BBY Racing's RBX Laydown Chassis

by Jason Hensel

1/27/06

With 2.2 sized rigs being all the rage here lately I decided I needed to get my hands on one and see what all the excitement was about. For my first build I called Randy at BBY Racing and had him send his newest creation my way. The RBX is designed to be built with a Traxxas Stampede transmission laying on it's side for that super low center of gravity (CG) we are all after.

 

Here you can see the transmission laying on it's side. Notice how the heavy motor is placed almost directly onto the skid plate. The only modification I made to this chassis can also be seen in this picture. The shock on the right is the front shock, and I re drilled the hole for it to make it lay at about the same angle as the rear shock. The reason for them coming out to different lengths is I run shorter links on the front axle for a 60/40 setup.

This close up of the rear axle shows the RBX built upper link mount, and the rear steer lockouts I built, at the comps we hold here in Colorado we do not allow rear steering in the 2.2 class.

Here you can see the front axle with the custom tie rod and drag link made from 1/4" solid stock aluminum. I am running a HiTec HS-645MG for steering duties, and I had Cheapbatterypacks.com build me a custom 2200 Mah 7 cell pack for just a little extra punch.

The RBX sports a very decent amount of usable articulation.

I ran my rig like this for several months, and then I decided to make some fine tuning adjustments.

I added 5oz of lead shot to each front tire, and 1 1.5 oz washer to each wheel, front and rear. Adding weight to the wheels helps dramatically lower the CG, and really makes these little things climb well. To help with the torque twist known to plague any shaft driven crawler I installed a super stiff spring onto the left rear shock. I also removed the springs entirely off both front shocks.

Removing the front springs started out as just an experiment, but it really ended up working great. The front end rides low, is very stable, and allows for some droop of the axle when you high center.

All the fine tuning I did paid off well, this past weekend I was able to pull out my first victory in the 2.2 class!

 

All in all I would have to say if you are in the market for a Trail and Comp ready 2.2 chassis be sure to check out the RBX Laydown from BBY Racing.

 

 

  


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