Internal Upgrades Help

[BCampbell]

I'm getting an Ares Amoeba AM-014 and would like some advice on internal upgrades.
ARES.jpg
It comes stock at 270fps, I'm looking for 350fps which is the max for my site. I want to increase accuracy and range, and most importantly reliability. I'm not bothered about increasing rate of fire since I shoot on semi automatic most of the time.
What parts should I upgrade? I don't necessarily have a budget but I don't want to spend a fortune. Please tell me specific parts I should get since I'm new to this and don't know what to look for.
Thanks.

[Venares]

Re: Internal Upgrades Help

Not sure how good the internals are on the Amoeba's but as far as reliability goes you'll want to look at the basics.

• Shim the gears (pinion to bevel)
• Correct AOE (Sorbo)
• Radius the gearbox

To get you up to 350fps you'll likely need to swap out the spring for an M100.
Also check compression on the piston and cylinder head.
If the piston has poor compression then take the O-Ring off and stretch it over the cylinder for a bit.
If you are losing air from the head then some Teflon tape should fix that.

[colinjallen]

Re: Internal Upgrades Help

Accuracy and range have a fairly limited relationship to FPS; if you want to work on those, you are better off looking at the barrel (cue the tight bore v large bore debate) and the hop unit/rubber. An R-hop tends to give greater range and consistency, especially with heavier BBs.

Apart from that, Venares gives good advice.

[BCampbell]

Re: Internal Upgrades Help

Accuracy and range have a fairly limited relationship to FPS; if you want to work on those, you are better off looking at the barrel (cue the tight bore v large bore debate) and the hop unit/rubber. An R-hop tends to give greater range and consistency, especially with heavier BBS.

Apart from that, Venares gives good advice.

It comes stock with a 6.03mm tight bore barrel. The hop up unit in the amoeba is plastic so I might change the whole thing to metal to avoid breaking it if I slam a magazine in. I've heard that pro win hop ups are good but they need to be filed down to fit.

- - - Updated - - -

Not sure how good the internals are on the Amoeba's but as far as reliability goes you'll want to look at the basics.

• Shim the gears (pinion to bevel)
• Correct AOE (Sorbo)
• Radius the gearbox

To get you up to 350fps you'll likely need to swap out the spring for an M100.
Also check compression on the piston and cylinder head.
If the piston has poor compression then take the O-Ring off and stretch it over the cylinder for a bit.
If you are losing air from the head then some Teflon tape should fix that.

From reviews all I have heard is that it has solid internals, apart from the plastic hop unit which could break if you slam a mag in too hard, so I'm not too worried about it being unreliable, but it's better to be on the safe side. I'm assuming I can just swap the spring without affecting other parts and therefore needing to upgrade other things to accommodate it? I have no idea how I would do any of the other stuff you mentioned, but I suppose I will be able to find some sort of tech wizard at my local site who can do the work for me.

[laurence]

Re: Internal Upgrades Help

Its an Ares so it'll likely have pretty solid stock internals (usually). Far too many people go out and buy stuff for their gearbox expecting big improvements from drop-in parts...which can often be the case. However, you can get pretty accurate shooting by doing a few small upgrades costing little to nothing.
I don't know how experience you are with doing mods but i wouldn't go straight up and do an R-hop as mentioned above, mainly as it cuts up your barrel and you kinda want to be pretty familiar with it so you can adjust and mod as you go along...also, if not done well, they can be a bit of a pain.

All i would say to do is:
-Check your gearbox compression/ check air leaks. One of the biggest, and i mean biggest factors in airsoft gun accuracy is consistency. You want the gearbox and hop up to be doing the same thing every shot. This comes down to two main things, how well your piston-cylinder-air nozzle air seal is (finger over air nozzle and push the piston down the cylinder...you should feel the air compress and no air should leak out anywhere), and your air nozzle - hop up seal.
I wont explain how to do/improve these thing on here as ill be writing a huge paragraph but there is a wealth of articles and stuff out there to fix this stuff. (don't be drawn to people telling you to buy stuff to improve these all the time. Usually a combination of PTFE tape & silicone grease can solve your problems)
However, if your air seal is noticeably bad somewhere, maybe the air nozzle, then yes, i would recommend an aftermarket one.

With the hop-up, i would actually stick with the plastic one unless its shocking, plastic usually has a bit more 'give' and can often provide a totally adequate air seal (the element ones are a good example of this). Hop up rubber can be a big factor in improving air seal with the air nozzle but again, i wont tell you to go out and buy a certain one as i dont know the quality of the stock one/ cant tell you whether you need a harder one or softer one as i can see its performance. However, again, air seal can be improved by doing a mod where you tie dental floss around it blah blah...search it up, you'll be able to understand it better.

-If all of these things need to be improved, and you do, you will likely see an increase in both range, accuracy and fps. However, if they are all good (which i suppose they will be, Ares usually have pretty good stock parts) then wahey, your life is a lot easier. So assuming you have a good air seal all round, your consistency should be pretty decent.
So you want to increase your FPS a bit, all you really need to do is drop in an M100 spring into your gearbox, replacing your old one. If your piston or spring guide have a bearing on then your all good. If not, id invest in a bearing spring guide as its a great way to improve your shot-shot fps consistency.
If all that is done, and your still not happy, then the most likely area of improvement will be your hop up rubber. At 350 fps you an get away with a fairly soft one, however with having a soft hop-up rubber, you really want a hard hop-up nub (the bit that pushes down on the rubber) This can be something as simple as a bit cut off the end of a BIC biro ink tube (i've had great results with these). Rubber wise, if found that a Guarder clear rubber usually works quite nicely as a drop in improvement...people also swear by the stock TM rubbers so could check them out (pretty cheap too).

This may sound like a lot, and granted it is. How much experience do you have with opening up your AEG's and tinkering?
If none of the above sound even vaguely familiar ( and even if it does) my biggest work of advice would literally be to do some research. Purely because it will allow you not only to do these things yourself (saving you money) but also to identify the problems yourself and understand that if somethings happening, why that is happening.
Its far too easy to fall into the trap of asking about upgrades and being told the same things over and over- buy a tightbore, buy this, buy that, most of the time, things can be greatly improved by just doing a little air seal check and making sure everything is as it should be.

So in short:
-Consistency is key, check your air seal, this is the NUMBER ONE priority for anyone wanting to improve range and accuracy ( and fps). You can drop in all the tighbores and springs you want, but if your air seal is wank, your consistency will always be mediocre.
-The one drop in part i would recommend (unless your stock one is decent) is a hop-up rubber, but have a go with your stock one, usually they need 'bedding in' and will soften and become more consistent over time. Also, if you have neither a bearing on the piston head OR spring guide, get a bearing spring guide. This i can vouch for as being a good consistency improvement (and will also give you a few more fps due to the extra compression on your spring)
-Lastly, check out a few articles, a very good one is 'The HOLD grail of building your DMR' (or something similar), the guy writing that gets it.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask, granted what i've said is a lot.
Happy tinkering!