Project Rocket Ship Mini-T is about adding various goodies to make a Mini-T super fast and tough. Stage 6 will show you what we did to upgrade our electronics and install the 8000kv Competition X brushless MAMBA motor system. Prepare your self......

After months of anticipation, this is it! We have been dying to get our mitts on the MAMBA brushless system and the wait has been worth every second. We should begin by saying this has been one of the most rewarding projects/upgrades we have done to date. Dollar for dollar, this upgrade has produced the most dramatic results of any other item we can think of, on any other vehicle we have upgraded. OK, it's time to sit down, buckle up and shut your mouth. You don't want any bugs flying in your cake hole at 60MPH!

PACKAGING - The MAMBA comes packaged beautifully in its own little black box. The motor and speed control are locked into place with foam to prevent any shipping damage. The extra effort in packaging is appreciated, especially on a performance system that costs as much as the truck itself! The box is cool and we will keep it around to store stuff in. Maybe we will toss all our old Mini-T electronics in it for safe keeping?

The MAMBA package comes with the brushless motor, motor mounting screws, brushless speed controller (brushless motors need a specific speed controller to work properly....a standard ESC off the shelf will not work), detailed instructions for programming the MAMBA, and a power switch.

INSTALLATION - As you may already know, the MAMBA will not work with the stock electronics setup on the Mini-T. If you are not interested in replacing your servo and receiver, there are a number of aftermarket motors that will give performance boosts while retaining the stock electrics. However NONE of them come close to the MAMBA in performance. If you are serious, and I mean SERIOUS about power and speed, the MAMBA is the right way to go....but we're getting to that part.

Truth be told, the stock Mini-T electronics are nothing special and the funky ESC/receiver combo is very limiting in design. In fact most Mini-T owners were disappointed once they realized that upgrading their servo to something stronger is a real pain in the butt. Making the move and upgrading your Mini-T to standard electronics will open up a ton of options that can provide additional performance, less twitching and more operating range. You can keep your stock Mini-T AM transmitter/controller by upgrading to a AM receiver. Our recommendation is to bite the bullet and move to FM. Once you do you will never look back. This should be a no brainer if you already have a FM controller that has multi model memory (Airtronics MX-3, JR 3 series, etc). FM offers better range and less interference. These are especially important when your vehicle will be moving at 40, 50 or 60+MPH!

Let's talk briefly about the electronics we chose to work with our MAMBA system. With our recent purchase of a Team Losi LST, we are now equipped with a JR X3S FM controller. It has multi-model memory and is synthesized so we can tune it to any FM channel. SWEET! Receiver shopping was easy. We found a JR R135 75mhz FM receiver for the nice price of $45 at our LHS. If you have been following our Mini-T project, you already know we upgraded the truck to a HiTec HS85MG metal gear servo (see stage 2). To power the MAMBA, we chose 2-cell and 3-cell Apogee Lithium Polymer batteries. You can use NiMH batteries with the MAMBA. Just know that overall speed is almost doubled when using a 3-cell LiPo compared to a 6-cell NiMH pack.

We lined everything up and found our receiver and the MAMBA controller fit perfectly onto the upper deck of the FFRC aluminum chassis. We installed the FFRC Big Block motor plate before installing the MAMBA motor. We used the included mounting screws but we did add some thin washers onto the screws. Everything fit up perfectly. As the MAMBA motor shaft is not splined like the stock motor, we upgraded to a metal pinion gear from Trinity. We soaked the set screw down with medium strength thread locker to keep it in place. The metal gear will be better able to handle the power of this motor. Let's face it, there is no way a plastic splined gear is going to hang onto this motor! We kept the stock gear ratio in tact with the new metal pinion gear. The gears from Trinity were a little pricey at $20 but you do get several gears of different sizes in the bag. We'll play with some different ratios later.

