kahnen

While I have snow here now, this spring, here in Maine we're sure to have mud, probably lots of it. We have 5 seasons here: summer, fall, winter, spring and....you guessed it, mud season.
That time of year when you take your 1:1 4x4 or ATV (heck even rcs)off into the country side and just get it dirty. In anticipation of this great time of year(If you can't tell, I like it) I dug through my part boxes to build a purpose build mudder.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any spare 4wd chassis laying about so I got thinking, hmmm how about one of those mud dragsters you seen at fairs or even on tv they had a show on for them. Like this if you don't know what I talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/v/lUJeifr5snA

http://www.youtube.com/v/OvoTVByT_jI


Big muscled mud slinger. I would have loved to make the rail type the 2nd video but I don't have the skill to make a homemade rail chassis, plus to do it justice you'd need to use a straight axle. I'm just try to use parts from my spare bins. But the truck style one I could do.

So I found my donor parts, my old Tamiya Blitzer.
http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/ite...oduct-id=58106

Robbing the tranny and steering assembly from it I began to build. Even with the nylon gears, I know this tranny can take abuse. I've put it through a 4s setup before.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/9jCJLlZ7_6s

Heres what I came up with.

Connected the steering assembly and tranny with a couple pieces of aluminum along with the abs "tub". Using some tamiya 1.9 wheels and tires for the front and some old hpi 2.2 wheels and tamiya monster truck tires(like blackfoot, monster beetle, etc) on the rear.


Reinforced the shock towers with some 3/16 threaded rod connecting to the tub. Running some onroad shocks, won't need alot of travel for the front. Hopefully will "skate" atop of the mud, theres a skid plate under there to help with that(pic coming later).

Also you can see the ofna (from a 8th scale) radio box I got the electronics in to keep dry.


back end you can see the monster truck rear shocks, those are fake reservoirs. I don't even know what they came off from. Got them free from a local hobby shop one day, one had a broken eyelet that I was able to fix. I used these because they are long and allowed me to set up quite abit of droop to help keep the rear wheels from just bottoming out and leaving it high and dry.


Power: Well these things especially 2wd ones rely of brute power to get it through the mud quickly with out sinking, bogging down, etc. Buying a new brushless high voltage system for it was out of the question. Would have been nice but I just can't do it right now. I didn't think a 2s setup would just give that same feeling of a 1000hp motor. So I dug into the spare parts box again. I found my Orion element 19t(I know not very impressive) but I needed a brushed motor for my Jeti esc. This esc is capable handling up to 36v thats insane for a brushed esc. So let me explain, this is a boat esc(forward only) this kind of works in my favor because its already waterproof, plus this is a drag racer so its only for blasting down a strip just a couple of minutes of running at a time.

Right now I got 9cell nimhs for battery, course if I can get a 550 12v motor I can go more. Might even try 14.4v on the orion for a run or two.

Here is a shot with a temp body on it, the tires just fits under a shortcourse body.



Well, thats all I got so far.

kistner

My Feedback: (10)

I hope you have video camera so we can see the end results in action. Looks really fun.

dragnse7en

OMG - a TA02 chassis!?! What the hell!?!

HEY - an single aluminum plate in front is all good, but THAT IS WEAK!!!!!!

What do you plan for that?

phmaximus

ha love it

I kind of did the same thing with a tamia tl01 chassis but ive gone for the 4x4 look

this is what i was going for



This is what I ended up with





Its now sporting 4 wheel steering, soon to be switchable (on/off/reversed)

Brainanator

My Feedback: (1)

Nice! [8D]

FahrtAutoRC

Then build a better one, instead of talking trash about his.

To the OP- That is awesome.I would definitely recommend some kind of overtray, keep clean-up to a minimum!!!

kahnen

Its not just a plate in the front, the aluminum goes all the way under the chassis to the tranny. I'll post some other pics later today when I get home.

kahnen

Nice looking rig, phmaximus .

Brain and Fahrt, thanks for the kind words.

Oh, and there will be videos, to watch the fun or the faliures.

The Mad Modder

Need to brush up on your Tamiyas. It's a bearhawk chassis, which was also used for the blitzer beetle, stadium blitzer(as the op mentioned), and stadium thunder stadium trucks.

The rear shock look like they're from a AE MGT

kahnen

Thanks, I never knew, like I said they where just giving to me and I had them in my spare box for awhile.

So here's a few more pics:

Here's the aluminum frame/rail/extension whatever you want to call it.


You can see it goes all the way back to the tranny, its about 12" long and 1/4" thick. This thing won't be doing huge jumps, wheeling hopefully but not jumping, so I believe this design to be strong enough.

Here's a pic of the ride height fully loaded. 9cells weigh alot, wish I had a 3s lipo. Course the extra weight might make for better traction.


Here's me lifting it up full suspension to show around a 1" of droop. Kinda screwed the tape measure up trying to lift, hold and take a picture all at once[:@] but the aluminum on the bottom of the chassis is at 2 1/4". Doesn't sound like alot but moving the chassis up and down it looks like alot of space.



