February 2016 – Paul's Travel Pictures

I bought the Losi TEN-SCTE 1:10 scale RTR (ready to run) Troy Lee Designs edition short course radio control truck a few months ago specifically to try out organized racing for the first time at a few RC tracks in my area.

I consider the Losi TEN-SCTE to be my first real “hobby grade” R/C vehicle that I have owned since the Traxxas nitro truck I had many many years ago when I was about 12 to 14 years old.

I also had a Redcat Racing Volcano EPX monster truck upgraded with a Neewer 3100kv brushless motor and 45A ESC for the past year. I had lots of fun bashing that truck, but it required very frequent repairs and it wouldn’t do very well at a track.

The Orange County tracks that I’ve visited since buying the truck include the OC RC Raceway in Huntington Beach, Irvine Lake RC Park in Silverado and the unofficial RC / BMX bike tracks near Regency Park in Lake Forest, CA.

I’ve encountered a few small issues with the Losi TEN-SCTE RTR but nothing that wasn’t easily remedied.

Overall, the truck has been amazingly durable compared to my Redcat Volcano and my old Traxxas truck that I had as a kid.

It has been crashed, flipped, rolled, lawn darted and jumped with bad landings 100’s of times while I learned how to navigate an R/C track.

The only part I broke was one of the front A arms, which I believe was due to my over tightening of the lower shock screw and all of the hard crashes.

Even with that partially damaged A arm, I was still able to run a few dozen more laps at the track before leaving for the day. Losi parts are tough!

Here are the minor issues and small problems that I’ve had and the solutions:

The wires from the Dynamite 130A ESC to the 3900KV brushless motor have bullet connectors that can sometimes pop apart in the middle of a lap which leaves the car stranded on the track. To fix the problem, I used cable or “zip” ties to hold the wires together.
The ESC, motor and battery cables are all at risk of being scraped, chewed up or otherwise damaged by the exposed spur gear for the center differential. I recommend that you use cable ties to secure the wires to the loop on the top of the differential housing to keep them out of the way.
I’ve had oil leak out from both the front and rear shocks after I drove terribly during my first visit to the OC RC clay track. All of my bad landings and lawn darting caused the shock oil to come out from the top shock cap. I think the cap also got loosened by my crashing, flipping and rolling. I bought a bottle of Team Associated 30 weight silicone shock oil to fill them back up and I tightened the caps. The problem hasn’t happened again.
The single screw that secures the motor mount (to adjust the gear mesh) became loose after a few laps. The pinion gear moved away from the spur gear and the car wouldn’t move. I applied some Loctite Blue threadlocker to the screw and it hasn’t happened again.
I had one of the wheels fly off while practicing on the clay track. But that is a very common issue with R/C cars or truck in general since there is just one nut holding the wheel in place. I applied a tiny amount of Loctite Blue to the nut and I haven’t had another wheel come off. Some people recommend buying the Losi Locking Wheel Nuts which have serrations to “bite” in to the plastic and keep the wheel from falling off.
The OEM or “stock” steering servo seems to work perfectly and I had no problem getting around the clay, dirt or sandy tracks. But I kept on reading that it was one of the first things that should be upgraded. So I bought a Savox SC-1258TG “Super Speed” digital servo along with a Racers Edge Glitch Buster. It is amazing how much quicker it is compared to the stock servo. I recommend driving the RTR truck as is for a few track or bashing sessions and then consider upgrading if you find the stock servo to be too slow for you.
The ESC fan died after I visited the Irvine Lake RC Park in Silverado, CA. I don’t blame Team Losi for that problem since the truck was literally caked in mud after a few laps on the wet 1/10th scale track. I took out the fan and threw it away. The ESC doesn’t seem to get too hot, so I’m not going to replace it with a new Dynamite ESC Fan until I start actually racing instead of just practicing.
The first time I drove my new Losi TEN-SCTE, I noticed that the controller had a nice rubber grip for your hand but the steering wheel or “knob” on the controller is just plastic. I thought I might miss having some soft foam or rubber on the wheel, but now I don’t even notice it.
The battery tray works very well but if you have smaller 3,000mah LiPo batteries, I recommend you get a Velcro strap to better secure the battery in place so it doesn’t shift and touch the spinning spur gear and get damaged.

Now let’s move on to some other recommended upgrades.

Tires – The stock Losi Eclipse tires are great and I plan on wearing them down until they are bald. But eventually I’m going to upgrade to either a set of Pro-Line Electron tires or the JConcepts Dirt Webs. I’ve heard and read great testimonials and reviews from drivers at my local clay track and on various forums. Be sure to buy short course truck tires that are 2.2/3.0 sized.
Wheels – Apparently the best, and one of the only few choices, of aftermarket wheels for the Losi TEN-SCTE are the DE Racing Trinidad SC wheels.
I bought the wheels in black and mounted some Pro-Line Badlands off road tires on them to race around the loose dirt and mud track at Irvine Lake RC Park. They are also my bashing tires for climbing up rock walls at the BMX/RC track near Regency Park in Lake Forest, CA.
Since the stock Troy Lee Designs body has taken so much abuse over the past few months, I eventually plan on buying a Pro-Line Ford F-150 body to replace it. Their bodies are supposed to made of thicker Lexan plastic which should hold up better to my crashing and bashing. In the mean time, I’ve been slowly adding more Gorilla Tape to re-enforce the body.
The last thing I want to mention is that you should definitely get at least one 3S battery. I have a Floureon 3000mAh 3S 30C 11.1V battery and it really makes the truck fly! Literally! Even with just half throttle, I can easily launch the truck over the triple jumps at the track when most of the 2WD buggy drivers using 2S batteries have to do a double and then single jump. With my 7.4V 2S batteries I still have no problem getting over the triple jumps, but I have to just about give it full throttle.

In conclusion, the Losi TEN-SCTE has wildly exceeded my expectations for an R/C vehicle.

I was so used to constantly buying new parts for my childhood Traxxas nitro truck and the Redcat Racing Volcano monster truck that I was amazed by the reliability and durability of the Losi.

I think I’ve become a Team Losi member for life after my great experiences racing and bashing the TEN-SCTE. It has really held up to all of the abuse and mistakes that I made while learning to get around a track with out crashing every few turns.

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March 2017 Update

I finally decided to replace the thoroughly beat up and abused original Troy Lee Designs body on my Losi TEN-SCTE truck. Although I will still keep the OEM body to use for bashing with my friends in harsh environments like this picture from a trip to Tucson, Arizona. The new body will be for track use only.

I chose to buy the Pro-Line EVO SC body and some blue Tamiya Lexan Spray Paint. I also got some polycarbonate scissors and a body hole reamer. This was my first time painting a body, so I kept it simple. It took me two cans of spray paint to complete it. So far I haven’t made any air vent holes in the body. It was just too pretty to cut open. 🙂

As far as maintenance on the car, I don’t have much to report. It has been really solid as expected even with my constant crashing and abuse.

When ever I go bashing with my friends on asphalt roads, I make sure every screw is tight and apply Gorilla Tape to the bottom of the metal chassis to keep any screws from vibrating out.

I did have to replace a bearing in the rear differential case after a very long day of bashing on asphalt streets in front of my friend’s house with some insane super fast 3S 11.1V LiPo battery full speed runs down the street.

I bought a bearing kit for the TEN-SCTE when I was stocking up some basic spare parts. So it was easy for me to swap out the exploded bearing.

The only other problem I had was a sheared pin on the front / center drive shaft that goes from the center differential to the front differential. I just swapped out the entire assembly for a new one.