We mounted the controller to the rear of the upper chassis plate. The MAMBA controller has three wires that run to the motor. Castle did a great thing by soldering wires onto the motor and speed control. That makes installation very easy. The connections between the controller and motor (3 wires) have low resistance plugs pre-installed. The wiring is plug and play! We ran the wires through the rear shock tower and they were just long enough....a better way to say that is they are exactly the right length. It is a very neat and clean setup. We gently pushed the heavy wires coming out of the motor towards the front of the truck to keep them out of harms way. Then we got smart and rotated the motor so the wires coming out of the motor were not at the rear of the truck.

The speed control has two leads for the battery and comes without a plug. This is nice as you can choose the plug style of your choice. Per Shawn Palmer's (MAMBA representative - a.k.a. Mr. Mamba) recommendation, we opted for Deans Ultra Plugs for low resistance between the battery and the speed control. This is the first project in which we have used Deans plugs and it will not be the last. They fit very securely and have a super low resistance rating. They are so far and beyond micro or standard Tamiya plugs, it is not even funny. We will be putting these on our XXX-T's and every other connector we can find!

Plug the motor into the speed control, plug the speed control into the receiver and the servo into the receiver. Oh yeah...wait on plugging in the battery until you have had a chance to read through the programming instructions.

Castle includes an excellent set of instructions (2 pages...front and back) for setting the MAMBA system up once everything is plugged in and ready to run. Take the time to read through them to ensure the system works properly. The speed control offers many programming options. One our favorites...it lets you set a voltage cutoff amount, based on what kind of battery you are running. So once the battery is discharged to a certain point, the speed control will shut the truck down. Very cool! Programming is a snap.

The system emits a set of "beeps", "chimes" (it's very cool to have a motor system that "talks" to you) and different colored lights to tell you what is going on. You simply use your controller trigger to change settings. This is a very nice, added feature that makes this complex, powerful system usable by the RC novice or the RC expert. I am sure that this process could have been done with a lower manufacturing cost however it is nice to see a company make their product as user friendly as possible. Nice work Castle!

Castle also offers a very cool software option for speed controllers made after 8/2003. You can download the Mamba Link software and use your PC to program your speed controller. Simply plug in the USB cable (purchased separately) to the speed control and make your changes. You can set the brake/reverse type, brake strength, motor timing, cutoff voltage, start power and more. You can also view throttle and brake curves! This is a marvelous feature as we often forgot what settings we were running (yes, we should have written them down).

The MambaLink software would work very well for us as we have a laptop in the BYT shop. We have not tried this feature yet but we will be ordering a cable soon and will let you know how it works.


Click here to check out the MAMBA Owners Manual.

FIT & FINISH / APPEARANCE - The motor itself is small in diameter but huge on power (we're getting to that part). It fit perfectly into our Mini-T and onto the FullForce RC motor plate. We have been told that it fits onto the stock motor plate as well. The motor has numerous, threaded mounting holes that allow it to fit not only the Mini-T but other 1/18 scale vehicles (HPI RS4 and X-Ray M18). The speed control has a very small footprint which is a huge bonus. The small ESC size allowed us to use a standard size receiver and that saved us money versus buying a micro rx unit.

The finish on the motor can is a satin, green anodized looking coat and it looks great. Green = GO! The speed controller is shrink wrapped to help keep dirt and grime out however it is not "entirely" sealed. We would have liked to see it entirely enclosed but we doubt that this will cause any problems.

QUALITY - The quality of the kit is excellent. The wires and connectors used are very nice. By just looking at the motor, the quality of this system is very apparent. The only part of the kit that looks less than perfect is the speed controller itself. It is basically a small circuit board with some wires coming out of it. It is shrink wrapped and has a MAMBA decal applied to the shrink wrap. We can only guess they did not put the speed controller in a plastic case to keep the footprint as small as possible (and the small footprint feature is very welcome in an 1/18 scale vehicle). The speed controller works perfectly and we certainly do not want to make it sound bad....we're just making an observation. We have been beating the snot out of this truck since the installation and it has worked flawlessly, no glitches, no mixed signals....just crystal clear, very smooth operation.

