bilinvic's DMG IFS B1B Bomber Build

[bilinvic]

Got roost?

[kdub41]

Originally Posted by bilinvic

It turned out to be a 6 hour crawl session today. Let me start off with saying that I know I have some pretty awesome rigs in my collection that are dialed in for maximum crawling performance....but with that being said, the DMG B1B Bomber is definitely the best crawler I have in my arsenal of machines after today's mind-blowing performance.

I would like to think that I have some credibility to my name and know what I'm talking about....I don't want to throw around the "best crawler" expression around lightly, but this machine is out-of-this-world fantastic at crawling and bouncing, not to mention an incredible amount of fun.

I feel it's absolutely perfect and dialed in 100%, but with that being said, I'm always searching for more and want to get 105% performance and will continue tuning to get that extra bit more.

My buddy got lots of video today, hopefully that will be edited and published soon. In the meantime, I have some photos.

The only issue I experienced today was that I lost the screw for the steering linkage at the steering rack. I thought I killed the servo at first. A quick field fix and I was good to go. The B1B Bomber dished out some serious aggressiveness today and never once failed. Although, I am hearing a bit of gear crunching under heavy acceleration, I'm hoping it's just the spur because everything else is metal (the grinding sounds like plastic). I will rip everything apart and inspect all components to see if there's any unforeseen weaknesses.

I cannot wait to get this rig back out on the mountains.

Mr. DMG...take a bow good Sir, your B1B Bomber kit is worth every penny it cost me and is by far one of my favourite builds; thank you.

And by the way, these Axial R35 BFG Krawler tires killed it today....I LOVE them.

How did u do the ifs?

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[bilinvic]

Go to post #1....bilinvic's DMG IFS B1B Bomber Build

[bilinvic]

There's plenty of coverage of my DMG B1B Bomber in this video. When you watch this, keep in mind that my IFS Bomber was purpose built as a bouncer/crawler. The 'ole Ford crawler has a tighter wheelbase and quite a bit more ground clearance. Thanxs nostopin for putting this together.

[nostopin]

My pleasure Bil had a great time. Your new Bomber I must say exceeded my expectations and was great to see it do its thing, great build buddy

[bilinvic]

I received the CI 5.5 DD Comp Cut / soft Outer foams today. These are going into the P-L Flat Iron XL tires. I know there's a few guys out there waiting to hear the results of the fitment....so here it it: IMHO, they are perfect. I'm using the 1.5" wide SSD Rock Racer wheels.

Here's some measurements I took, keep in mind the CI DD 6.0 foams have been used, but have been sitting on the shelf for a week so they are not compressed from being stuffed in a tire.

CI 5.5 DD Comp Cut / Soft Outer
outside diameter - 140mm
inner closed cell foam diameter - 98mm
inner closed cell foam width - 44mm
outer soft foam width - 58mm

CI 6.0 DD / Soft Outer
outside diameter - 147mm
inner closed cell foam diameter - 108mm
inner closed cell foam width - 44mm
outer soft foam width - 53mm

With the 5.5 foams, the tire feels very pliable and will conform to the ground surface much better than the 6.0 foams. I do not vent my tires or wheels.








These next two pics show that the foam OD is nearly identical to the OD of the empty tire.







....and the completed appearance (Tire/foams/wheels) I still have to put the Vanquish SLW hubs in.

[Fj62]

Originally Posted by bilinvic

I received the CI 5.5 DD Comp Cut / soft Outer foams today. These are going into the P-L Flat Iron XL tires. I know there's a few guys out there waiting to hear the results of the fitment....so here it it: IMHO, they are perfect. I'm using the 1.5" wide SSD Rock Racer wheels.


With the 5.5 foams, the tire feels very pliable and will conform to the ground surface much better than the 6.0 foams. I do not vent my tires or wheels.

Well darn it, that just muddies the waters....I thought you had to vent the tires or wheels with the SSD beadlocks?

[bilinvic]

Venting is a personal option. I don't like venting tires or wheels because I want to keep dirt and water out. You can achieve similar performance to venting with proper foams.

[SCREAMER]

I don't vent either. I know there's a lot of guys that swear by it and would say it's downright blasphemy to pay good money for wheels, tires, and foams and not put a bunch of holes in them before they touch dirt but I feel, in mostly crawling scenarios, venting is just not necessary. I will say that none of my wheel and tire sets are completely air tight though. They all have some integral venting holes in the wheels that end up getting 90% sealed by the closed cell CI foams that I invariably run in all my tires whether it be deuces wilds or double deuces. This is enough venting for me. It keeps the tire from accumulating any real positive pressure but keeps water and dirt out. I tune the compliance of my tires with the foam I choose. IMHO, ensuring a tire can breath only applies to the tire impacting the ground constantly and at higher speeds. This just isn't the case when crawling.

[ostewart]

I'm interested to hear your impressions on the FlatIrons with 5.5 foams, I might change mine as it struggles on rock, but mine is quite a heavy rig so I would go with Medium outer, comp cut inner.

