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The vekta.5 is wider and would look funny I'd think. @Seandonato73 wanted to put that body on his. I'm sure he'll chime back in.
Kraken Vekta.5 or upgrade DBXL 2.0
- Thread starter codeman11
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Yes, you can with some modifications. The bodies are the same width, the axles are what's narrower on the truck. I have about 3/4 of the truck body and cage. They go out of stock pretty often and don't stay in stock for long. I don't remember to check for stock often either, but plan on dropping a few hundred bucks to convert bodies just for the cage and panels.
I have a DBXL 2.0 and 5T 2.0. Bone stock the 5T is much more durable, better chassis, larger diffs, easier to wrench on, etc.
The DBXL 2.0 needs aluminum diff housings in the center and rear at a minimum. Front and rear chassis braces to stiffen it up, and decent tires that don’t blow out. Add in a velocity stack, side mount filter, and pipe along with the parts above and its a solid rig that’s faster than a 5T as its lighter.
The DBXL 2.0 needs aluminum diff housings in the center and rear at a minimum. Front and rear chassis braces to stiffen it up, and decent tires that don’t blow out. Add in a velocity stack, side mount filter, and pipe along with the parts above and its a solid rig that’s faster than a 5T as its lighter.
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- #24
The Vekta.5 will end up being my winter project but for now I couldn't face 'tossing' a perfectly workable car so I've actually begun purchasing a few parts to slowly upgrade the DBXL 2 I have. Good to know BigBasher! I actually like the look of the DBXL 2 as well and no matter what car I go, it seems like I'd have a few upgrades to purchase that I'd want to install.
So far I've purchased:
Next round of upgrades, I'll go with Vitavon components for the diff cases, diff housings and the front and rear braces. I also plan on replacing the steering rack and some of the linkages, then the 1" wheelbase extenders. Once finished that, I'll toss on a proper set of tires onto some aluminum rims for some bling. As the stock engine starts to wear out, I'll more than likely go with a top-end upgrade to an ESP 34CC and a proper tuned pipe, and will probably order up some clear body panels at the end of all the upgrades to style it like a KOH trucK I think looks pretty sweet.
Vekta.5 is on the back burner until more than likely Black Friday sales this year.
So far I've purchased:
- Integy suspension arms
- Rear carriers, front carries and C hubs
- aluminum engine mount
- front windshield
- IRC DBXL shocks front and rear
Next round of upgrades, I'll go with Vitavon components for the diff cases, diff housings and the front and rear braces. I also plan on replacing the steering rack and some of the linkages, then the 1" wheelbase extenders. Once finished that, I'll toss on a proper set of tires onto some aluminum rims for some bling. As the stock engine starts to wear out, I'll more than likely go with a top-end upgrade to an ESP 34CC and a proper tuned pipe, and will probably order up some clear body panels at the end of all the upgrades to style it like a KOH trucK I think looks pretty sweet.
Vekta.5 is on the back burner until more than likely Black Friday sales this year.
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Id leave the stock plastic arms on it, doesn't take much of a tumble to rip the hinge pins out of the carrier with alloy, the arms are cheaper to replace.
tizdaz
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i recently bought a dbxl 2.0 & upgraded pretty much everything to alloy, 1 word of advice, STAY AWAY from FID Parts! Ive had nothing but issues with FID parts in terms of fitment & worse is there customer service, absolute cr@p company to put it nicely! every FID part I bought I had to mod in 1 way or another to make it fit, even though they were so called "designed to fit the 2.0" ...trust me, they don't!
The only FID parts i had no issues with was the lower arms, there rest... nightmare!
Where possible go Vitavon and genuine Losi dbxl 2.0 hop ups, will save you lots of headaches! ..anyway heres my 2.0 after all the upgrades, I'm just in process of swapping the pipe from a Olimat unsilenced to a bart silenced mid bleed pipe as im lacking low end/torque at mo which maybe due to the pipe, its on way in post!
This being said, i love my dibby, handles great, takes a beating & just love the overall look of it
..but as mentioned by others, from stock its a bit of a friday afternoon job! ..the shocks are absolute cr@p, i went with IRC bigbores, brilliant shocks! The stock 5T shocks are also a good replacement for the stock shocks on the dibby.