PERFORMANCE - We want to start this part of the review with some information on the MAMBA kit we used in our project. This info is from Shawn Palmer from Castle Creations:

8000 Kv MAMBA Performance System:
With the stock gearing and a 3cell Apogee lipo pack (www.pfmdistribution.com), one of our [Castle Creations] Mini-T's has been confirmed at over 60mph. With a 2 cell lipo pack, or 8 cells = 48mph. 6 cells = 32mph.

Basically, this motor is almost unusable for actual racing, unless you've got a really big oval track, or will ONLY use 6 cells or less! Also - drive train parts at these speeds most likely will have a reduced life span - stock up on diff sets!

When we first read the above, we obviously could not wait to get our hands on this system to see what it could really do. 60+MPH?!?!! Could that be right? How could it be possible for a truck that is so small to go so fast? At the time our Mini-T was probably going 18MPH or so and it seemed quite fast. We were having a blast with it. Little did we know what was in store for us with the MAMBA!

Nothing we could have done could have prepared us for what we were about to experience. And we think it is safe to say that nothing we will be able to put in this article will prepare you for the first time you see the MAMBA in action. It truly is hard to come up with words that fairly describe it's performance. Even the video does not do it justice.

A motor is only as good as the battery that powers it - Per the suggestion of Shawn at Castle, we contacted PFM Distribution and grabbed some APOGEE Lithium Polymer batteries. PFM also has a great LiPo charger for $59 and all you need to add is a power supply. Click here to see the battery charger we built for the LiPo's. PFM shipped our batteries and charger right away and we had them in a couple of days.

The LiPo batteries are super lightweight and super powerful. The cells come shrink wrapped together and they are well built. The wire leads are ready for your favorite plug. We opted for the Deans Ultra Plugs (back to the suggestion by Shawn - hey, when Mr. Mamba speaks, you should listen). We have a 2 cell LiPo and a 3 cell LiPo. Both charge nicely without any excessive battery heat. They supply HUGE power to the MAMBA. These batteries are AWESOME! We first installed the 2 cell LiPo into a stock Mini-T just to see what it would do. It had more power, acceleration and run time than a 6 cell NiMH pack! And get this, the LiPo is only a 830mah! The NiMH is a 1100mah!

You really can not go wrong with lithium polymer batteries. They are MUCH lighter than standard NiCD or NiMH. They have more power and more run time. What's not to like?! We would highly recommend the PFM APOGEE batteries. Don't bother trying to find another source. Just deal with the experts at PFM and they will take very good care of you. They have a great web site and all their goods are on display.

Click here for the exact 3 cell, 830mah, LiPo Apogee battery we used in this project (item # 3S1P830).

Let's hit the pavement - We took the little tike out for a test run on the road in front of BYT central. It is a long straight road so it seemed to be a good spot to open it up and see what it could do. The first pull of the trigger showed us that we were going to have to rethink our driving strategy. The truck flipped over like it had a spring mounted underneath it! Hmmm. On the second try, we eased into it and took it up to about 1/3-1/2 trigger. WOW! The truck was flying down the road at a pace that appeared to be equal to our T-Maxx's...equal to our T-Maxx's at FULL speed! CRAZY! At 1/2 trigger, the truck is flying! If you pull the trigger too hard, even at that speed, the truck will pull a hard wheelie and/or flip over. It is simply insane! The Mini-T covers so much ground, so fast, we quickly found that we needed more pavement.

After chatting with Mr. Mamba about our first runs with the system, he told us that all the Castle Mini-T's with the 8000kv Competition Plus system have Losi foam tires in the rear. We had never considered foam as we thought the shear power of the brushless motor would shred them. We were very wrong. Shawn's recommendation of using foam tires was a wise one. They work great.

The incredible amount of tire expansion that takes place when under power can make the truck very difficult to drive. The foams on the rear may reduce overall speed slightly but having a truck that is more driveable (and still AMAZINGLY FAST) is much more fun. Properly setup, this truck could be an incredibly fast street machine!

