B-MOW's VS4-10 Phoenix Portal

[twade984]

Looks good Brian!

I set mine up the same way as of now. This is definitely a little more tricky to mount electronics and run wiring, compared to the pro/ultra.


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[Panther6834]

Originally Posted by twade984

Looks good Brian!

I set mine up the same way as of now. This is definitely a little more tricky to mount electronics and run wiring, compared to the pro/ultra.


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Which would/could be exactly why there's a 95% chance I'll be installing the Spektrum Firma 2-in-1 ESC/motor 2300kv)...even if I do have to do some Dremel work on the skid.


~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

[twade984]

Originally Posted by Panther6834

Which would/could be exactly why there's a 95% chance I'll be installing the Spektrum Firma 2-in-1 ESC/motor 2300kv)...even if I do have to do some Dremel work on the skid.


~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

Yeah that would be a great choice, if I didn’t have other plans for my fusion 2 in 1 I’d shoe horn that baby in there also.

Brian, I just caught it, but what is that clip you’ve got in the motor wires? I could use a handful of those.


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[Panther6834]

Originally Posted by twade984

Yeah that would be a great choice, if I didn’t have other plans for my fusion 2 in 1 I’d shoe horn that baby in there also.

Brian, I just caught it, but what is that clip you’ve got in the motor wires? I could use a handful of those.


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Supposedly, the HW Fusion won't fit...at 62mm, it's too long (max motor length with VFD is 60mm). But, the Firma 2-in-1 is only 58mm, so it'll fit. However, due to its 37mm diameter (instead of 36mm), some Dremel work is required at the front end of the skid.


~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

[indybama]

Thats thing is lookin good brian! Nice n clean. I keep lookin at how the shift servos are mounted on the vp chassis, i may move my o/d servo to the front, if it clears the body. Think it would clear up some space on the slider, if they ever friggin get here, to mount the esc. Then the batt would sit perfectly on the right side

[B-MOW71]

Originally Posted by twade984

Looks good Brian!

I set mine up the same way as of now. This is definitely a little more tricky to mount electronics and run wiring, compared to the pro/ultra.

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Thanks twade! Agreed! A little less room to work with. I may in the future, once I get a couple micro servos, remove the stock battery tray and try to mount the battery on the passenger side slider and possibly go with a smaller footprint ESC.

Originally Posted by Panther6834

Supposedly, the HW Fusion won't fit...at 62mm, it's too long (max motor length with VFD is 60mm). But, the Firma 2-in-1 is only 58mm, so it'll fit. However, due to its 37mm diameter (instead of 36mm), some Dremel work is required at the front end of the skid.

~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

That's an idea! May have to check that out and go that route. It would definitely same some room.

Originally Posted by indybama

Thats thing is lookin good brian! Nice n clean. I keep lookin at how the shift servos are mounted on the vp chassis, i may move my o/d servo to the front, if it clears the body. Think it would clear up some space on the slider, if they ever friggin get here, to mount the esc. Then the batt would sit perfectly on the right side

Thanks bama!

Yeah, that's an idea for your OD servo. The way you have them now looks great! Nice to see the GSpeed winch servo mounting plates work great for the shift servos!

[Panther6834]

Originally Posted by B-MOW71

That's an idea! May have to check that out and go that route. It would definitely save some room.

And weight...that's equally, if not more, important. It won't affect the front-rear weight all that much, but it does affect...in a very good way...the left-right balance, helping to 'center' it more. "Interesting" thing is, with the HW AXE & ACE Fusion, I never considered either.

When the AXE was first released, there were many reasons to not like it...especially for a comp crawler. This isn't even taking into account my dislike (and, that's putting it (very) mildly) for HW. And, yes, I know, HW makes the Spektrum ESCs, and most of the motors...but, Horizon Hobby provides their own (FAR superior) customer service. While the Fusion 'corrected' most of the problems, it didn't solve all of them. Granted, the Firma 2-in-1 doesn't solve all of the remaining problems (asked you as those remaining were)...but, it does solve the majority of them.

With the spectrum Firma 2-in-1, I am finally confident enough that it is "worth" using, including in a comp crawler. Even though it is slightly larger in diameter than the typical 36mm can, that shouldn't cause problems in any vehicles...well, other than the VFD transmission, which, is easily 'remedied'. Now, the only "problem" is waiting for everyone to get the 2300kv variant back in stock. Prior to thanksgiving, the estimates were early December. However, since Cyber Monday, those estimates changed to early February 2022 (probably dueo to all of the 'back-ordered' orders placed in recent weeks).


~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

[B-MOW71]

Now we are going to go back in time a few weeks. I ended up getting the body prepped and painted back when the weather and temps here in Ohio was above average and nice. Some of you may have already seen the pics I posted on IG and FB and for those of you that have not seen them, here they are.

To start, I found that the window mask that came with the kit was very hard to work with. They were extremely sticky and they didn't seem to fit the windows very well. The same type of masking was included with my Origin and PRO, but they seemed easier to apply. So I ditched the masking and went ahead and used the Frog Tape on the windows. I have used this Frog tape on most of my other bodies and it has worked out great.






So my original plan was to paint the body like the Toyota VooDoo blue found on the newer Tacoma's. I bought a can of Traxxas Fluorescent blue and attempted to paint the body. Well, I ran out of paint and thought I would finish up the coats with a can of Tamiya Dark Metallic Blue. Big mistake! I probably should have just backed the Traxxas blue with either silver or white and called it done. Instead what I had was a purpleish, blueish, non metallic looking piece of crap! Nothing like what I had envisioned!

