Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

I'm not sure bout the lockouts yet Ev, selling them if I decide against them on this, I won't know till I see How much axle clearance the xr axle housings takes up on the front. Tho I doubt I'm going to drag the extra weight around in the rear for fun, I don't see an upside of it...

As for the vvd's.. are you nuts! I know you like ur new balls(Mr. V's), but to even ask bout cutting a set of vvd's down.. what! That's crazy talk....
No there for the xr, the xr universals are goin in my creeper an the ones in the creeper are goin in this.. it was a rush job 2 days before the comp an I just cut an ground the ones for the creeper.. so there all getting h bumped a notch..

Yeah its a pile of parts, but the most important one is the smallest.. the fx-r so I can start crawling an testing..

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

LOL just asking... There's nothing wrong with asking about cutting those down... If I were building a super nice mini I might do it... depends if I had the money...

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Thanks for calling my mini super nice! "thumbsup"

But yeah, as you stated, if I had the money and if I already had a set in the xr.. the mini is getting hand me down upgrades for now tho.. lol

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

When I ran that chassis at Nats last year...I had a tiny piece of lexan cover the MAIN chassis plates. ie The motor. Dont run em down the spine. You're gonna take away from the look of the Mantis.

Got the care package. Thanks man. Let ya know what I think. "thumbsup"

Builds lookin good. I'm glad you're so excited about here. You may wanna think about fabbing up some rear weight holders of sorts. You're gonna be throwing a lot of weight up front so you'll need something out back or you'll be doing nose wheelies down the rock.

J.D.

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Sweet deal! Can't wait to see some pics posted....

I'm goin to do lexan or something for main chassis plates, for the motor an tranny.. at this point I just want to get it running now an figure out how to keep a clean wireless look.. upgrading an side panels to follow..

I'm not sure on the weight up front yet, but I do believe ill have to fab something up, just for the case of keeping the rear planted if needed or as needed..

Thanks, I am excited! I can wait.. lots of work to follow tonight.. day off tomm..

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

You could always just get the DLux rear weight holders and weights :) Makes it easy...

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

What's the fun in buying something that you can make with ur hands? I like dlux's stuff, but building it by hand out of raw materials is way more rewarding!

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Got some tear down in today... Peeled off the back axle for the bwd bombproof shock/link mounts.. minus the shock part.. once I pulled the lockouts off, I mounted the bwd link mounts, man they are nice! Then I dremeled the axle housing shock an link mounts off.. while I was there a post from J.D. popped in my head, something bout getting the rear ride height down.. so with dremel in hand, I cut the post's down for the rear torsion plate, around a 1/8" Or so..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...14E3F-orig.jpg

While I was that far, I took the housing apart an shimmed the ring gear an re-greased then put it all back together.. tho I think with this torsion chassis, ill be pulling the rear axle back apart for "beef tubes", to take care of the extra pressure the axle will take an just cause..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...27A4B-orig.jpg

Now all back together, I'm debating on a angled link end at the bwd mounts an mounting the rear links on the outside of the bwd mounts or leaving them on the inside as are..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...89459-orig.jpg

A little side shot.. the drive shaft an rear links are dead at the same shape an clearance now.. I may even try moving the chassis forward a hole in the torsion plate..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...BC839-orig.jpg

On to electronics.. got the fx-r ready but can't find the bec right now, so I did the rear axle.. any who, I cut the posts down on the fx-r an de-cased it. Cut the on-off switch off an shrink wrapped the esc.. ill get pics when I wire it up.. then ill find a place for it. I'm goin to direct wire the bec an servo. Run the power from the razor to the rx.. only cause ill be running a novak 6v bec, cause there small, that way there isn't any other power pulled from the 7950.. if I find a spot for the cc bec, ill run it instead.. why not have 486oz of torque on a mini... LOL..

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Ok, so its hard for me to stop, once I get rolling.. I didn't get as far as I wanted, but started looking around for the bec an ended up cleaning up my work bench.. lol, still didn't find the bec, but got some good work done.. an with only 3.5 hours till the alarm goes off, I had to stop..

