WL TOYS 104001 Budget Brushless Upgrade

The WL Toys 104001 is a well designed 1/10 scale 4wd off road RC buggy that I reviewed here It is somewhat lacking in power and is only able to achieve a fairly modest 39km/h which feels slow for a car this size. This is due to the stock brushed motor - this is old but cheap technology which in general are slow and inefficient; they just don't do justice to the otherwise good handling car. Brushless motors and ESCs offer improvements across the board - more speed, better battery life through more efficiency and cooler running. In this upgrade guide I'll show you how to get A LOT more power and battery life on the cheap with a budget ESC and motor combo and give you exact feedback on exactly how it performs including speed runs

Recently I looked at a more expensive brushless upgrade for the WL toys 104001 in my Big Brushless Upgrade and Installation Guide. This offered a big increase in performance (76km/h top speed) and battery life but was a pretty expensive option owing to the high end Hobbywing Max 10 SCT speed controller I used with a 4s battery. This time around I've put together a cheaper and easily accessible build that is perhaps better suited to this car and is still about 90% as good as the much more expensive option, depending of course on your metrics.

Gear chosen for this build
The choice that made the last brushless build expensive was 4s capability. I think this was probably a little on the overkill side and so I've made the decision to look at 2s predominantly for this brushless upgrade with an option for 3s. This opens up much cheaper ESC options including combos that also come with motors. I'll also list some budget options for the other gear you'll need for a brushless upgrade.

ESC and motor. Please note that although ESC and motor combos can look like good value, you have to be REALLY careful shopping here and buy only what has been thoroughly tested. Especially in this range there are so many look alike products but I strongly recommend only the products I have linked because of my own personal experience. In the case of the motor and ESC I've used here, this combo is nearly 2 years old and has already been thoroughly abused in a very large 4wd SCT as per this guide. I can hand on heart say this has been extremely reliable on both 2s and 3s. This is the only budget combo I recommend at present, if you want to spend a little more on a Hobbywing ESC and motor then these offer more smoothness and overhead but nothing in terms of more speed or acceleration

Surpass Hobby Waterproof 3650 4300KV Brushless RC Car Motor With 60A ESC Set For 1/10 RC Car
This is the combo I've used here and if treated correctly is fast and reliable. Many cheap combos uses ESCs that are too bulky but can confirm this fits as you'll see below. You can usually get these for $40-50

Hobbywing QUICRUN 10BL120 Sensored 120A 2-3S Lipo Speed Brushless ESC
This is the ESC I recommend at most times, very capable and smooth plus it is very compact. Only downside is it is not waterproof but that has never been an issue for me. This ESC alone costs about $50-$70

Racerstar 3650 Motor Brushless Waterproof Sensorless
​Great value motor that I use in all my builds. These are fast and reliable. Get the 4300kV variant for this build. These motors are typically $20-30

Radio Gear and Servo. You will need a new servo here because the stock 5 wire unit will not work with a regular receiver. No drama, it is slow anyway. Both servos listed here below are inexpensive. I personally use the Racerstar one and it works well. If you want some faster options check out my big brushless upgrade article. For radio gear it is hard to recommend going past the DumboRC X6 which is pretty cheap and has a gyro. The new eachine model is priced slightly better and may well come from the same factory but I haven't personally used it myself 

Racerstar DS6209MG 9.35KG Metal Gear Digital Servo
Good budget servo with metal gears that is reasonably fast and the unit I've been using reliably here. These are usually $15-$25

MG996R 55g 4.8V-6V 13kg/cm High Torque Metal Gear Analog Servo
These are about as cheap as servos get with metal gear. Personally I'd choose the racerstar over this. These servos are around $10

​Dumbo X6 with gyro
My most recommend budget RC gear. Well built and includes a very useful gyro feature. This transmitter and receiver are usually $30-$40

Eachine TX6 6CH 2.4G Transmitter W/ Receiver 
New transmitter and receiver from Eachine is a little cheaper but haven't personally tried it myself. One handed control option looks awesome though​. This model is about $25-$35

Battery and other parts. With this setup you can definitely use the stock battery. You will should get similar run time as the stock motor but with a lot more speed. I do definitely recommend the CNHL 2s "shorty" lipo pack as below though, it is the most energy dense battery I've ever come across and easily fits in this car with just a little modification. It is also light and low profile and of course should offer over twice the run time as the stock battery with the ability to supply a lot more power when called on. I've also given a 3s option but there is very little in the way of higher capacity options in this size. Lastly you'll want some more pinion gears to improve gear ratios, as wit the other build the surpass hobby M0.6 pinion packs are by far the best value and are of excellent quality.

CNHL Racing Series 7.4V 4900mAh 120C 2S LiPo Battery
This shorty pack has one of the highest energy densities I've seen and fits beautifully in this car with some simple mods as below. Usually about $25-$35

GAONENG GNB 11.1V 2200mAh 3S 110/220C Lipo Battery
This is better than the battery I used, probably the best 3s battery available that can fit the stock holder but not available to me in NZ :( Usually around $30

Surpass Hobby M0.6 Metal Gear 3.175mm Set 04: 28-33t
Best value pinion gears around. If Banggood don't have the in stock, try  Aliexpress. Usually around $5-10 for a pack.

Upgrade install guide
I won't go into massive detail here around the install, only specific tricks I've used for cable management, fitting this particular ESC and of course the battery. I'd encourage you to check out my Big Brushless Install Guide Here if you need a little more detail than is shown below. Before you go any further make sure the car is properly set up using my 104001 setup guide here

Here you see the stock motor has been replaced by the 4300kv motor and my favourite 29t pinion for this KV option. My orange surpass motor from the combo is only 3900kv so I've used this racerstar 4300kv which is the same internally as the orange 4300kv that comes with the combo

In the 104001 I like to use a cable tie around the motor to help keep the motor wires in place especially since there is not much clearance under the body. I didn't chose this configuration in the end because the clearance from the rotating driveshaft is too small.

