AX-10 Blue Torch Moon Buggy

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OK... let me start by saying this. The Edge Chassis I have from TSC works great. The thing I hated about it was simply this. When people asked "who built it?" I could not say "I did". I guess you can say that is a silly reason to build a chassis.

I wanted to make a few changes to make the suspension work a little better. I built both the front and rear suspension in a double tri 4 link setup. We use this setup often on the 1:1 rigs. Anyway... I also changed the link geo a little to help it not want to lift so bad.

The suspension front and rear is set up as a droop suspension. Some people worry more about the static ground clearance. My thought on it is keep it low and let the suspension work. What I mean is this. With a droop suspension the axles will drop out when the center gets beached allowing it to pull itself off. If you have a sprung chassis and you get beached with little down travel chances are you are just going to be beached. (Beached means the center of the chassis is high centered or sitting on the ground).

For my shocks I will be running shocks from an X Factor. I think that is what they came off of. The rears are still the AX-10 shocks but I will be changing them. I think the stock AX-10's once upgraded will work fine. On the inside I do have a spring to control drop out to a point. Basically it is there to help slow the suspension down when climbing a very steep ledge.

The chassis design is based on what a 1:1 moon buggy might be. I lost a little clearance at the rockers because I want to keep the look of a real buggy. After testing the rig it seems to work pretty well. The chassis is made from 3/16 solid round rod and tig welded together. I made some little jigs out in the shop to bend the rod around. To bend it I simply heated the round rod and wrapped it around the jig to the desired angle.

To assemble the chassis I cut some pieces of wood to help hold everything while I welded it together. Kinda hard to hold 8 different things and tig weld it all alone if you know what I mean. LOL :-P I should have taken pics of this process for you guys but I was in a hurry. I didnt spend a whole lot of time building the chassis.

For the skid plate I used some left over 1/2 thick UMHW from the Red Bull RockHer II build. Yeah a little piece of Becca's comp crawler made it on my rc. LOL. For the link mounts and shock mounts I used chain links. Much easier to use those than make them by had.

The body panels and roof are being made from left over DVD cases. You know the soft black plastic ones. I also made the speed control and battery mounts from DVD cases. I will post up some pics of that.

OK I guess I should get to posting some pics of the buggy.

[skate]

pic will not work for me.

[cspyy]

pic no worky

[Larson627]

Sounds like a cool build for sure, watch out with the dvd cases, I found on my last crawler they break a lot easier than it seems like they would. I made my radio tray out of one and I dont think I ever banged it into anything but eventually it had a nice big crack through it. Other than that I would say it will come out pretty good considering your 1:1 work

[Tim_B]

I like the build. Pic works for me.

-Tim

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[clemet]

Looks sharp.

[dieselfuel]

beautiful! inspiring actually.

[jeepcj578]

thats one sick looking frame
next time u get it out and runing take a vid

[Larson627]

that thing is sick! inspiring for sure!

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I guess many of you mayhave noticed I am running Punisher Shafts. We kept breaking the stock shafts. I have been accused of being hard on stuff in the past... LOL. Have not broke one of these yet.

Keep in mind I dont know a lot about all the RC stuff so forgive me if I post up something that is common place.

We drilled the pinions out and tapped the hole with a M3 tap. The set screw on the punisher shaft now threads through the pinion yoke on the shaft and into the pinion on the axle. We tapped the hole be cause a hole with a bolt threaded into it has been known to be a little stronger than a hole with a bolt passing through it.

Otherwise the car would launch the punisher shafts out at us like a rocket.

[TEDROCKZ]

Originally Posted by BlueTorch

Let us know how this handles, been thinking about a very similar set-up. You should start building chassis for market(neat).

[xigtc]

That is b-e-a-utiful

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Originally Posted by TEDROCKZ

Let us know how this handles, been thinking about a very similar set-up. You should start building chassis for market(neat).

I have tested the car and it seems to work better than it did before. The reason I built this suspension setup was to reduce flex steer / roll steer. Also it help reduce the chassis from jacking when under load if set up correctly. Keep in mind I build 1:1 cars and I do understand what works there does not always work in the scale world. However I have had a couple rc crawlers over the years and this is the setup I have been wating to build for a while.

In all I am very happy with it so for. I need to tune the front shocks a little more to get it working like it should. Basically want to get rid of some flex. Too often people want tons of flex and it seems too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

The skid plate you see was made from UMHW and a hand drill. I didnt take much time on it. I should have taken the time to toss it in the mill, but I didnt have a lot of time to work on the car. I cant wait to get the body panels on and wrapped. I think it is going to look bad ass.

-Dan