Redcat Gen 8 "Clear body" Edition

[Jim85IROC]

A while back, Redcat offered to sell a non-standard version of the Gen8 to those of us who bought & tested the beta-version of the portals and also provided feedback to Redcat on those portals. This truck differs from the production truck in that it comes with standard metal bearings instead of the rubber sealed version, it comes with the older style bullet battery plug instead of a Deans plug, it comes with a clear body instead of a painted body, and it comes in a plain white box instead of one with the usual box art.

Since this is a somewhat unique variation of this truck, I thought I'd make a post about it, and it can serve as a place for me to log all of my upcoming changes to the truck.

Here's my initial unboxing video:


Because of our craptastic weather in the Northeast, I haven't even plugged a battery into the truck yet. The only thing that I've done to the truck so far was to paint the body. There's nothing revolutionary here, but I figured I'd take everybody through the torture of my paint process since it may benefit somebody else who decides to paint up one of these.

My Aesthetic goals for the truck are to make it look like this 1:1 Scout:


I started by adding the window masks and also masking off the black roof area. I use a thin 1/4" tape for clean masking lines, then blue painter's tape to fill the rest of the area.


One very light coat of white. My first coat is always a very light, very thin coat. I spray it from a bit further away than normal. I do this because I don't want a lot of pressure to push the paint under the tape. By doing it lightly, the paint helps seal up those masking lines, plus it provides good adhesion to the body.


2 more coats of white, this time a heavier application to ensure good coverage.


Because I'm painting the lighter coat first, which is more or less a no-no, I sprayed one heavy coat of silver just to seal the white:


Next I unmasked the roof area that's going to be painted black. I'm painting on the outside also, but if the body gets scratched up I don't want white showing through the scratches.


I didn't take pictures of my next few steps, but once I had paint on the inside, I carefully cut the clear protective cover off of the roof area on the outside that I wanted black. I lightly scuffed it with 800 grit sandpaper to provide some tooth to the body, then sprayed one coat of the same black lexan paint that I used on the inside. Once this dried, I sprayed a couple coats of Duplicolor bed liner aerosol paint.


Here's the body all unmasked:


And here's the payoff with all of the decals and accessories added to the body:





Overall I'm very pleased with how the body came out, but I do still have some cosmetic improvements to make. First, I don't like how foggy the clear windows look now that I applied the window frame decals, so I'm going to cut out the clear sections of the decals so that only the frames remain. I want to get an LED light kit for the truck also. My next change will be to paint the chrome wheels black, and while I'm in there, I plan to replace the rock hard tire foams.

Stay tuned!

[B-MOW71]

Paint job looks good! Looks just like the 1:1. Only thing that is different is the fender flares. Will look good with the black wheels.

[DukeMinnix]

Looking good Jim, funny you used that 1:1 as your inspiration, I have that exact photo saved on my phone in the scout folder as one of interest when I redo my blue body or order a clear one.

[Jim85IROC]

Originally Posted by B-MOW71

Paint job looks good! Looks just like the 1:1. Only thing that is different is the fender flares. Will look good with the black wheels.

Thanks! I'm not super fond of the fender flares on the Gen8, but I'm not as bothered by them as most people seem to be. I like the rectangular arches, but the round cutout of the front flare is a bit... odd. I guess they needed to save room for the Redcat logo.

Originally Posted by DukeMinnix

Looking good Jim, funny you used that 1:1 as your inspiration, I have that exact photo saved on my phone in the scout folder as one of interest when I redo my blue body or order a clear one.

yeah, I came across a bunch of pics of that particular truck a while ago and saved them. I really like how that truck looks. Once I spray the wheels black I think this rig will look pretty good. I do still plan on getting some different wheels that are more like that 1:1 though.

[ferp420]

I like the gen8 wheels they look like my wheels on my 1:1 scout only mine are polished aluminum not crome

Ive herd oven cleaner takes the crome finnish off the plastic wheels

[rcreview]

Sooooo awesome. What is the price and availability on this?


On a side note, I bought a second clear body for $55. But all the trim and screws to complete it totaled to $165. I complained a bit and the set up a new body kit for $90 for future buyers.

[soze]

Originally Posted by Jim85IROC

Overall I'm very pleased with how the body came out, but I do still have some cosmetic improvements to make. First, I don't like how foggy the clear windows look now that I applied the window frame decals, so I'm going to cut out the clear sections of the decals so that only the frames remain.

