The 1/6 MUTT

[Flying Dutchman]

Hello everyone. With all the e conversions going on I decided to look into doing a 5B'sh kind of Baja but from the ground up. Instead of using the really heavy chassis I just built my own. Basically I took the front and rear end of a Traxxas Slash that has the Proline Protrac system on it and placed a custom chassis in between. Then using the Baja roll cage and body the completed buggy is as you see it here.
Here it is after the first initial build up to test fit all the parts I made.








This is with the old 5B Baja body I still have. I do have a new 5B Proline body that I'm going to use though.

It is amazingly light. In fact it is not much heavier than the Blinged out Baja Bug Slash I have.

Final build up.
I disassembled all of the parts and cleaned them up. First I wet sanded all the surfaces of each aluminum part. After that I took steel wool and went over them again using soapy water. Once done I polished them with this metal polish liquid I had laying around.
Here is the main chassis plate once cleaned up.


Then I added the posts.

Front Steering servo assembly.

Mounted the front suspension to the chassis.

Cleaned up forward upper chassis plate

Assembled upper chassis plate to main chassis.

Installed the front roll bar mount and front upper bumper brace.

Installed gear box with rear suspension and added the upper rear plates to the chassis.

Bolted on the center roll cage brace.

Bolted the rear ends of the roll cage to the rear bumper like so.

Fully assembled chassis with roll cage.



Weight of fully assembled chassis less ESC, body, wheels and receiver box on Postal scale = 4lbs-.05oz.

Weight of all four tires, wheels and lock nuts = 1lbs-12oz.

Total corrected weight is 5lbs-12.5oz. So far I'm on goal as I don't want the entire chassis, less battery, to weigh more than 7 lbs. We'll see how close I get to it. ;D
Anyway, I got the new Baja body on last night and I'll post some pics tonight.
Thanks for looking.

[Silversamps85]

very cool, what electronics are you going to run?

[Bmr4life]

Yeah, what motor. Tell us more!!! Also, what wheels and tires are those????

[Flying Dutchman]

Thanks all.

I'm planning on using the Traxxas Velineon system that is on it now. I got the idea from this guy on Ultimate RC.

http://www.ultimatetraxxas.com/projects/slash-6b/


He's using the same motor but different esc. With a 7.2V battery he got his going 31 MPH. This buggy weighs about the same so I figure with proper gearing and a 3c lipo, it should have no problem getting up to 40mph or more. We'll see I guess.

Oh BTW the tires are the HPI Dirt Bonz Tires S Compound and the wheels are the RPM Revolver Monster Truck Stablemaxx 17mm Black. They are very light as you can see.

[TheJANG]

Hey thanks for the email about this. Great to see another one of these being done, and even more custom, to boot Really fine work on the chassis. You might want wider-offset wheels than that for stability, though. With the Protrac arms and those wheels you're probably about the width of my first (truck) version, right? That was stable enough at the speeds it did, but turning was a little sluggish for my tastes. Especially pushing more power through it, adding another couple inches to the width should give you a better ride, and wil also help balance out the aesthetic proportions.

Definitely keep everybody posted! I wanna see vids of this thing tearing stuff up!

[Flying Dutchman]

Hey thanks Jang. I do have extra long 17mm wheel adaptors coming my way to help widen it out a bit. Good to know though being you have been there and all.

Inching ever closer to the finish line on this. Got the body trimmed and it's ready for paint.

[Flying Dutchman]

Well more progress. I took it out for a spin and once I got the gear ratio right, this thing moves!! With a single 7.2 it moves just as quick as the Slash did with the brushless. Of course it's not as responsive in terms of changing direction as the smaller Slash was but the traction and stability is fantastic.

I added longer 17mm wheel adaptors to the rear and front. This made the rear width wider by nearly 2" and the front just over 1.5" wider.

With an 8.4V or a better lipo, I can see this thing easily doing over 40mph.




So anyway, so far so good. ;D

[TheJANG]

Much better with the extra-wide adapters! Now you're in good shape! Crazy how such a big thing works on such a small motor & battery huh!!

[G-crawler]

Looks awesome!

[jetboat]

now that is freaking sweet!

[t-boner]

Nice that's asome I love the moster plastics

[Bmr4life]

No video yet? :(

[Flying Dutchman]

Thanks again guys. I'll get a video of it as soon as I can. It was getting dark out and it being black and all....well, it was tough to spot after a while.
It might be time to get some LED's in those light pods.

[TroyKrum]

This thing is amazing... looks great, can't wait to see the video. You compare to the Slash but how does the e conversion compare to the gas version? Very nice job!

[Bmr4life]

What kind of track is that in your basement?

[Flying Dutchman]

Troy, as far as comparing the 1/5 gas to the MUTT as I like to call it, I would say they are pretty close. Being the gas version still has far better suspension than the MUTT, the gas would still probably do better over rougher terrain. I’m sure installing 1/8 truggy shocks would probably help the MUTT out a bit. Speed wise I am impressed how easy it is to get this thing to move. Having owned a real 1/5 Baja with a 31cc modified motor, I have no doubt after driving the MUTT around a bit that with a better battery and esc, it would not only keep up but blow the gas version into the dirt. Of course you still can’t beat the run time of a regular gas 5B.
But like I said, so far I’m thrilled with the minimal amount of hardware it took to get this thing to handle and run like it does.

The tracks you see in the pictures are two actually. The one just under the painted sky wall is a 1/24th slot car drag track. It’s actually a scale 1/8 mile. It’s all computer timed giving RT, MPH, ET and margin of victory along with dial in, heads up, full tree and pro tree race format. We have a drag race club that races here once a month.

The track painted on the floor is for our Colorado Man Cave race group. We run 1/10th scale Tamiya Mini Coopers and HPI Cup cars on it. We also have 3 other tracks, one in Arvada, one in Firestone and one near Colorado Springs. We race a time attack format. Fastest 5 lap time wins. It’s all casual and free while drinking vast amounts of beer and eating hot wings and such. Good time for sure.

[Flying Dutchman]

This was one of it's first runs Saturday. Forgot to glue the tires on in the rear as you can clearly tell near the end.

Also now that I hear it, I think I need to tighten the clutch a bit.

Still though, not bad for a little 7.2V battery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdMHipsawkI

[TheJANG]

Sweet Still narrower than mine even with the wide adapters though is it? Or is that an illusion from the suspension being preloaded up much higher?

[Flying Dutchman]

Okay, the Mutt is for all intensive purposes done. Jeeeshh....okay, what's next, hahahaaaa.... ;D
Anyway, I still might add a aluminum gearbox if it's not too heavy. Being it's directly bolted to the bottom aluminum chassis plate and the motor is bolted to the aluminum gear box, I just may have a really large RC car motor heat sink if I do that. ;D





I ran 9 packs so far without any major incidents other than the tire coming off the wheel.

As Borat would say, "We have great success...yes?"

[TheJANG]

She's a winner!