I got the white Jeepindoug cups on as well as the white upper links..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...455F5-orig.jpg

I also put longer link ends on the lowers at the axle..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...3E4A3-orig.jpg

So between the bwd bombproof link mounts an the longer link ends up front, my wheel base is sitting right around 8.25".. so still a little shy but good enough for now.. I have some more playing around to do but this is my ride height as of now..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...F3442-orig.jpg

Servo/link mount to be fabbed tomm.. oh, haha, I just found the bec.. if you find what ur looking for in the last place you look, its the last place you have to look... Looks like wiring tomm as well..

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

ha! you sound like me Troy, middle of tha night, hell bent on finishing a build, looking for a part, so why not spend a hour cleanin work bench just to mess it up again!:roll: Just checkin out tha new build, looks like a Winner "thumbsup".. those wheels are tha move there ... i got a sweet package in tha mail today so it looks like a long nite for me also.. That white and red is gonna be a kick a$$ rig.. cant wait to see what happens from here.. good work friend.. "thumbsup"
oh and thanks;-) ill shoot ya a text with pics...

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

"thumbsup" awesome to hear Casey! I'll have a couple more to go here soon..
Yeah how bout it on the.. well all of it! Late nights early mornings, clean the.bench. mess it up.. it looks good for a day or two tho..:ror:
Start a build thread on that package, show off some of ur builds, don't hind them from the world!

Anywho.. the roller is done! "thumbsup". Went the way I know that works.. and it was easier, Everett...:flipoff: I put the Rcbros 4 link/servo mount.. drilled an tapped the link holes for 3mm hardware..

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...0D502-orig.jpg

Thru the servo on an got a flex shot...

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/...4546B-orig.jpg

Now for the drag link an electronics.. then the rocks! Of course the next step of fun comes.. tuning an small changes..

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Now what was easier?

Looking good... When you getting around to doing the XR conversion?

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Looks amazing bro!! This keeps getting better and better. Rig is looking so mean. All the little details are adding up to make it a bad a$$ rig8)

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Everett, the Rcbros servo mount was easier.. I was goin to fab one out of, oh.. I don't know, CF.. lol..
Then I decided, well a mrc lot decided, I have another Rcbros link/servo mount coming, so I'll use this one..
Tho I may still fab one with a little extra material for my Lipo to sit on a ride up front.. maybe room for a 300mah 2s on each sode of the servo.. link em together for 4s on courses I need the juice for.. :twisted:

The xr/wraith steering will come in due time.. some crawl time is first, find out how it performs an reacts, before I go overboard on upgrading an miss the whole point of testing the chassis...

Thanks Christian, it is really turning out the way I could picture it (or better) for the months before I got it.. I just kept adding stuff in my head.. then buying it before hand.. now its all here, I think/for now....

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Ah ok... I was eyeing that lot too... should have known you would get it :roll: Did you have to shorten your upper links at all to work with that mount?

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Can't wait to see this in action. Great build so far, keep up the good work."thumbsup"

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

Nope, upper links are what they are.. I used axial link ends for them, they might be shorter the the mrc links? I used the same plate on my juice with no issues as well.. I think they may be custom tho.. dunno.. lol

Thanks John! You will for sure get to see it in action this coming year. As long as the club prez does some 1.9 comps... Haha.. you will also see a new class 1 running at comps as well.. but that's to come..

Everett, that's why I bought that lot.. ill be using the axles an tranny, an keeping the Rcbros stuff.., the rest gone down the road..

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

My 3s 240mah have stupid juice for a course.. idk if you need 4s.. But who knows:mrgreen:

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

how come there is no shocks in the back of it and how does it flexi in the back

Re: its time! full on BWD mini mantis.. test, tune an crawl!
 

It's a torsion chassis.. made by Bwd.. the rear of the chassis plates bolt to the rear axle, cause of the design in the chassis, the "tail" flexes an holds the axle as top links as well.. all post pics of the rear flexing in a bit..