The fuel tanks are prone to leaking due to a manufacturing fault where the mould plug was sealed (or lack of!).
Steering servo isnt great, i upgraded to a AGFRC 78kg servo, brilliant servo. But yup, im happy with mine, got it where i want it now, im just waiting for the taylor V2 engine tyo come out which is soon i believe
Im running on Proline Badlands mx43's all round, brilliant rim/tires
The only FID parts i had no issues with was the lower arms, there rest... nightmare!
Where possible go Vitavon and genuine Losi dbxl 2.0 hop ups, will save you lots of headaches! ..anyway heres my 2.0 after all the upgrades, I'm just in process of swapping the pipe from a Olimat unsilenced to a bart silenced mid bleed pipe as im lacking low end/torque at mo which maybe due to the pipe, its on way in post!
This being said, i love my dibby, handles great, takes a beating & just love the overall look of it
..but as mentioned by others, from stock its a bit of a friday afternoon job! ..the shocks are absolute cr@p, i went with IRC bigbores, brilliant shocks! The stock 5T shocks are also a good replacement for the stock shocks on the dibby.The fuel tanks are prone to leaking due to a manufacturing fault where the mould plug was sealed (or lack of!).
Steering servo isnt great, i upgraded to a AGFRC 78kg servo, brilliant servo. But yup, im happy with mine, got it where i want it now, im just waiting for the taylor V2 engine tyo come out which is soon i believe
Im running on Proline Badlands mx43's all round, brilliant rim/tires
- Thread starter
- #27
Nice DBXL! I'll take note of some of your upgrades here
Good to know about FID, I already had sort of struck them off the list. Though I've started to hear bad things about Integy so far as well that hopefully are unwarranted, but the rest I plan to use Vitavon. More expensive, but seem like very nice parts.
I've held off on the pipes myself, as I've been debating between a Taylor 35 myself as well, or just upgrading the top-end of the Zenoah to an ESP ported 34CC top end upgrade then figure out the pipe. The Bartolone pipe seems the best and I like silenced myself. I've never been a "fan" of the 2 stroke sound to begin with, but it's better sounding with a properly resonant silenced pipe IMO. Love the sound of my 4 stroke airplane engines ... these are bordering annoying as hell haha long story short, would love to know what you think of the new pipe once you get it installed.
And Sean, leave the stock plastic arms on ... nah The IRC big bore shocks will bend those like a pretzel.
Waiting patiently for my suspension components. Received my set of IRC shocks and wow are they ever nice. Beautifully machined
Good to know about FID, I already had sort of struck them off the list. Though I've started to hear bad things about Integy so far as well that hopefully are unwarranted, but the rest I plan to use Vitavon. More expensive, but seem like very nice parts.
I've held off on the pipes myself, as I've been debating between a Taylor 35 myself as well, or just upgrading the top-end of the Zenoah to an ESP ported 34CC top end upgrade then figure out the pipe. The Bartolone pipe seems the best and I like silenced myself. I've never been a "fan" of the 2 stroke sound to begin with, but it's better sounding with a properly resonant silenced pipe IMO. Love the sound of my 4 stroke airplane engines ... these are bordering annoying as hell haha long story short, would love to know what you think of the new pipe once you get it installed.
And Sean, leave the stock plastic arms on ... nah
The IRC big bore shocks will bend those like a pretzel.Waiting patiently for my suspension components. Received my set of IRC shocks and wow are they ever nice. Beautifully machined
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Once you rip a few hinge pin mounts out you'll be wishing for plastic arms.... it's a weak point. I ripped a few out even with plastic arms. Cartwheels are expensive. 
