With the boom in popularity of the WL Toys 144001 1/14 scale RC buggy, there are a lot of aftermarket parts available now, all of which are currently available at here. For this article I'll be looking at why I chose the metal upgrade parts I did, how to install and my thoughts on the parts I did install. 

The first thing you probably think of with metal parts is that they will be stronger than the plastic parts they replace. Although this is true, strictly speaking, the stock plastic pieces do have advantages in some situations, specifically -

1. They are more flexible
2. Have a better bite with screws
3. Can sacrifice a cheaper more easily replaceable part rather than transfer force to a more complex, more expensive or more difficult to replace part

Because of this some parts are well suited to be replaced with metal and some are not. I've chosen the below components to be replaced with metal parts to improve the durability of the car. All parts are available in several colours: Blue, Red, Pink, Gold, Silver, Black.

I've specifically avoided these parts below because I think they will reduce net durability for reasons explained underneath the images. If you are just going for looks however they do still look great!

Plus other parts available with my comments

RC car technology has changed a lot over the years and one of the biggest changes have been batteries. I started with Sanyo SCRC NiCd pack, left the hobby before NiMH came out and came back when LiPo was full swing. Along with brushless power systems, LiPo batteries have revolutionised all RC vehicles - more burst power, higher energy density and multiple cell options. LiPo batteries need a lot of care, more than than a set of nichrome wires that hook your battery pack directly to a car battery anyway. The technology you need to properly charge and care for Lipo (and LiIon batteries) is a balance charger which allows the charger to charge each individual cell at a time rather than all together in series. This is important to not only extend the life and performance of your battery but to minimise the risk of the Lipo pack causing damage to your surroundings.

The right tool for the job
Like everything else to do with RC Cars, LiPo balance chargers are available in any number of models with different features, different interfaces and different quality levels. However unlike, motors, wheels, servos, escs and any other RC car parts they don't wear out and typically the charger you use will be with you for a long time so it is definitely worth having one that does the job properly. With that said you don't need to spend a lot to get a good charger that you can trust with your safety and life of batteries. This is in contrast to charger that come with RTR RC Car kits which at best are inaccurate and at worst are downright dangerous.

The WL Toys 144001 is an excellent low cost hobby grade RC buggy that I ordered from Banggood. I've already taken free and low cost steps to improve performance in part 1 and part 2 of my upgrades guide. This upgrade guide here is dedicated to installing a powerful and efficient 2838 brushless system that is optimised for balance, handling and efficiency. It will also be much faster and reliable that the stock system.

As mentioned above the brushless upgrade I am doing here is based on a smaller, lighter more powerful motor than stock so I can get the best handling by reducing weight and improving balance. For this reason I have chosen a brushless 2838 sized motor (28mm diameter, 38mm can length) that runs at 4500kV. This is the same spec powertrain used by the premium LC Racing EMB-1h on which the 144001 is based. The objective is to optimise handling by removing the extremely heavy and power hungry but inefficient brushed 550 motor.

I have not gone with a brushless motor the same size as the brushed 550 (3650, 3652, 3660) as these are really only suited to speed runs although this will be an upgrade I'll do later on with my second 144001.

Benefits from this 2838 brushless setup over stock will include:

• Stronger acceleration
• Higher top speed
• Better front/rear and left/right weight balance
• Lighter overall weight
• Ability to run 2s or 3s safely
• Much better battery life
• Greater crash resistance since car carries less momentum.

This is the second part of my free and budget upgrade walkthrough for the WL Toys 144001. The first part can be found here.

The first series of upgrades I made to the WL toys 144001 was to improve longevity and handling by getting the shock absorber fluid level right, the diffs lubed properly and camber and toe in set correctly. This articles expands on that by further improving the handling through minor tweaks the are either free or cost very little. It is really important you get the handling right to make the car more predictable, especially if you plan on power upgrades further down the line. The upgrades I'll detail in this article are:

1. Decrease the REAR toe in
2. Set the droop on front and rear arms
3. Improve the dampening in the rear shocks 

1. Decreasing the rear toe in
The WL toys 144001 comes set with a LOT of rear toe in (which is the amount the rear wheels point in towards the car when looking from above). Rear toe in does help with cornering stability by decreasing useful steering when powering on in the corner but comes at the cost of straight line speed, especially in high grip situations. In simple terms rear toe in does help make the car feel more stable through corners however I feel the 144001 has much too much and this is easily remedied for free as below:

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. 

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.

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.

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.

This review and advice article covers the use of the surpass hobby/racerstar/goolrc brushless ESC programming card which can be used on most in not all power systems from these suppliers. It is a simple <$10 device that allows you to easily change the parameter of the ESC.

One of the easiest ways to upgrade your brushed RC car is to change the brushed motor and ESC with a brushless ESC and motor as I did here with the Surpass Hobby 3650/ 60a ESC combo (click here to see full review). If you are lucky like me the drive train (gears, differentials, driveshafts) are designed to take brushless power but even if you don't there is a way to tame you power and still get the benefits of fast acceleration, higher top speed and better battery life. This came as a surprise to me as I thought the $40 combo I bought surely wouldn't have this functionality.

There are several cards that can be used to program these ESCs but the one I recommend is the Racerstar LED Program Card that works with all of the ESCs and motors branded as surpass hobby, goolrc, racerstar and probably more. For the record I accidentally bought the surpass LED program card for brushed crawlers and after initially thinking I couldn't use it it turns out I can, more below.

Sorry for overly long title. I've now had the Surpass Hobby 3650 sized 3900kv brushless motor and 60A ESC Combo for about 3 months now and have thoroughly tortured it in a very large 1/10 scale 4wd short course truck (brushed version of the DHK Hunter here) for this review. With these electronics you can easily upgrade any 1/10 scale hobby grade rc car to brushless which for the uninitiated offers significantly more power, efficiency and if done right, durability over their brushless counterparts. This stands true for on-road tourers, pan cars and offroad buggies, SCTs, trucks (2 and 4wd). The only cars this would be unsuitable for is where very fine control is required - drift and crawlers come to mind. Read on for install and review. 

A look at the gear
The kit is very simple - a 4 pole brushless 3650 sized motor (540 in brushed terms) and a 60a ESC. The motor I reviewed is 3900kv which is a good all purpose size on common 2s batteries. The ESC is another simple waterproof affair with built in cooling fan. They are both waterproof according to the specs but personally I haven't and would not put the ESC to the test. The ESC can be programmed with common features but does require this programming card to change. Parameters that can be changed are:

Instructions (click to enlarge)

The SG 1602 Brushless RC truck is a 1/16 scale 4wd off road truck/buggy (truggy) that has a powerful and efficient brushless motor/esc system. Note, this appears identical to the HBX 16889 and shares the same parts. It is available from Banggood for less than $90 and as little as $70. I've had one of these for about 2 months now and for the times that my son lets me drive it I've had quite a few runs to get a good feel of performance and durability. My full review is below.

What's in the box?
Actually this is pretty well equipped:

• The Truck (4wd brushless 1/16 scale)
• 2.4GHz remote
• 2s 1300mah li-ion battery
• USB charger
• LED Headlight system (for user to install)
• Wheelie bar (for user to install)

In order to get this running you'll need 4 x AA batteries for the transmitter. These 2.4GHz transmitter are extremely efficient so you'll get good battery life even with cheap alkaline batteries. As mentioned above there is a nice set of headlights and wheelie bar included and these are very simple to install with well laid out instructions.