Stay tuned!

Hopefully you didn't cut the middle of the window decals yet. You might be able to still save them.

You need to apply them with soapy water so that it slides around into place. Then push the air bubbles out. The same way 1:1 window tint or some cell phone protectors are applied.

[colbynobo]

Originally Posted by rcreview

Sooooo awesome. What is the price and availability on this?


On a side note, I bought a second clear body for $55. But all the trim and screws to complete it totaled to $165. I complained a bit and the set up a new body kit for $90 for future buyers.

I'm glad you did this. Otherwise, every time you refer to it as having a $100 body in your videos I'd have to shake my finger.

Just popped over to the Redcat Racing site and viewed the aforementioned body kit. Nice.

[JatoTheRipper]

I'm not typically a fan of white, but this looks great! Nice job!

Originally Posted by rcreview

Sooooo awesome. What is the price and availability on this?


On a side note, I bought a second clear body for $55. But all the trim and screws to complete it totaled to $165. I complained a bit and the set up a new body kit for $90 for future buyers.

That's an insane amount! $90 is still high for a Lexan body that doesn't have many hard plastic details, but it's much easier to swallow than $165!

[Jim85IROC]

Originally Posted by soze

Hopefully you didn't cut the middle of the window decals yet. You might be able to still save them.

You need to apply them with soapy water so that it slides around into place. Then push the air bubbles out. The same way 1:1 window tint or some cell phone protectors are applied.

All of the decals are already on the truck. The plan is to cut and remove the clear sections of the window decals without removing the remainder of the decal from the truck. No soapy water required. Though in retrospect, I should have done that for the big black body decals. I had to reposition the passenger side decal a couple too many times and it ended up a little wonky.

Originally Posted by rcreview

Sooooo awesome. What is the price and availability on this?


On a side note, I bought a second clear body for $55. But all the trim and screws to complete it totaled to $165. I complained a bit and the set up a new body kit for $90 for future buyers.

This configuration was available only to people who tested the portal axles.

[Jim85IROC]

Last night I put in the CI Nova foams: Medium in the back, soft in the front. I went with the 4.5" foams... I'm thinking the 4.25" foams would have been a bit closer to what I was shooting for, but regardless, there's still enough tire squish that I don't think it'll be a problem. In any case, it should be significantly better than the stock memory foams. Even in my house at about 62F, they were so stiff that they were difficult to remove from the tires.

While I had the truck in the house I also moved the front bumper back one hole, and I moved the rear upper & lower links back one hole so that the rear tires are better centered in the wheel wells.

Next up on the "to do" list is to solder an XT60 onto the ESC so that I can actually use the truck! Unfortunately, we have more snow coming tomorrow, so who the hell knows when I'll actually get to use it. :(

[Jim85IROC]

Last night I got antsy after the kids went to bed, so I soldered an XT60 plug on to the ESC, tossed in a 3S battery and went outside to play on the snowbanks.

I was really happy with how the truck did. The tires gripped the hard-frozen snow really well. The truck had good power on 3S. The steering was very good, and at slow crawling speeds, there's no noticeable bump-steer from the truck. At higher speeds it gets a bit twitchy, which could be partly due to bump steer, but at .00001mph, it's just fine.

I managed to roll the truck right onto my cement stairs a couple times, and the truck bed lined roof didn't get a scratch on it. The truck does seem to tip more than my Gen7, but considering how big and heavy the body is, that didn't surprise me.

The suspension geometry seems to be MUCH better than on the Gen7 with the Portal upgrade. My Gen7 leans to the left all the time when I'm on the throttle. This truck doesn't have any of that.

[kincer]

I just got mine Friday but due to the weather, rain every damn day I haven't had it outside yet. So far I'm pretty impressed with it, this is my first Redcat since a old Caldera brushless monster truck about ten years ago, I wasn't to impressed with that, the plastics seem really nice, the body and inner fender setup is really nice and for the most part they did a great job. I feel in the front suspension geometry they kinda dropped the ball though, it should be able to be corrected with some trial and error experimenting. For the price I feel it's a hell of a truck though. I'm not too hard on my rigs so failures will be probably non existent or low. Your truck looks great! That bedliner paint is great for R/C bodies my whole TRX Bronco body is done in that. I had two comp rigs about four years ago that were painted with Duplicolor bedliner paint and they barely had a mark on them after a whole comp season. They got more colors in aeresol too now, desert sand, brown, olive green, and clear. Again nice job on your Scout!

