Mightiest FC

[MeanTT]

So I have been slowly building an SCX10 in the spirit of a Unimog for a few months. I wanted something that looked a little aged, but didn't want a patina effect. Instead I wanted some faded paint, a little hillbilly style, and serious capability.

I bought my rig used with 2.2s, and 2.2s were always going to be my choice. It also came with the shock re-locators to give it a lift. It handled like a pig, and was terrible. I knew two things: (i) I needed greater width of from the axles, and (ii) a lower COG.

So I set about finding a great body for the rig. I couldn't pass up the Mighty FC. It looks Unimog like, but with an american flair. I then set about a paint scheme. I wanted a broken down race truck look, and orange and black with touches of silver bit the bill.

The color was done with spaz stix. The Chrome was painted with Mirror Chrome, 4 coast. The orange was spaz stix Fireball Orange. However, it was FAR too bright. It is a great color, but perhaps not the best for a crawler. After one coat of the orange, I had to dial it back. I sprayed water gently onto the body and applied follow up layers. I also used localized touches of black to give a non-uniform finish. Since Aluminum oxidizes to white, I added a lot of water onto the mirror chrome and painted over with a cream white.

There is the body when I got done with paint:



This showed the rims I purchased it with along with the stock - everything else.

[MeanTT]

So then I decided it was time to get serious about the stance and other goodies. The first thing up was power. Out with brushed, in with brushless. I chose a 3658 Leopard 2900KV 4 pole sensored motor. It has broken two driveshafts, one of them was MIP. It has the power I need and it a little took quick at full tilt on 3S. I geared it 16/87 and am using the 48 pitch gears.

As mentioned above, MIP drive shafts were necessary, and so they went in. Along with .850 vanquish hubs and, and SSD 2.2 rims. This body didn't permit very large tires, and the best solution to a lower COG was to add the mud bogger plates to lower the motor and improve the drive line angle:



I also eliminated the Axial shocks which had no oil at the time of purchase, and threw in some 100MM Kings shocks with the stock springs and 30 weight oil. It drives extremely realistically, but the torque twist is extreme with this combo presently.

I had to clip a touch of the front mud flap off to help clear the tires and eliminate rubbing, but you really cant tell from this angle. I do love the mean stance I have on her. Under acceleration there is a lot of weight transfer and she flattens out. I have very limited rubbing as it sits and the rubbing I do have comes from the front most corner of the body.

[MeanTT]

I then needed proper bumpers and lights. The FC lights are challenging and I will install them soon. Basically, I can't get the lenses I want because the axial lenses are far too small. So, I purchased an integy (please, I know, don't throw tomatoes) with 2 lights embedded. I then added a light string and 2 buckets from Axial to form a 4 light front end. The headlights will be forthcoming in the next update. You can't see it in this image, but about half of the tire is exposed from the flairs in the body.

[MeanTT]

So back to hardware. Of course, I had to replace the plastic steering linkage, and cut down the front links (the back will follow soon, I need to finalize the stance). I needed a place for all of the electronics, so I went ahead and purchased some plates form Italy. Yeah, apparently there is someone there who makes a complete set for the bargian price of 50 dollars :-/. With the added real estate I could get extra fancy.

In addition to the 2900KV motor, and since I would be running 3S, I wanted on the fly tunability, I went with a Toro SC 120 esc which is a sensored 2s-4s esc. The cool part about it is that it offers turbo timing and has bluetooth/wifi tuning. The small attachment creates a wifi networ that you can enter and with the help of an APP in either apple or android, you can tune punch, brake, and timing. The tuning options are enormous and I am shocked that this technology is not more prevelant. All of this in an ESC that cost 61 dollars plus the 25 dollar wifi transmitted. No other ESC can even come close as far as I am concerned.

I also baked in a 4 channel receiver to power the numerous lights. The airtronics transmitter also has data acquisition and so It made sense to mount the temp sensor to the motor. In its current configuration, The motor will hit all of 115 degrees on 3S at basically full tilt here in texas. The Wifi transmitted is in the back, and I may end up adding a winch in the future.



The lights are a little busy and the velcro mounting is temporary until I get a final resting spot. As you can see, I reversed the motor mount ot get as much weight as possible in the front.

The new set up with the 110MM shocks and the mud plates makes handing so much better. As currently geared, I estimate I am getting a little over 20 MPH on 3S. The driveshaft angle is much improved and locating the motor lower in the chassis helped immensely.

[MeanTT]

The rear is the final piece of the puzzle. As I mentioned, I will need to shorten the real links to make everythhing fit properly, but i ran into a problem trying to add scale jeep rear lights. I think I have that figured out, but nonetheless I ordered what I consider to be a super cool rear bumper. I think it is a Yeah Raching bumper, but the cool part is that it has 4 lights and you can adjsut the height of the bumper. That is especially important because this body had a fake bumper included. As I have it mounted it barely clears the chassis. So, rather than hacking a body to fit a bumper, it made more sense to have a bumper that fit this body and any others I may want.

I included the obligatory redneck stickers and off we go!

[MeanTT]

My open items are to shorten the rear links, play with sets of springs I have coming for the 110MM shocks to see how I like everything, mount the headlights and taillights within the body and then have fun.

This thing has been so much fun to build. It is my first SCX10 and is very capable. The ESC I have is really far too powerful for this application. At full punch it does backflips. I may add a new servo and I have some heavy carbon steel tubes to cover the allthread once I am comfortable with the length of the lings and the orientation of the pinion. She is my little beast!

Yes, I know, the rake is a little much right now. I hope the firmer springs will help to keep the front up a touch given the heavy weight forward stance. I also need to add wipers and mirrors and a few other scale items. However, I have always been a performance first type of person, so I will continue to focus on that before I turn 100% of my attention to the looks.

[MaFoDes]

Nice! The mighty body is still on my wishlist....

[MeanTT]

Originally Posted by MaFoDes

Nice! The mighty body is still on my wishlist....

Thanks. It is really best suited to a 1.9 application, but I don't see limitations, only opportunities!