As any RC enthusiast knows, no vehicle stays “stock” for long. This post serves as a list of the upgrades I’m planning for my Yeti, and I’ll add separate posts as they’re installed.
Body and lighting:
Gear Head slimline roof rack with light bar
Gear Head white and blue six shooter with mounting kit
These two will add a couple of light bars to the Yeti- one above the “windscreen” (suspended from a scale roof rack), and one in the front bumper assembly. LEDs and lenses to go into the rear light buckets – the buckets from the Exo are already fitted to the Yeti, but you need to supply your own LEDs and lenses. There are lots of options for the LEDs – something like this, for example – but I’ve already got a few sets in stock that I’ll try out.
Black hard top – not sure about this, it might look odd with the black roof rack. I’ll have to see.
Replacement lexan body shell – since this is an RTR truck, it has the same body as every other Yeti out there at the moment. I’d rather paint my own in – no surprise- metallic blue. Normally I do metallic purple, but most of the Yeti parts are only available in blue so I’m a bit scuppered for colour choice!
Chassis and suspension:
Aluminium rear axle housing
Aluminium rear knuckles
These are just cosmetic upgrades- I’m going for a blue theme on this truck, so these (along with the blue trailing arms I’ve already fitted) will just “bling” it up a bit more.
Lower link mounts – This upgrade is part cosmetic, part strengthening.
Aluminium shock upgrade – this is to replace the plastic shock parts with less flexible aluminium parts. On the Exo, the plastic caps were prone to popping off on hard landings! And a bit more blue won’t hurt…
Caster blocks and steering knuckles – purely functional, as the existing parts are plastic so they’ll break sooner or later. When they do, I’ll replace them with these Hot Racing parts. Note that Hot Racing produce two types of knuckle for the Yeti; this is the one to get, as the other set (with the carbon fibre arm) won’t work with the stock axles.
Avid bearings – another functional update; as the stock bearings wear out, I’ll replace them with ceramic revolution bearings from Avid. Not cheap, but I suspect I’ll be getting a lot of use out of my Yeti so there’s no point cutting corners when it comes to fundamentals like bearings.
