So finally after years of racing on an Exway Atlas, I’ve finally made my mind up and decided to build my all-out race-board. I’d like to apologise in advance for how much of a messy read this thread will be 
So what do I want out of a board?
- 4WD - With the majority of racing here in Europe on indoors, extremely tight and slippery, kart tracks I wanted something that both has the traction off the line and the ability to brake significantly harder.
why I like 4wd
Since I’ve been racing 4WD boards for a while now, it’s become really enjoyable to modulate the power out of corners whilst sliding the rears out as you know the fronts will just pull you back straight even if the rears are having a hard time. Plus I don’t think I would survive without 4 wheel braking on track anymore (though Morgan and Mario consistently prove this wrong), the amount of deceleration you get with 4WD just feels on a different level to just rear brakes and gives me significantly more confidence braking later into corners.
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Short-ish: Being only 169cm tall (~5”6’ in freedom units), I’ve somewhat struggled with riding longer decks (though chatting with @fessyfoo about his adaption to riding longer decks this may change). Plus the short-track nature of European tracks (esk8con felt like a long-track to us) there isn’t too much a need for high speed stability and the flick-ability of a shorter deck is much more enjoyable for me personally.
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Dropped Standing Platform: Whilst I actually quite enjoyed many aspects of the Atlas deck, this was my biggest gripe with it. I felt like I was miles above the ground, and especially after getting the chance to ride @MetroLinkX4 v5 at i2s last year I knew I needed to get as close to axel height on this board as possible
why I didn’t just go with a v5
Whilst the v5 platform feels great, I wasn’t personally a fan of the length, despite Ron’s board being setup much looser than I would prefer (I’m nearly double his weight), to me it still lacked a little bit of responsiveness on turn in. In addition I had really bad scraping issues both toe-side and heel-side to the point where I’d basically be riding on the enclosure which lead to quite a few low-sides as I’m used to being able to have fairly steep deck-angles whilst turning.
- Reliability: The main reason I’ve chosen the Atlas Pro for racing the past few years is due to a constant slew of reliability issues I’ve had with VESCs, from ABS faults to just random explosions (back in the focbox days) I’ve since always found it hard to 100% trust a VESC when pushing it. Hence for this build I’ll be testing my luck with the d100s, though I do have backup plans with Onsra and Exway ESCs in case any issues decide to resurface regards to this.
benefits to racing a production board
Although they probably wouldn’t be particularly competitive on longer tracks, production boards I find can still hold their own in short-track events. The peace of mind to know your board just works, every, single, time, is just so much nicer. In addition, at the track I don’t need to think much about the technical aspects, which is just such a relief from back when I was racing VESC based boards. Racing a production board was also the only way I could’ve competed at esk8con, due to the costs of shipping/new batteries, it would’ve been quite difficult to get to Vegas. I asked Exway prior to the event if I could borrow a Atlas, and they very kindly leant me one of their demo boards for the weekend (shoutout Exway Canada), all I did was bring my bushings and a front toe hook.
Specification:
Deck: Morgan Brady / David Bonde collaboration deck
Trucks: Meepo- @MoeStooge - @Madesk8 3-links
Battery: 16s5p p42a courtesy of @BigBen
ESC: 2x MakerX d100s
Motors: Radium 6355 + 6384 205kv
Drives: SRB Open Gear Drives 67t w/ 12t or 15t
v1
With the majority of the parts finally on hand, it began time to test fit everything together and see if there are an compatibility issues. I’ve also set myself the deadline of finishing the board before xErace which is in less than 2 weeks 
so this whole board will be a time crunch.
@davidbonde and @Mbrady really did an amazing job on the deck, to the point where I felt bad assembling it up as I’m not doing it any justice haha.
Initial Issues:
Once I installed the trucks there was an immediate glaring issue of ride height, since the production version of the collab 3-Links use a much thicker jam nut when compared to the ones at esk8con the total ride height of board was really high, thinner nuts were then sourced. Despite the thinner nuts, the board still sat 3cm above axel height which is far from the ~1cm that would be achievable with SRB 3-links. Otherwise, the countersink on one side of the motor plate meant that my Reachers wouldn’t fit onto the motor plates at all, hence it’ll be running some flipshit ones till I get my SRB 3-links in.
Racing it for the first time:
Managed to finish the board the night before I had to start driving down to Czech, was really surprised I actually got it done but unfortunately, it was pouring outside (typical UK weather eh) so never got to actually ride it before it went into the car.
Here it is at xErace next to @philo (hopefully I tagged the right person) brady deck with SRB 3-Links
Ultimately came 3rd with @Esk8Cave getting the W this time. I’m still very much trying to get used to the trucks. Afterwards, @davidpilny and I headed back to Prague for some further shakedowns and for me to better tune the board and get used to how the trucks feel.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/EimmEiatL39dbxFg9 - Onboard footage w/ telemetry of the Shakedowns
During the shakedowns, I noticed two major problems I wanted to address, the rebound characteristics and braking ramping time.
Rebound Characteristics
I’ve found that I wanted more on-center resistance with less resistance deeper in the lean, if any of ya’ll three-link veterans have any tips I’m all ears. I’ve managed to get closer to this with a harder durometer WFB on RKP and DKP, and going to the three-links I struggled to run the board as loose as I wanted to without sacrificing high-speed stability
Braking Issues
I’ll delve deeper into this with an update as a ESC decided to unalive itself on the bench when testing this.
Overall though, I’m really enjoying the deck shape and length (the current trucks extend the wheelbase too much but I like the standing length) so hope I’ll be able to further iterate on this platform and build the raceboard that I want.
. But I mean it might help cause you’re only running 45amps front anyways why use 6485.
