124019 BUDGET setup and tuning guide 2021: Get the most out of your car

The WL Toys 124019 is a 1/12 scale RC Car released late 2020 by WL toys and is largely identical to the hugely popular WL Toys 144001. Although the 124019 did however have some notable improvements as covered in my review, a bit of simple setup and tuning can improve this much more. In this guide I will cover how to best setup and tune your 124019 to get the best out of it without spending anything on upgrades other than consumable items like grease.

I've already written over a dozen guides on improving the 144001 here which are applicable to this car as well but I wanted to use this guide to be very specific on the exact improvements I made since the manufacturer has fixed some of the issues mentioned in my 144001 guides here and here.

Reduce rear toe in to a more neutral setting (free)
The 124019 comes from the factory with a lot of rear toe in. This helps stability through cornering (by adding a little understeer) but the effect is small and the counter to this is that straight line speed suffers as a result. The good news is that the rear to in can be easily set to a more neutral setting as below. I strongly recommend doing this because the extended wheelbase of the car is better at improving cornering stability anyway:

Car has a lot of rear toe in stock

Remove these two screws

Pull the rear swing arm mount off. You'll see the little plastic inserts facing out from stock. This gives them the toe out

Remove the plastic inserts, rotate 180 degrees and place the back in as per above. Reinstall the rear swing arm mount in reverse of how you took it out and not you will have neutral rear to in.

Adjust front toe and camber in to a more neutral setting (free)
Front toe (the angle the wheels point in or out) is poorly adjusted from the factory, just look at the picture below of my car fresh out of the box. However, since this car uses adjustable tie rods it is an easy fix. Adjustable tie rods mean the plastic cups that ultimately bolt to the car have opposite threads - one regular one reverse so that if you twist the shaft with both cup straight the both loosen (get longer) or tighten (get shorter at the same time), the idea being you can lengthen or shorten without moving the cups from the ball joints. Good in theory but poor in execution here - cups are threaded so tightly they pop off the ball mount on the car when you try to rotate the shaft. Regardless here we go...

1. Centre the steering rack so that it is square as you want this to be your centre reference point.
2. Install the battery as you car will need to be correctly weighted with shocks loaded up.
3. Choose a tie-rod you wish to adjust and remove it. You'll see the rod is asymmetrical - the plastic cup closest to the hole is reverse threaded and the one farthest has a regular thread. Use this knowledge to shorten and lengthen as needed. Always try to make sure you adjust both ends by about the same amount
4. Reinstall, check camber or toe and repeat step 2 as needed.

Check out this hot mess from the factory. It's a car equivalent of a lazy eye

Much better!

Camber is adjustable front and rear using the uppermost tierods front and rear left and right.  I like a tiny bit of negative camber on the rear (wheels leaning in at top) and none on the front because the caster acts as dynamic camber. These can be adjusted in the same manner as the steering links mentioned above but based on the fixed mount to the shock tower rather than the steering rack.

Grease the diffs for better traction (free if you have grease about otherwise about $5)
As mentioned in the review I was VERY pleased to see that the diffs have been shimmed in the 124019 (and have now confirmed in the 124018). This means the internal gears have much better meshing and will reduce wear and ultimately failure. Thus greasing diffs is no longer quite as important but still worth doing... not so much for the longevity of the diffs but for traction and performance - a freewheeling diff like this one packed with thick grease will stop stop one wheel spinning so wildly on low traction surfaces thereby increasing grip. Follow the steps below to see how:

​Remove the 6 screws holding down the top deck and rotate out of the way.

Remove screws holding steering rack (drag link) on so you can access the front diff housing. You'll notice these pics are from my 144001 which are identical for the purpose of this guide.

Remove front diff housing to access the front diff. Note orientation of drive gear

Remove the rear diff housing to access the rear diff. Both diffs are identical. Note orientation of drive gear

This is the actual diff from my 124019. There is a good amount of white grease on the outside

And on the inside. The read arrows point to where the shims are installed. Load grease up on top of these gears, forcing it into the voids where possible

It's not pretty but this is how you want it to look

Line up the screw holes and keyways and push it back together. Grease squirting out of the screws like this is a good sign you had enough in there.