[Jim85IROC]

Thanks!

I'm not too fond of the steering geometry, but honestly, at crawling speeds, I think it's a non issue. I would have preferred a more centrally positioned motor, which would leave the front frame area open for a more optimal servo mount, or better yet, a 4 link with servo on axle. But, I think that Redcat was really going for scale realism here (after all, all the Scouts have portal axles... right??? )

Even moving the motor back just a little bit and combining the transmission & transfer case would have left enough room for better servo placement. Oh well, it is what it is. If it was perfect, we wouldn't get to throw a bunch of aftermarket crap at it.

[rkj__]

Nice work. That bedliner turned out better than I would have expected.

[RCTom]

Originally Posted by rcreview

Sooooo awesome. What is the price and availability on this?


On a side note, I bought a second clear body for $55. But all the trim and screws to complete it totaled to $165. I complained a bit and the set up a new body kit for $90 for future buyers.

Do you know if this clear body kit comes with the holes for everything pre-drilled or not? I noticed that they're pre-painted bodies say the holes are not drilled. There's nothing on the RedCat website for the body kit you mentioned that said if holes are already drilled or not.

[HumboldtEF]

Looks great! thats the same reference pic and color scheme I had in mind lol

I kind of assumed they wouldnt do kits so this is nice to see, hopefully it leads to an actual kit (no electronics).

Originally Posted by RCTom

Do you know if this clear body kit comes with the holes for everything pre-drilled or not? I noticed that they're pre-painted bodies say the holes are not drilled. There's nothing on the RedCat website for the body kit you mentioned that said if holes are already drilled or not.

I cant speak for that particular body but the clear bodies sold separately do not have holes or dimples for the fender flares, there are dimples on the roof and hood i believe for the optional body mount holes.

And on the pricing for this body i bought only what I needed from amain and it was $77 for what i felt I needed: Clear Body, Light lenses, light buckets, grill and side mirrors (I skipped the LED clips and inner and outer fenders).
I also noticed that RPP has a body accessory kit while Amain only had these items available separately, it saves a little bit but its still about $75 for the basics

[Jim85IROC]

Originally Posted by RCTom

Do you know if this clear body kit comes with the holes for everything pre-drilled or not? I noticed that they're pre-painted bodies say the holes are not drilled. There's nothing on the RedCat website for the body kit you mentioned that said if holes are already drilled or not.

As I mentioned, this configuration isn't publically available. It was offered only to a select group of people. The body came exactly as it's shown in the video posted above. It had all of the cutouts, and had the fender flares & mounting hardware installed. The headlights/grill and tail lights were not installed.

[RCTom]

Originally Posted by Jim85IROC

As I mentioned, this configuration isn't publicly available. It was offered only to a select group of people. The body came exactly as it's shown in the video posted above. It had all of the cutouts, and had the fender flares & mounting hardware installed. The headlights/grill and tail lights were not installed.

Thanks Jim, but what I was referring to was the clear body kit shown on RedCat's website (p/n GEN8-CLEAR-BODY-KIT). While it looks like it comes with all of the hardware and accessories to completely build the body, I don't think any of the holes are drilled like they were on the kit you have. I'm just trying to confirm that as true or not.

What I also learned is that if someone purchases the pre-painted blue and orange replacement bodies that RedCat offers, it does say on their website that those bodies are not pre-drilled and that to complete the body build you must also purchase p/n RER11473 complete body accessory kit.

BTW, love your white painted version. A neighbor had one like that when I was a kid, although his also had quite a bit of tin worm damage thanks to living in the rust belt.

[Bob_in az]

Originally Posted by Jim85IROC

I'm not too fond of the steering geometry, but honestly, at crawling speeds, I think it's a non issue.

This is my thought too. I'm on my 5th pack through my Gen 8 & it's still all stock, including the foams. The foams have broken down & are ok. The steering is fine for crawling. It turns pretty tight in the rocks & the stock servo is hanging in there, but a little slow. My initial plan was to modify the steering first thing, but after driving it a bunch, I don't feel the need yet. My first upgrade will probably be wheels & foams. I actually like the tires. They do pretty well on our Arizona rocks.