what are the trade-offs between the BWD Mantis and other chassis?

[jebster]

i've been looking to upgrade my xr10 to bodiless and have considered the ugc viper, bj4v and more recently the cc team edition. now i see the mantis (with dub cab) being offered. i haven't been into crawling a long time so i was looking for the pros/cons of going with a torsion chassis like the mantis versus the others. i like the look of the mantis but i'm not going to buy something just for the look. what are the tradeoffs?

all input is welcome.

[Highlucks]

Hey Dude, they have only been around for a week or so. So its very hard to make a real judgement without some time on it. I will say this though torsion chassis are not for everyone. It takes a bit of adjustment and you have to be willing to change your driving style.

[jebster]

Originally Posted by highlucks

Hey Dude, they have only been around for a week or so. So its very hard to make a real judgement without some time on it. I will say this though torsion chassis are not for everyone. It takes a bit of adjustment and you have to be willing to change your driving style.

good point on the time the mantis has been out. i'm sure people haven't had it in their hands long enough to do a full comparison. i have seen other torsion chassis out there so i was hoping to hear from people that have ran them before. i would expect it to be a big change in driving style. given i have NO style not sure if that is a problem for me!

i was also curious about comparisons in things like typical weight, weight distribution, amount of articulation, adjustability (amount of flex, axle clocking, etc.)

[MitchellY]

Like Highlucks said, it's definitely not fr everyone! I'm having to re-learn a lot of the way I drive. It is a whole lot lighter than stock because it doesn't have four shocks ect. But that means that you're going to be doing a lot more three wheeling than you did before due to there only being 2 shocks. It's a great chassis and I'm liking it so far! Just keep checking back on the build threads and see what people are saying. Most people haven't had them for more than a day or two so it's hard to make a final judgment yet.

[Norcal_GIT_r]

At this point I'm really diggin the new Mantis. For me on my rocks I have not had to adjust my style too much. After taking the braces out of the chassis it became very forgiving.
I love the light weight and the ground clearance is great. I'm clearing lots of things I'd get hung up on with the stock chassis.
I'm comping with it tonight so we'll see how I do.
The main thing I'm doing to the rig is adding weight to the rear axle.

[jebster]

i'm glad hear people are liking the mantis so far. i'm definitely going to keep any eye on this thread and all the threads of people converting over. maybe i'll be convinced to give it a try and have a nice x-mas present to myself!

[Chaotic Crawlers]

I have never driven a torsion chassis before, but the biggest con to a torsion chassis right now is that there aren't many people running them at the moment. So you will struggle to find a lot of info on what works in different terrains and tuning tips.

Where as a traditional bodiless chassis you will find days of tuning and tips.

I do believe you will see a lot more mantis builds in the coming months though.

[HARDKNOCKZ]

This version of the Mantis is only a few weeks old but there was the OG Mantis & later the Berg Tracer...so the concept & base design isnt really all that new. I've run the Tracer before & its a different animal for sure.

Like Marc said...until this chassis' had a handful of drivers that understand the workings of the components & they have the time to tune & test & keep up with sharing that info...its gonna be crazy to see how things turn out. I think Dons gotta great understanding of his design is laying out a good starting point for those who may not have the knowledge or time to invest into starting fresh. Like I said...I'm DEFINITELY interested to see the different takes on building this chassis out, different ideas, setups & opinions. Its a sick looking chassis & it seems to do work.

[Harvo]

Torsion chassis work well, but as said above they are different. One issue that most people have to work out when switching to torsion is sudden unloading. It CAN be worked out, but a lot of people give up before they get it right.

Back a few years ago there was a popular tosion MOA chassis that had no shocks in the front OR rear. I think the Mantis would be easier to get right because the front shocks make the unloading issues more forgiving

It is a sexy beast!

[Omega-Tron]

Since I've only been into rock crawling since May and never used the stock chassis; the only other chassis I have to compare to is the BWD XR-Wedge which kept getting better and better and by the end (before I switched to the Mantis) both axles would stick to the rocks extremely well when doing just about anything.

What I notice on the Mantis is the suspension unloading when sidehilling (and flexed a lot of course). I have about 2 hours of drive time on the Mantis now and after changing my driving style a bit I have been able to overcome quite a bit of the unloading. The Mantis does, of course, kick butt in the breakover department as I have been able to clear things I couldn't before. Another thing that may be working against me is that I have my 450mah 3S battery in the Dub topper section; I just sent Rowdy Racing a PP for a Front Guard axle battery mount. Also keep in mind I had about 40+ hours of run time on the XR-Wedge and 2 hours on the Mantis so far. Before I got everything tuned and gained some wheel time on the Wedge it didn't crawl very well.

What I notice with the Mantis is that it seems to pivot and turn on one of the rear wheels a lot easier (when the chassis is flexed, so not on a flat surface) giving me a tighter turning radius in some instances. I believe this is because the inner rear wheel that I'm pivoting on has most of the "chassis flex pressure" (for lack of a better term) on it and takes more pressure off of the opposite wheel than most completely sprung chassis's.

I hope to have a video up later tonight (I'll post it in my build thread) that I think should showcase a lot of what I'm talking about. I ran the Mantis in a lot of the locations that I ran my XR-Wedge so if you watch my old Wedge videos vs. new Mantis video you can get an idea of the differences in how each works.

To me there's not a clear winner between the two chassis's I've ran. Each one has their pros and cons. If I could justify the expense of another XR-10 I'd happily put the XR-Wedge chassis back on it.