Honcho Tales

[DaBigJ]

I bought a Trail Honcho about a month ago, and it's the first REAL RC car I have ever had. It's been so much fun! I won't forget pulling it up to that first box after firing up and thinking, "eh, it'll push this across the floor". WRONG! Up and over!

I made a few changes, broke a couple things, etc and the fun is almost endless. I've been documenting changes and figured I may as well put it online.

First, pictures from the test yard:


Dang, just trying to go wheeling and the road is closed for a log spill. This is a good time to daydream about portal axles.



Made it to the pit. Rocks weren't enough, mud wasn't enough, logs weren't enough. . . . so I threw it all together into a traction and balance testing pit of pity.



Headed home up the crawler stairs. This obstacle looks accommodating and tame, but it frequently causes high centers because of the spacing of high points. This is the perfect spot to test the clawing ability of the tires and also hopping behavior when I'm messing with the suspension.

When it comes to testing I created a spreadsheet for wheel travel characteristics. I'd share my results here but because I continued adding new metrics the spreadsheet is incomplete. I'm going to add some more metrics as soon as I get some scales and create more consistent testing methods and that should be interesting. Things I have been looking at are wheel travel distance, shock compression ratios, weight distribution, angle on tire, and such.

I started out with a RTR Trail Honcho and a 6 cell 3000mAh battery (NiMH). For a beginner the combination of a 35T motor and the 6 cell battery was plenty, but I hadn't yet discovered the advantages of hopping. I've had this battery for a month and I still haven't found the bottom of it, but I do throw it on the charger at the end of every tech day or after a long session of testing. I like how I have easier control of the wheel speed with the 6 cell NiMH over a 3s LiPo, and noobs always get the NiMH when I let them drive.

Even with a basic and cheap battery, this truck is fun right out of the box.

Tires? Of course I had to upgrade. I assumed the stock Honcho tires would be as crappy as 1:1 dealership tires but I was happy to find they are pretty good. Only 1/10th as crappy as dealership tires! I'm pretty happy with the stock tires and use them as a baseline for many things. I also conduct all of my objective testing with stock tires when possible just as I compare all different tires with identical suspension set-ups. (Falken Wilkpeak M/T's came stock)

My first set of aftermarket rims are the Axial 8-Hole Beadlocks that went into BFGoodrich Krawler T/A's. Talk about grip! These things seem to smoke the stock tires on all surfaces. They're noticeably softer than the stock tires and sometimes they fold up on sharp surfaces with a lot of torque. It can provide good traction when that happens but I worry about ripping a tire. I might be on the brink of needing stiffer foam in these tires, and I'm sure there are some situations where I'd be better off with stiffer foam. Overall, I'm very happy with the rims and tires but I won't be buying plastic rims again.

And that's all it took for me to get hooked.

[crunky]

Great story, and that's how it happens. I traded an old pile of T maxx max for my first crawler and now I've currently got a room full of scaler related items... and I keep acquiring more by the week.

It actally becomes an addiction, in fact for me I traded my alcohol addiction for hobbies.

[lonleycreeper]

Welcome to the site.

I got into crawlers before he scx10 came out... Gen1.

I started with a Wheely King converted to a crawler. The scx10 II is a fantastic platform for experimenting.

My Honcho has about 250 actual miles on it and was stock for two hours of running to get a baseline.

My thread if you want to look at it.

Trail Honcho, For Trailing

[johnnyluv]

Nice noob experience write-up, and thanks for sharing it on RCC! I started with bashers, but a year later I was full into the tiny truck scene, with an original SCX10 Deadbolt, and a few months after that I was building a custom short wheelbase SCX10. I have quite a few different scale trucks, but still like the Honcho.* I've been working on a custom 10.2 Honcho, and almost have it "Trail-Ready".


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