So, right not I working on a couple of things with it. Trying to work out the mounting of a body and trying to decide about a wheelie bar. Full sized one have them, as seen in the vids, but I'm concerned with my 1/10th version its just going to be an anchor. On the other hand, letting off the throttle to not flip over because of wheeling will just kill momentum anyways.

Also, right now my rear tires aren't glued yet. I'm trying to decide whether to run foam inside them or not. What kind of effect will a sloppy soaking wet foam insert have? Will I get better traction without foams or with?

kahnen

Well, I took it out for a test run. Course, there's no mud but there is snow. Looks promising.

http://s716.photobucket.com/albums/w...t=MVI_0178.mp4

Eman77

Love that chassis! I have a Stadium Thunder with that chassis/tranny, and beat it to heck. Love to see custom, inventive work. Nice job dude!

Eman77

Haha, that's awesome! Will be a challenge finding the right body for it though.

kahnen

Thanks man. Yeah those trucks were oldie but goodies. Glad they rereleased the blitzer.

Eman77

Stadium Thunder says: "Me like mud"

Eman77

Say, I have a question for you - with your Blitzer, what wheels/tires do you run? Once my stockers wore out (not fantastic traction anyway), I put on some HPI SS wheels w/Gladiators (in my pic above). Love the combo, but I have to use HPI's adapters for the front wheels to fix on the axle stubs right, and there's a lot of slop.

On the rear wheels, I really have to crank on the nylock nut to get the wheels to stay on (not enough axle threading to grab?). Problem is, if I go to tight, I ruin the carrier bearings. Kind of a delicate balance (loose a wheel vs. ruin a bearing).


What wheels have you run with luck?

kahnen

kahnen

My rear wheels are the same HPI ones (except mines white)you use with some hexes. Mine have enough axle to grab though.

Eman77

Hmm, ok. You know what? I'm using tamiya alum clamping hexes...they come in various widths. Maybe I can use a thinner one? Wow, can't believe I never thought of that....wonder if I have any lying around...

kahnen

Well, got a little bit more done today. I think I got the mounting worked out. It seemed simple enough at first but seemed to get complicated every time I thought I had it figured out. [&:]

I didn't want to have to cut a bunch of holes in the body if I used a body from another rc and also didn't want the little nubs and pins showing. So here is what I worked out.


The front has horizontal posts to connect with the grille area of the body, I can either put holes there for the post to barely poke through or use a velcro strap on body and posts. I didn't show a pic of the velcro strap, its just velcro it connects between the 2 posts.


It can adjusted back and forth, to accommodate different sized bodies, by loosen the nuts and sliding them along the threaded rods to the right position. Also the posts can be unscrewed and flipped up to a vertical position like normal to poke out the hood if needed/wanted.




The back has 2 posts that can be placed in front or back of the shocks or front of the shock mounts(what ever location is better suited)


The tops of the posts has a "cap" screwed to the top of them with the velcro attached to it.



Also found a little something fun to attach to the body when I get one


What dragster would be without that big block sticking out of the hood! Reason why I didn't what the body posts going out the top of the hood.


Just to get an idea and messing around.



Thats all today.

thehuntingterminator

That's sweet man! But why aren't you using a BL system? Not criticizing, just wondering. Nice work

kahnen

Mostly because I don't have one for this application. I have one in my Strike but I don't want to swap it back and forth, plus I'd need a waterproof/mud proof it(if not already). If I break something on the Strike to put it out of commission for a bit, I might swap that one out, it can handle 3s.

I got some sales on ebay, if they're a good payout I might check out a BL system. I got other plans for most of though(more lipos, a body for this thing, a WK)

kahnen

I believe I just found my body. Its wide enough to cover the front wheels but the rear wheel will stick out about half way for some mud throwing action![8D]



Edit: forgot link lol

kahnen

Well, looks like the body is going to be on hold. After numerous attempts I don't feel I can get the power I'm looking for with the brushed combo without buying newer stuff, so if I'm going to buy new stuff I might as well get better, right?


I pulled the esc/motor out and installed my BL from my strike. I don't drive it now in the winter anyways and with some funds I'm going to get I'm going to pick up another BL system and some more lipos(2s and a 3s). I'll have to wait for the body till more funds arrive for it, I can make due with the Strike body, like in the first post, till then.

Aeolian 60a esc


Made a shelf for it up high, it claims its splash proof. Its encased so I imagine as long as it doesn't get submerged it should be alright.


Running a EZrun 9t. The new motor I'll get will be lower KV since this with 3s lipo will ruin the bearings quick.(47,730 rpms) Its probably close to the edge with the 9 cell nimhs I useing now, but because of voltage sag of the nimhs should be alright.



I'll try to get some vid of it tomorrow, its a real blast to drive now. On some hard launches it tends to veer one way or the other, so I might have to lock the diff to try to get a straighter launch.

Eman77

What body is that sized for (meaning, what vehicle)? Do you have a wheelbase dimension (and then F/R width) you can share that you need it around? Maybe some of us can help.