WL Toys 144001: free or Budget Upgrades (Part 2)

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 

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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:

Remove the 2 screws that fix the arm bracket to the diff housing as above

This is what it looks like removed - try not to disassemble other parts

You can see the plastic inserts have the holes towards the outside causing the heavy toe in

Remove each of the inserts

Flip them over so both are closer to the centre

Reinstall

After completing this mod we've gone from a LOT of rear toe in to just a little which is ideal and a really good improvement for most drivers. Sorry I cannot quantify but see below for the pictures of before and after. This change takes 5 minutes to do, costs nothing and is easy to reverse if you really want to

A lot of toe in before the start - this would cause a lot of tyre scrub which makes the tyres wear out fast and limit top speed

The smallest amount of toe in after the change. I'd guess around 1° combined - perfect!

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2 Setting the droop on the suspension arms.
Firstly the term "droop" refers to the amount of angle the suspension lower arms sag down (droop) when there is no weight on the wheels like when you are holding the car up off the ground. The reason you want to reduce the droop over stock is because when fully extended the suspension arms droop down past their working limit meaning drive shaft and steering components can foul and rub and can become damaged. Reducing this droop is simple and cheap - all you need is 4 x m3 grubs screws. You can buy a grub screw pack like this one but I'd actually recommend the WL toys specific kit here: This has only 5 grub screws but the other screws will obviously be a lot more useful as spares.

If you want to use regular M3 screws I'd recommend 7-8mm long but would recommend grub screws for better adjustibility

This 144001 screw kit includes 5 x m3 grub screws and every other screw for the 144001 - a very useful set of fasteners and tools to have available

Circlead ares shows where the screws are to be wound in. They will tap the arms as you go

This picture shows where the screw goes into the arm as cirecly

This picture shows the result of winding in the screw on arm extension. I wound it back about halfway from here

Arrow points where to do the same in the back

So that was pretty easy. I'd suggest that once you first set your droop you should need to adjust again - it has no impact on suspension performance or ride height, it simply stops your drive shafts and steering getting damaged when your wheels are turning with no weight on them (e.g. jumping or being held off the ground). Adjust the droop so that arms are not quite extended to the maximum but no more. Please note the metal arms do not have these holes in them -  if you want to set droop you will need to use the stock arms.

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3. Improve the dampening in the rear shocks
The dampening in the rear shocks in this car is too light. This is because they are modelled after the LC racing EMB-1 which has a smaller 2838 motor making it much lighter in the rear than the brushed 550-equipped 144001. As a result the 144001 needs more bound and rebound (dampening) to stop it from bottoming out over jumps and obstacles. This can easily be done but you will need to by a heavier shock oil - I recommend 60wt oil as below. See pictures and captions for full walkthough

I chose 60wt which seemed about right. This is team associated oil which my local store stocked but any brand is fine

Shocks removed from the car. If you need more instructions how to do this see this article

Remove the black plastic lower collar first, then the spring and then wind off the spring tensioner. Make sure you wipe ANY dirt off before going further as this will contaminate the oil and increase wear

Keep the shock upright and unscrew the top cap. Then, empty out the oil in the shock.

Here is a picture of the piston now that the oil is out. See that is has four open holes meaning the 60wt oil is justified

Refill the shock with the new oil to the top and pump SLOWLYto get any air out. The oil should be level with the top of the shock Screw the top back on. If it doesn't fully compress as above, follow these instructions to let some of the oil out.

60 Wt oil feels about right, my guess is the stock oil was somewhere in the 30-40 range. Now when you drop the car the front and rear shocks compress about the same amount which is the goal and can be seen in the video below. This will make for a lot more consistent performance over jumps and bumps in general and will go some way to making up for the heavy weight of the massive 550 motor towards the rear of the car. It's worth noting that the suspension would also likely benefit from some stiffer springs in the rear for the same reason but for not I'm ok with the stock springs being would right down.

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Final words
Well that's it for round 2 of upgrades to the WL Toys 144001 where I have aimed to improve handling at a minimum of cost, I congratulate you for getting this far and I hope you've enjoyed it. Again, if you haven't already seen my first upgrade guide, please make sure you check it out here and make these changes before you even start running this car. For my next article I'll start spending money and recommending which parts from the ever-increasing catalogue of parts for the 144001 I'd recommend, for what purpose and why. Later in down the track I'll start looking a the big overhaul - ESCs, receivers, servos and brushless power.

Update: Brushless 2838 upgrade article is now completed here:
https://www.quadifyrc.com/rccarreviews/wl-toys-144001-ultimate-brushless-upgrade-guide

​​​​Thanks for reading, if you found this article useful please feel free to like or share, the facebook links below directly link/like this article. Links are affiliated and help me buy the bits I need to produce this type of content. If you are looking for cars, quads or parts check out my coupons and discounts page which I keep updated with only the parts and quads I like at a proper discount

Useful parts and upgrades - click image to Banggood product page

7.4V 2600 MAH Lipo Battery T Plug For Wltoys 1/14 144001
This is the largest 2s battery that will fit

Wltoys 144001 Upgrade Metal Front/Rear Tower
Stronger shock tower upgrade to replace the bendy stock ones. 4 colours available

Wltoys 144001 1/14 Metal RC Car Whole Screw Set
I strongly recommend these on hand because - even if they are soft you don't want to run out

Second Floor For Wltoys 144001
​Aluminium upper deck to add stiffness to the chassis

RC Car Wheel For Wltoys 144001 1/14 4WD
These are cheap enough and good enough to run on or offroad.

Front+Rear Suspension Arms For Wltoys 144001
At this stage I recommend the stock plastic ones over the aluminium one as you are better breaking an arm in a crash rather than a diff housing

2838 Sensorless Waterproof Motor 3600/4500KV 35A ESC
Cheap brushless combo for balanced power, I'll be installing this and writing up soon.

Surpass Hobby Waterproof 3650 3900KV Brushless RC Car Motor With 60A ESC
Good cheap combo for speed runs. I've reviewed here

Aluminum Alloy Motor Mount Seat For Wltoys 144001
If you install a new motor you'll need one of these, the old motor screws are super-glued in