I used your pineapple mod, but I might just order the proper tuning rings if I order new foams

[bilinvic]

A few more changes / upgrades:

I swapped the front Axial Yeti Universals for Incision's Yeti VDI axle shafts. These appear to be very well made and definitely have more girth over the uni's. For those that are "weight conscious", the Axial uni's are 21 grams each vs. the VDI's wieght of 23.5 grams each. The thicker shafts would impede with the shocks if I was using the wider P-L SC shocks....luckily I am very happy with the Axial Icon shocks.

I put the Axial 14x54mm 3.85 lbs/in (Medium Green) springs on the front shocks; they definitely feel better and will allow the front to articulate better. I moved the front shocks to more of an upright position to keep the ground clearance with softer spring rates.

The bolt that goes though the A-Arm and knuckle simply threaded into the rear portion of the A-Arm. I felt this wasn't going to be strong enough; I ordered Axial M3x40mm Cap Head bolts (AXA0093) so that I could add a narrow Axial Nyloc nut on the end to keep the bolt from backing out...good to go now.

I went with KBess Mfg. Bomber limit straps (4" Front and 3.5" Rear) so that I had two different lengths to play with in order to get the front suspension from fully extending. Earlier I mentioned I was hearing a bit of gear crunching under heavy acceleration, upon inspection of all gears, I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary, and everything spun freely. Then I thought to myself, this noise I was hearing was only under hard acceleration.....the front end gets unloaded with acceleration and the front suspension goes to full droop, which is likely causing the Axial universals to spin at an angle that they didn't like. This is my theory and hopefully the between the VDI axles and the limit straps, this crunching will be a thing of the past. Also, at full droop the knuckles/castor rings were very tight when the steering was at full turn (left or right); with the A-Arms even a couple mm higher, they have full unrestricted travel from lock to lock. I'll report back on the next test session. Getting back to the limit straps, the 3.5" straps were a little too short and the 4" straps were a little too long if they were used in the same shock mount locations. I ended up finding a suitable location for the 3.5" strap that fully tensioned prior to the suspension going to full droop, although it doesn't look as good, it will be very functional. Both upper and lower mount points are very strong. I used the 4" straps on the rear and they fully tension prior to the shocks bottoming out.

Next is the wheels....since SSD replicate the perfect Bomber wheel with their Rock Racer wheels, I decided to get another set for this Bomber too. Front hubs are Vanquish .450 with LURC scale lugs and the rear hubs are .850. Same P-L Flat Iron XL tires, but this time they are stuffed with Crawler Innovations Double Deuce 5.5” Comp Cut Inner / Soft Outer foams. The tires feel great now, not too stiff.

Lastly, I ordered RPM Jato length blue link ends, I needed two to complete the blue link theme for the inner rear upper links.










I love how easy this rig is to break down, all the electronics go with the chassis.

[svt923]

Since you are running the Axial shocks up front, you may want to look into changing the front springs over to Exo rear springs. The Exo rears are 70mm long versus the 54mm front springs so you can have a wider range of preload adjustment.

[bilinvic]

Thank you for the info svt923, I will definitely look into this as the short springs do bother me a bit!!!! lol

[bilinvic]

A few pics of both version of the Bomber:

[svt923]

It definitely bothered me too, those short front springs never came out of the box for my Yeti.

[SCREAMER]

Yep, same as Wraith or Bomber springs, 14x70mm. The difference is of course the color scale doesn't match the numbers in lbs/in. For instance, green or medium in the 54mm long is 3.85 lbs/in whereas green in a 70mm long is 2.85 lbs/in.

[db450]

I actually like how the limit straps mount, may not look scale but doesn't kill the look either imo. Boh rigs are beautiful, don't know which I like more lol

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by bilinvic

...I swapped the front Axial Yeti Universals for Incision's Yeti VDI axle shafts. These appear to be very well made and definitely have more girth over the uni's. For those that are "weight conscious", the Axial uni's are 21 grams each vs. the VDI's wieght of 23.5 grams each. The thicker shafts would impede with the shocks if I was using the wider P-L SC shocks....luckily I am very happy with the Axial Icon shocks.

The bolt that goes though the A-Arm and knuckle simply threaded into the rear portion of the A-Arm. I felt this wasn't going to be strong enough; I ordered Axial M3x40mm Cap Head bolts (AXA0093) so that I could add a narrow Axial Nyloc nut on the end to keep the bolt from backing out...good to go now...

I agree with you on the crunching noise and proper suspension limiting, look at the fret wear marks on the outer axle stubs from the bearings, looks like harmonics from the universal joints run at excessive angles and lots of RPMs. The Incision shafts look nice.

Good idea, the Axial thin locknuts are great for all kinds of things like the hinge-pin screw set up. Your blue color scheme works well too!

[bilinvic]

Are you a CSI Natedog? That was a brilliant observation that I didn't even think about looking at. Learned something new...thank you.

[jeepgod]

I'm looking at getting a bomber but can't decide between IFS or solid front axle. Looking for insist from a person that own both which one is your preferred choice to run and why?