I decided to add something custom here. Time to put some FullForce RC carbon fiber to work.  FFRC sells carbon fiber in many sizes and thicknesses.  I chose some 1.5mm thick stuff to make some splash guards for the sides of the open chassis.  I whipped up some cardboard templates first to make sure they would fit like a glove. 

I transferred the finished template design onto a sheet of FFRC carbon fiber.  I like to use 3M blue tape on the carbon fiber to transfer my cuts and it also helps to keep the edges from fraying when I am cutting.  To get the straightest possible cut, I installed a fine tooth cabinet blade in my table saw and slowly ripped these to final size.  Of course you want to wear a dust mask when cutting CF; check the FFRC site for safety tips on working with the material.  Final installation of the CF into the chassis as made using some super sticky, double-sided servo tape.  It’s that easy and I think they turned out awesome!  Function and form without adding weight!



Note that this modification rendered the incredibly hard to reach on/off switch completely unreachable.  We simply relocated it onto the radio box.

FullForce RC offers a killer windshield kit for HPI Baja 5B. This kit will fit the RTR and the SS version. You can get the plexiglass in transparent orange or smoked colors and seeing that we were on a orange rampage, you can guess what color we went with. Everything you need to install the front and side shields are included in the kit, pre-cut plexiglass, plastic 3/8" cable clamps for attachment and 12.9 & stainless steel hardware. The front windshield has some slots cut in it for airflow (and they look sweet), the FFRC logo is etched into it and the top edge of the plexi is notched perfectly to fit the design of the roof skid. The side panels also feature a slick looking FFRC logo and bonus, they flip open for easy access to the air filter and linkage. The left panel is also cut out to make room for the fuel cap. This kit is completely awesome and for the low price of just $25, it is a no brainer for any Baja owner!

Leave it to FullForce RC to offer some sweet detail pieces that any respectable 5B owner is going to want badly! Check out these killer SPIKES for the 5B wing! FFRC has four custom wing pin designs (rook, button, ball and spike) . So do these make the 5B tougher and a better basher? Nah, not really I guess. Are they an awesome detail to add to any 5B for just $15? Oh yeah baby! We just HAD to get these for our Project truck.

As soon as you start one of these things up, there is no wonder it is such a popular truck! The sharp crackle delivered by the DDM ESP modded engine and HPI Performance pipe is a smile generator to say the least. I ran the same engine in a FireHammer MT with a DDM Dominator pipe and I have to say, the HPI seems to restrict some of this engines power...maybe just a little bit? I know, different trucks, gearing etc but that was the perception I had after putting some miles on this beast.

Now, that is not to say that this thing is slow. By no means is it! In fact it is just crazy to have the clutch kick in at high RPM and the rear tires LIGHT UP! It starts on the 2nd or 3rd pull and will run all day long.....just keep pouring the gas to it! I never ran the tank dry but every 25-30 minutes, I would whistle in for a pit stop and top it off. The tank was down to the bottom but not dry.

The DDM ESP modded 27cc engine we installed is absolutely wild! It really puts out serious power and ran, started and performed perfectly during the entire time we ran it, 2-3 hours at a time, over the course of several days.

On the street, the truck felt pretty wishy washy. It was all over the road when I was on the throttle. Some of this was the tires, and I am sure some suspension adjustments would have helped. Does this really matter? Not at all and I did not waste any time trying to get it pavement ready. This thing was made for the dirt, grass and sand.



Grass blasting is a ball. The size, weight and power of this truck will conquer grass that is much taller than the truck itself. Know that when the clutch kicks in hard, the tires will shred any and all grass right down to the dirt. So if your lawn is nice and pristine, you will want to be really careful running a beast like this on the turf! You'll need to learn to feather the throttle to get the truck moving.

A lot of our running was on a local construction site, lots of dirt and decent piles up to about 8 feet high. A few of the piles were so soft and steep, the 5B would hit them like a Lawn Jart (here's a link for the younger crowd). I felt that the stock SS shock oil weight is a little too light for my liking and I would also like to change over to a slightly heavier shock spring, at least in the rear of the truck. At a full throttle launch, the rear of the truck would squat super deep and when on rough terrain, there was not enough suspension left to soak up any bumps. The stock steering servo felt good to me and seemed to do a great job.


All of our upgrades really performed well. The GH Racing stuff is really nice, well made and stood up to quite a few stupid driving stunts I pulled while bashing it. All the pieces fit well and never gave a whimper. While the orange of the GH is not a perfect match to the HPI orange, I am still very pleased with it. In fact I like the slight difference between the two and perhaps this helps it feel like less of an "orange overkill" machine.

The FFRC 5B goodies are great and nothing less than what we have become accustomed to with their high quality and performance. It seems silly but I particularly like the windshield kit! The flip open side windows and FFRC logo detail os top notch. I would expect these to be very popular with the 5B crowd. Not only do they look great, they serve a purpose by keeping big chunks from smashing into my air filter!

I really need more run time before creating a comprehensive list. I have yet to break anything on the truck and it is not getting babied!

Here's a few minor things already in the works:

single battery power for LED lights and servo systems
new wheels and beadlocks (the HPI ones are not the greatest)
new tires (something like a Badland tread and some paddles)
front brake system (it looks like Integy has a nice setup and some 5B experts on the BYT forum speak highly of it)

This truck is a fantastic machine. I am not sure what else to say about it other than WOW. It was a killer machine bone stock, after the mods I added, it is truly a very special ride. I'll get some video up soon. I waited to post this project in hopes of getting some video to go along with it. Either the lack of a camera operator or weather or something always seemed to mess me up so I thought I might as well get it online and I can always add video later.



DDM (Daves Discount Motors) offers a ton of 5B stuff and the power of the 27cc ESP modded engine is very tough to beat. This 5B is a wicked power spraying beast. Thanks to the team at DDM who helped us select an engine that ultimately delivered more than promised. The service and goods at DDM are very good.



The carbon fiber chassis plates we made from our FullForce RC carbon fiber sheet really turned out nice and again, I am constantly amazed at the places I find to use this stuff! The FFRC fuel line upgrade kit, beefy rear tower brace and slick windshield kit are all MUST OWN items for any Baja owner in our opinion. Awesome job by FFRC on these items and we can only pray that they offer more Baja parts in the future!



Talk about a massive offering of 5B parts! You think we used a lot? GH Racing has that and a LOT more for the 5B. The gang at GH is great to work with and despite being based out of Canada, we always received our parts orders in a jiffy!





Light up the night with some serious LED action from the HBZUSA LED kits for the 5B. They are packed with more LED's than the stock HPI units and it shows! Nice work HBZ!