Once the screws have been retightened, check the diff can be spun with your hand as above, If not, it may not have gone back together correctly.

Now, follow these steps in reverse to put the diffs back in their correct orientation, reattach the diff housings, reconnect the steering drag link and reinstall the top plate. It's not a terrible idea getting spare diffs which you can prepare ahead of time. These can be found here:

124019 Replacement differential. Front and rear are the same, these are only about $6 for an assembled diff.

Correct the shock oil level - mine didn't need doing.
The shock fluid level in my 124019 was perfect - a welcome relief after the dangerously overfilled shocks in my 144001 that I remedied in this guide. As you can see from the pictures below I could achieve full compression and not the slightest hint of hydrolock or air bubbles. Well done WL Toys!

Perfect front suspension compression 👌

Perfect rear suspension compression 👌

Look after your batteries for best power delivery and longevity
I see an awful lot of questions (more on the 144001 to be fair) about people wanting to upgrade their batteries for more speed/power and battery life. I'm going to take a fairly boring approach here and say that the stock 124019 2s 2200mah lipo battery is actually really well suited to this car - it offers more runtime but not so much that it would increase risk for motor or ESC overheating. Furthermore the maximum continuous current seems to be perfectly fine for the stock setup.

The stock 2s 2200mah battery is actually pretty good.

One thing you can improve from a battery perspective however is making sure the batteries stay good and there are 3 basic rules for all lipo batteries:

1. Don't over discharge. The 124019 ESC does have a low Voltage Cutoff (LVC) to protect your battery from catastrophic damage but it is still much lower than I like. I like to set mine at around 3.5v but since the stock ESC cannot be re-programmed then a cheap lipo buzzer is your best friend here. They only cost around $2-4 and can be plugged in to the unused balance plug of your battery when you run. You can set the alarm to come on at 3.5v and below so you know that when the buzzer sound that it is time to stop. The battery will recover to around 3.6-3.8v per cell which is where you want to be for a discharged battery.
2. Don't over charge. Unfortunately the only real way around this is to buy a better charger but the good news is you can get a very good charger for as little as $25-30 like the ones I've covered in my RC Car charger guide here. For the TLDR version I think the ISDT 608AC is the best value for money and most flexible charger hands down and the full review for this charger is here. Be aware that those USB chargers that come with these cars are notoriously inaccurate making for an undercharged (or worse) overcharged battery. Overcharged batteries deteriorate meaning that their ability to hold and deliver charge goes down hill fairly quickly. Severely overcharged batteries are a genuine fire risk.
3. Store at correct voltage (storage voltage) when not in use. If you aren't planning to use your battery for a week or more, I strongly recommend charging or discharging to around 3.8v per cell. This will maintain better battery life than storage at lower voltages (particularly less than 3.5v) or at full charge. Do not store batteries at full charge for more than 1 week. You can achieve storage charge by running a battery down with an appropriate lipo buzzer or better yet, use your charger as mentioned above in storage mode. It will charge or discharge you battery - whichever is needed - to exactly the storage voltage of your choosing.

I think that'll about do it for this guide, there is plenty here to keep you busy for now. In return for this work you will get a car that handles better and is more robust against wear and damage. Perhaps more importantly though it will give you a better understanding and knowledge of you car... knowing where to look and how to problem solve if something goes wrong. Good luck and have fun! Coming soon are some new brushless upgrade options but for my current favourite, click here. Please note this guide is relevant to but the 124019 and 124018 cars as below:

Wltoys 124019 (Race Buggy) rtr 1/12 2.4g 4wd 60km/h metal chassis rc car

Wltoys 124018 (Desert Buggy) rtr 1/12 2.4g 4wd 60km/h metal chassis rc car

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