Here it is with the ESC in too but I didn't like the cable management here. Next step shows what I've settled on a good cable management is important to me - I'd rather do lots of test fits to find the best layout rather than compromise

Here is my final layout for motor wire that makes better used of the dead space behind the motor. In this configuration the body sits nice and low without fouling on anything,

Another look at the layout plus me sizing up the fitment of the 2s 4900 CNHL "shorty" lipo pack. When I had the lipo in the spot I wanted I notched with a marker pen

...Then I removed the battery holder tabs front and rear and trimmed with a sharp blade. This plastic is not especially resilient (it doesn't need to be for a battery holder) and so cuts much easier than you'd think.

With the battery mounts trimmed the new lipo fits perfectly and no issues using the stock strap to keep it sturdy. Also since I've only just trimmed the mounts, I can still use the stock battery without it sliding around. Win win!

Finished car ready to go. As you see I've used XT60 discharge connectors as they are my favourite but Dean t-plug is just fine too - battery and ESC both have t-plug stock. I took me a while but this was the best way to mount all the components. Wiring is tidy and secure which is not just for looks - wires are kept well away from the exposed rotating parts.

Aside from what you may hear these ESCs need no calibration but if you do want to change any of the basic performance parameters, you can see my guide on using the programming card here. 

Performance

2s lipo. As you can probably guess, performance is SUBSTANTIALLY better that stock. Speed is up from 39km/h stock to 70km/h with the 2s setup as above. 70km feels fast for an off roader and is my unofficial favourite speed for this type of car. Because the gearing is relatively conservative, this is a cool running 70km/h with great efficiency which I think is a good option so as not to stress the relatively cheap ESC. I got over 20 minutes of runtime on this battery which I was really pleased with. 

My big brushless upgrade achieved 76km/h using 4s on a 2300kv motor with the same 29t pinion. If I had stuck with this formula, a 4600kv motor should have given me the same speed so we can say the achieving 70km/h on this setup suggest it is reaching its full potential, but at least we know neither the battery nor the cheap ESC is holding things back. 

Based on the above I think that this is therefore a perfectly suitable budget combo for 2s on this car - you get a really nice improvement for the money.

3s lipo. 3s was strangely disappointing, not because it blew up or caught on fire, it just wasn't as fast as I was hoping. 3s was always going to be a one off speed run for me because the motor kv and gearing option here is really set up for 2s rather than 3s. In a perfect world I'd expect a 50% speed increase minus a little loss for friction and aero so somewhere between 100-110km/h. For this reason when I could only muster 83km/h flat out, I knew there was a bottle next somewhere in the system. I suspect it was either my battery and or the ESC. The battery I used is a CNHL 3s 2200mah rated at 30C only meaning it can only maintain 2200mah x 30c = 66,000ma = 66A continuous. Although the ESC is only rated to 60A they can actually handle much higher burst loads which come into play under heavy acceleration. This hypothesis could easily be testing by using a bigger, better battery, something I plan on doing when I can get such a battery locally.

The other potential but probably less likely bottleneck is the ESC however usually ESCs tend to overheat when they hit or exceed capacity or catch fire in extreme cases. Although this is a cheap ESC this did neither - it was still only lukewarm as was the motor following multiple 3s passes with this car. Until I can find a better lipo to test I'd recommend you stick with 2s on this setup.

Comparing this cheap ESC to a more expensive one. I made it clear in by 104001 big brushless upgrade guide that if you are going to spend money somewhere when going brushless, you should prioritise the ESC. This cheap ESC has proven that you can get the top end performance similarly effectively, so why would you bother with a more expensive ESC? The answer is smoothness. After spoiling myself with high quality Hobbywing ESCs recently I've found that they have much better throttle control in the lower range compared to this one. They also have a more linear feel which means the power doesn't come in quite so much like a sledgehammer. The cheaper ESC used here does have a touch of cogging but this is fairly minimal with the correct choice of gearing I have here. Given I've used this ESC for nearly 2 years I can actually say it has proven itself reliable, something I wasn't so sure of in the beginning. I can assure you, this ESC has not had an easy life either.

Conclusions, Recommendations
This cheap Surpass Hobby brushless ESC/motor combo has exceeded my expectations, especially when used in combination with the excellent 2s lipo battery pack I've talked about above. This setup makes for a really great performer that practically equals the performance of my premium brushless 4s build but at a fraction of the price. In hindsight I think 2s is best suited to this car in this type of setup because it is still relatively light - the big power reserves associated with a 4s build just can't be taken advantage of in this car. One place I do miss the more expensive Hobbywing ESC is the extra smoothness and control they offer - crucial for a track car but not so much a basher and this will no doubt guide your decision on which option you should buy.

All in all though this mod is well worth doing if you want your 104001 to reach it's true potential - something it simply cannot do with the stock brushed motor.

Parts used in this build

• Surpass Hobby Waterproof 3650 4300KV Brushless RC Car Motor With 60A ESC Set For 1/10 RC Car
  
• ​Racerstar DS6209MG 9.35KG Metal Gear Digital Servo
• ​​Dumbo X6 with gyro
  
• ​Surpass Hobby M0.6 Metal Gear 3.175mm Set 04: 28-33t
  
• ​CNHL Racing Series 7.4V 4900mAh 120C 2S LiPo Battery​

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