- Thread starter
- #30
Installed all the upgrades I purchased for now. Wow, what a difference. The suspension is silky smooth, and is much more lively. @Seandonato73 I even had an accidental cartwheel, and safe from damage lol *phew*
The IRC shocks came with ball cups that were not the right size, so I popped out the stock ones and used them and they fit into the A arms perfectly as expected. The mounting system used to mount them to the shock tower is different but decent, no complaints. However ... are these shocks much better than the stock big-bore? I would say absolutely not worth the money short of them having much stiffer springs. I would bet the stock shocks would be just fine when filled and bled correctly with proper thickness of springs. I actually think these IRC shocks are way overhyped. They don't hold much oil, they're impossible to set rebound on ... you cannot remove the bottom shock perch, to remove the spring once the shocks are assembled. And once they are assembled, it's hard to make sure you've got the cap tightened on nicely as there's barely any room to get your hand on it with the tightly coiled thick springs, and there's no real area to fit a wrench in on the couple tiny flat spots on the shock body.
Not to mention, I pulled the dust boots off the stock shocks to use on the IRC shocks ... and disassembling those shocks without removable bottom perch is just ridiculous. The travel is shorter, and the plastic bottom ends supplied on the shocks all 4 of them were crooked as a dogs hind leg.
Not impressed ... never buy another set of IRC shocks again. Overpriced crap is my opinion after working with them and trying to bleed them. They have bleeder caps ... but what in the hell for? The only saving grace is they are working better than stock but that's only because the springs are a much better tension for the weight of the buggy.
Now on a big plus ... these Integy A arms are awesome. I love the replaceable plastic bushings, and they have additional mounting points for the shock bottoms to really fine tune the angles. Need to tweak the front and rear a little to give a little less kick-up of the rear-end with some ride height and shock geometry tweaks, then I have to play with getting a proper exhaust pipe mounted which should give the rear end a bit more weight and it should fly much more level.
So far though on the whole ... massive upgrade; the buggy is much much tighter handling. The stock plastic A arms are crap, and all 4 of them were warped from the shock spring tension over time; all of them had different amounts of rock on the table. I've only had the buggy since March of this year.
Anyways, by the time I'm finished upgrading this buggy I think it's going to be really solid. Enjoying it actually; it's fun to be able to tweak it with some good aftermarket parts. The rest of the aluminum parts will probably be Vitavon for their re-designed steering linkage and their better designed (more traditional) diff housings and cases. Though there are some more Integy parts like the front and rear chassis braces I'll buy as they're much cheaper and so far very good. The fitment is dead-on, and the finish is nice. Not sure why this company has such a bad rap, their billet machined stuff is good enough to me especially at the price point and has some smart features like replaceable bushings.
The IRC shocks came with ball cups that were not the right size, so I popped out the stock ones and used them and they fit into the A arms perfectly as expected. The mounting system used to mount them to the shock tower is different but decent, no complaints. However ... are these shocks much better than the stock big-bore? I would say absolutely not worth the money short of them having much stiffer springs. I would bet the stock shocks would be just fine when filled and bled correctly with proper thickness of springs. I actually think these IRC shocks are way overhyped. They don't hold much oil, they're impossible to set rebound on ... you cannot remove the bottom shock perch, to remove the spring once the shocks are assembled. And once they are assembled, it's hard to make sure you've got the cap tightened on nicely as there's barely any room to get your hand on it with the tightly coiled thick springs, and there's no real area to fit a wrench in on the couple tiny flat spots on the shock body.
Not to mention, I pulled the dust boots off the stock shocks to use on the IRC shocks ... and disassembling those shocks without removable bottom perch is just ridiculous. The travel is shorter, and the plastic bottom ends supplied on the shocks all 4 of them were crooked as a dogs hind leg.
Not impressed ... never buy another set of IRC shocks again. Overpriced crap is my opinion after working with them and trying to bleed them. They have bleeder caps ... but what in the hell for? The only saving grace is they are working better than stock but that's only because the springs are a much better tension for the weight of the buggy.
Now on a big plus ... these Integy A arms are awesome. I love the replaceable plastic bushings, and they have additional mounting points for the shock bottoms to really fine tune the angles. Need to tweak the front and rear a little to give a little less kick-up of the rear-end with some ride height and shock geometry tweaks, then I have to play with getting a proper exhaust pipe mounted which should give the rear end a bit more weight and it should fly much more level.
So far though on the whole ... massive upgrade; the buggy is much much tighter handling. The stock plastic A arms are crap, and all 4 of them were warped from the shock spring tension over time; all of them had different amounts of rock on the table. I've only had the buggy since March of this year.