Time to get dirty - Time to hit the dirt! For the dirt testing, we strapped a new pair of shoes on our baby. A full set of Losi Mini Mashers....with chrome wheels of course. The MAMBA has so much power, it literally flies around our 1/10 scale dirt track like nothing. It moves so fast on the dirt, we had to be careful not to launch the Mini-T into a tree top. Even with the fresh meats, MASSIVE amounts of tire spin is just a trigger pull away. Wheelies galore! It is a track eating machine! Keeping it on the track is the hardest part.

Problems? - We encountered two "problems" during our testing.

The first "problem" is that it can be tough to find enough real estate to really wind this thing out. We found several parking lots that were of significant size however the MAMBA made them look small. This is not a bad thing however if you are like we are, you are going to want to see this bad boy at full tilt. Just know that you will need to find a BIG area to really crank it out.

The second "problem" we encountered was the MAMBA had so much power, it would loosen up the metal pinion gear on occasion. The Trinity metal gears we used are of very good quality. They have a setscrew to keep them in place. We used medium strength thread locker and REALLY cranked down on the set screw (so hard we thought we would snap the wrench but never did). This seemed to work pretty well but it would still loosen up after 3-4 battery packs. We finally scuffed a small portion of the MAMBA motor shaft (it is a polished chrome shaft) to give the the set screw something to "bite" onto. This seemed to take care of it. Regardless, it is a small, easy to fix item and we were able to take care of it with a little common sense. Just keep that in mind when you are installing your MAMBA!

We had heard from several people that we would encounter diff trouble by installing the MAMBA in our Mini-T. Happily, we never did. We did however install a Team Losi adjustable ball differential after about 15 battery packs through the truck. We just saw it at our local hobby store and "had to have it". Note that we did not do this because we were experiencing trouble. While installing the new diff setup, we checked the stock spider gears very carefully and saw no abnormal wear nor did we see any signs of trouble.

Here are a few more specs on the MAMBA:

Continuous: 25 amps
Surge: 50 amps
Resistance: 0.0045 Ohms
Brake: Proportional
Reversible: Yes - with lockout
Low Voltage Cut-off: Programmable
Connector: Universal

Size
ESC: .95 x 1.72 x 0.4"
Motor: 0.79 dia x 1.3"

Weight (with wires)
ESC: 0.9 oz (24.5 g)
Motor: 1.7 oz (48 g)

Transmitter Programming Options:
Low battery voltage cut-off warning
Brake Strength
Lockout reverse mode
Timing Adjustment
Start-up mode
Reverse speed


COST/VALUE - Do you need to go with the 8000kv system? Probably not. Are you the kind of person that always has to have the fastest, toughest, coolest truck? Then yes, this is the system for you. You should really think about what you want to do with your Mini-T before ordering your system. Castle Creations offers four different MAMBA systems. Here is a brief description of each system that Mr. MAMBA shared with us. Read it carefully as it should help you decide what system is right for you:

Click here to download the following information.

The cost of the MAMBA is very low ($150 for the Competition X package) when you weigh in the performance gain. Just remember that you will have to do some other upgrades to make the MAMBA work (bare minimum a new AM receiver $45 (if you keep your stock controller), a new servo $30 and a servo saver $5). These costs should also be factored into the buying decision. Is it worth it? Absolutely without a doubt, YES it is.

SUMMARY - What may be just as amazing as the MAMBA itself it the fact that this little truck, that only did 15MPH out of the box can handle this kind of power and speed. Granted we have upgraded our Mini-T with lots of aluminum and other tough goodies but the truck still handled well at speed.

The MAMBA is the single most powerful upgrade we have ever installed on any RC vehicle. Sure, you can put a Sirio in your T-Maxx and the power increase is great. It is nothing compared to taking an 1/18 scale truck from 18MPH to 60+MPH. We have been driving and driving this little guy and every time out, it is more fun than the last. Here's another way to look at it. We recently purchased a Team Losi LST and a Savage SS. Since the MAMBA, we haven't touched either truck for more than a few minutes. In fact we are going to need to lock this thing away so we can focus on some other projects!

Thanks to Castle Creations for creating such a fantastic performance package. And thanks to PFM Distribution for giving it the APOGEE battery power it needs to really make this Mini-T a rocket ship!