Originally Posted by
Crius
The very first thing you should replace is that plastic lower hull with the crappy suspension and get one of these
TIGER 1 METAL LOWER CHASSIS & SUSPENSION ARMS
With all due respect to Marc, I'd stay away from the Mato Tiger, since it's really just a metal copy of the Heng Long hull with all it's flaws and that same crappy suspension. Proper torsion bar suspension is the way to go if you're adding all those metal bits.
Concur, I just thought that all metal Tiger body seemed to be the direction the OP was going... but the metal reinforced hull you're talking about is no doubt the lightest and cheaper way to go. Also it comes with the metal hull braces that you'd want to have on any heavily-modified Heng long/Taigen type tank.
After trying metal parts on T-34, King Tiger, and my PAnzer III, they seemed to snowball too fast and add too much weight. "Got metal tracks? Find they are wearing out the plastic road wheels, better get metal. Oh no, an arm broke - need metal of those too. Wait, how'd my tank get so heavy?" The only tank I had where the metal tracks worked 100% were on the Panzer PZKFW III and the ones that came with it on the T-34. Never had the tracks fall off once from either of them. They didn't add much weight and never had a problem. Did the same thing to my King Tiger and I couldn't keep the metal tracks from falling off for a 5 minute drive, and just as bad, they were far too heavy. .