Anyways, by the time I'm finished upgrading this buggy I think it's going to be really solid. Enjoying it actually; it's fun to be able to tweak it with some good aftermarket parts. The rest of the aluminum parts will probably be Vitavon for their re-designed steering linkage and their better designed (more traditional) diff housings and cases. Though there are some more Integy parts like the front and rear chassis braces I'll buy as they're much cheaper and so far very good. The fitment is dead-on, and the finish is nice. Not sure why this company has such a bad rap, their billet machined stuff is good enough to me especially at the price point and has some smart features like replaceable bushings.
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tizdaz
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Very nice buddy!
I too have done the "full works" on my dibby! Had a few headaches along the way in terms of FID cr@p! But finished (almost finished!) product im happy with
shame youve jaf issues with the irc bigbores, im using them and were a breeze to fit and the difference is amazing, what wt oil did you use, i went 50 all around and seems to work perfectly! Anyway, looking sweet buddy good to know there are others who like to do the modding side of things! Big part of the hobby for myself, i recently bought a 1/10 tamiya blitzer beetle kit, fit a hobbywing max10 esc along with a 3300kv motor running on 3s along with other mods! Took it the beach other day and some guy approached me and asked is it a petrol! It reminds me of my FG Beetle Pro i used to have! lol 
Love this hobby!
I too have done the "full works" on my dibby! Had a few headaches along the way in terms of FID cr@p! But finished (almost finished!) product im happy with
shame youve jaf issues with the irc bigbores, im using them and were a breeze to fit and the difference is amazing, what wt oil did you use, i went 50 all around and seems to work perfectly! Anyway, looking sweet buddy good to know there are others who like to do the modding side of things! Big part of the hobby for myself, i recently bought a 1/10 tamiya blitzer beetle kit, fit a hobbywing max10 esc along with a 3300kv motor running on 3s along with other mods! Took it the beach other day and some guy approached me and asked is it a petrol! It reminds me of my FG Beetle Pro i used to have! lol Love this hobby! - Thread starter
- #32
lol wow, that's pretty tough to "confuse" a gas engine with electric. Geez .. cool beetle though, I like it.
I used 40wt front and 50wt rear. The springs that came with mine are 44lbs springs, and they are actually way too stiff. Funny the suspension works better with way too stiff a spring, which just shows how soft and unmatched the stock springs were. My DBXL sits no matter the setting and position of the shocks at full ride height with 0 sag, which is wrong / not a good setup in terms of proper suspension geometry. Sitting still the suspension shouldn't be fully compressed, nor should it be at full height; there should be some give in the springs otherwise the suspension won't soak up bumps properly and instead be bouncing over the terrain versus soaking up the bumps and keeping the chassis as level as posisble.
So right now, these IRC shocks have the exact opposite problem as the stock shocks it just initially seemed better as you can see the suspension is actually working and moving freely and smoothly; but the buggy now after running it a few times is so prone to bouncing and flipping I've already done damage where I've never flipped the thing over hard previously enough to damage anything. So yeah ... back to the drawing board haha need to just find springs somewhere in-between these IRC 44lbs and whatever the stock springs are and it should be great.
I used 40wt front and 50wt rear. The springs that came with mine are 44lbs springs, and they are actually way too stiff. Funny the suspension works better with way too stiff a spring, which just shows how soft and unmatched the stock springs were. My DBXL sits no matter the setting and position of the shocks at full ride height with 0 sag, which is wrong / not a good setup in terms of proper suspension geometry. Sitting still the suspension shouldn't be fully compressed, nor should it be at full height; there should be some give in the springs otherwise the suspension won't soak up bumps properly and instead be bouncing over the terrain versus soaking up the bumps and keeping the chassis as level as posisble.
So right now, these IRC shocks have the exact opposite problem as the stock shocks it just initially seemed better as you can see the suspension is actually working and moving freely and smoothly; but the buggy now after running it a few times is so prone to bouncing and flipping I've already done damage where I've never flipped the thing over hard previously enough to damage anything. So yeah ... back to the drawing board haha need to just find springs somewhere in-between these IRC 44lbs and whatever the stock springs are and it should be great.