Oh well, moving on, I went to the outside of the body to paint all of the black accents. Instead of using the supplied window decals, I decided to paint the window trim black. I used the outside film to mask around the window trim, door and hood hinges, fender flares and bed rails. I used Tamiya PS-5 Black on the outside and topped with Tamiya PS-55 Flat Clear to dull and protect the black.




I took the window decals and cut off the silver trim to leave just the tint and applied them to the body. I wanted the tint look with out the chrome trim look. This also will help in keeping the decals to stick onto the body. On my Origin body, I used the whole window decals and on a few of them they came loose and didn't want to stick very well.

I also added a touch of silver to the hinges to make it look like it had bolts holding them on. On my 1:1 Jeep Wrangler, I bought some black coated stainless steel hinges with black coated bolts. The sun and weather eventually wore off the black on the bolts and gave it a similar look as I did here on the Phoenix hinges.






On the interior, I just did a simple silver paint job to simulate a bare panel interior with a set of red seats to match the wheels. I kept this interior really simple, unlike my other VP interiors! I may add a few scale items down the road. Oh and my driver is ordered, but he's stuck on a boat out in the ocean somewhere!




For the grill, I found a Toyota emblem on Thingiverse designed for the Element Knightrunner grill. I resized it to fit this grill and then added a little white paint so the letters would stand out. Put a little dab of E6000 on the back of it and stuck it to the grill.










Added a few scale State Park decals and A Toyoda decal to the back window. I've got the same Toyoda decal in my 1:1 Toyota Tacoma back window.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I 3D printed a little license plate mount and double-sided taped it to the rear bumper.







Still need to install the head and taillights and add a few bits of scale stuff to the body.

More to come later. Thanks for taking a peek!!

[Panther6834]

Looking better all the time. I know you don't exactly care for how the blue turned out...but, honestly, it really doesn't look bad. Think of it as "something different, to give it personality".


~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

[B-MOW71]

Originally Posted by Panther6834

Looking better all the time. I know you don't exactly care for how the blue turned out...but, honestly, it really doesn't look bad. Think of it as "something different, to give it personality".

~ More peace, love, and kindness would make the world a much better place

Thanks Panther!! It truly is something different and may be a "one-of-a-kind"!

After staring at it for a few weeks now, the color is starting to grow and me and once it gets some rock rash and dirt on it, it may look even better to me!

[Lashlee]

I like the blue Brian!! It also like all of the details. I agree that the trim stickers aren't worth the effort but that's alot of effort masking all that trim! Congrats!

[smog]

Nice, she pops man! It is a beautiful blue to be sure. Looks great with all the Yota emblems and such.

I am going to need to file down my wheel hubs a bit as well so I can get rid of the washers I have in there.

Panther was asking about the VP hubs earlier, they do in fact fit the Probuild wheels(in case this was not yet stated). I might yet just go down to the LHS and pick up an alloy set

[indybama]

I think its a purdy shade of blue. Those pro builds look good on there too. Cant wait to see it out on the trail brother

[B-MOW71]

Originally Posted by Lashlee

I like the blue Brian!! It also like all of the details. I agree that the trim stickers aren't worth the effort but that's alot of effort masking all that trim! Congrats!

Thanks Lashlee! Masking the trim wasn't bad at all. I just used the plastic film that was on the outside of the body. Lightly cut out around the windows and sprayed it black. Easy, peasy!!

Originally Posted by smog

Nice, she pops man! It is a beautiful blue to be sure. Looks great with all the Yota emblems and such.

I am going to need to file down my wheel hubs a bit as well so I can get rid of the washers I have in there.

Panther was asking about the VP hubs earlier, they do in fact fit the Probuild wheels(in case this was not yet stated). I might yet just go down to the LHS and pick up an alloy set

Thanks smog! The blue does look pretty good and it does look better in person. It just wasn't what I had planned.

Yeah, filing down the lip on the hub does help in tightening the nut.

Oh, crap! I forgot to check to see if the VP hubs fit the Pro-Builds! Thanks for checking it out!

Originally Posted by indybama

I think its a purdy shade of blue. Those pro builds look good on there too. Cant wait to see it out on the trail brother

Thanks bama!

I forgot! I need to get pics posted of the painted body with the Pro-Build wheels installed! The pics I posted earlier had my VP Method 101's that I stole off of my Capra.

I'll try to get some pics posted later tonight!

[B-MOW71]

Here are the pics with the BoomRacing Pro-Build wheels with Pro-Line Trenchers G8 compound installed. I went with the wide side out to give it a wider stance and to show off more of the Neo Chrome outer rims. I may look into getting a smaller offset hub to get the tires tucked in a little closer. As it sits now, it is about 10.5" wide to outside of the tires. It's hard to tell in the pics, but the Neo Chrome really "pops" when the light hits them just right.

This is my first set of Pro-Line Trenchers, so I'm excited to see how they do on the terrain in my area.

[twade984]

That’s a nice wheel setup!


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[indybama]

I didnt even notice they were methods lol. I seen red n was thinkin pro builds. They do look good though. May pick a set up myself

[B-MOW71]

Originally Posted by twade984

That’s a nice wheel setup!


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Originally Posted by indybama

I didnt even notice they were methods lol. I seen red n was thinkin pro builds. They do look good though. May pick a set up myself

Thanks guys!

My bad bama, I should have mentioned that the Method 101's were just temporary!

These wheels are cool and I'll definitely will be getting more sets of them in different flavors in the future!

[treadway47025]

another nice build

[Gramps]

This turned out really nice. Thanks for all the tips and pointers