WL TOys 144001 Setup: 3 things you must do before you even turn it on

Note, this is not a review. You've probably seen a ton of those already. This is about how to set your car up once you've already bought one.

The WL Toys 144001 is a 1:14 scale offroad RTR 4 wheel drive buggy that has rightly been labelled as one of the best value RC cars around in the budget category where it can typically be bought for $70-$90. All 3 of mine were ordered from Banggood who ship worldwide. The primary purpose of this article is to cover the 3 things you must do to this car before you get started. This will be the first in a series of articles on the 144001 on tuning and modifying getting a maximum of bang for buck. Other articles I have planned include choosing the right upgrade parts to make it bash-proof, a brushless upgrade for best handling and a brushless upgrade for maximum top speed. Parts are ordered!

Banggood have an exclusive new package that includes a larger, more powerful 2s 2600mah lipo battery

Firstly, "must do" is a bit strong and a bit of a pisstake of the clickbait Youtube videos out there. With that said I do strongly recommend them if you can to get the best performance out of you car and extend it's life. I've arrived at these recommendations by comparing the 144001 directly to the car it was copied off - the excellent LC Racing EMB-1h plus basic fundamentals of rc car operation of which I've been around for years. 

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Factory shocks are overfilled

1. Fill (or empty) the fluid in the shock absorbers to the correct level
After a lot of feedback to the community, WL toys has started filling up the shocks with oil but now isn't too little but too much they are putting in. Too much oil in your shocks means that the shock cannot be fully depressed it will ultimately force the oil past the orings and in doing so damage them. The fix is easy and if you follow the method below you won't need any extra oil to top it up.

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Remove the shock from the car by unscrewing the lower philips screw and upper lock nut.

1. Remove the lower plastic shock collar and spring. Wind off the spring tensioner (optional)
2. SLOWLY unscrew the top cap by holding it upright till it comes right off and then screw it back on about half way.
3. Should should now be able to full depress the shock. Some of the oil should leak past the top cap - this is what you want.
4. Screw the top cap back on and see if you can depress the piston all the way. If not repeat steps 2-4.
5. Wipe down the shock with a rag, reinstall the spring tensioner (if you removed it), the spring and collar. Re-install and complete for the 3 other corners. Note: while the shocks are off consider doing the diffs (below) as well.

All four shocks will need to be removed for testing and emptying to the correct level

All four shocks were similarly overfilled for me. These would soon blow the o-rings if run as is.

Now that the shocks can fully compress it allows the spring to do their job properly. I found with the stock setup I needed to loosen the spring tensioners right up on the front and about halfway down on the back for the right right height. This is a good starting point and probably the next place you'd consider with the shocks is increasing the oil weight in the back because the dampening is pretty light - probably around 60wt oil would be ideal.

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