Freestyle RC Axis V1.1 Retro Chassis

[TooOldForThis]

Monster trucks are cooler than crawlers. There, I said it. Fight me. :mrgreen:

Of course I only speak for myself, and a couple years ago I realized that 1/10 monster trucks really hit the sweet spot for me, bringing a lot of the scale appeal of trail trucks but with higher speeds and a more bash-friendly nature. After spending some time with an SMT10, a monsterized TRX-4, an LMT, and a Nitro USA-1, I went looking for the next solid axle big boy to build.

Enter Freestyle RC and their chassis kits. They’ve got several different ones but the Axis V1.1 Retro Chassis caught my eye because it was the most different from other trucks I’ve experienced. I could find almost no information about it outside of the Freestyle RC website, which inspired me to make this thread to share all the cool details.

There was a material shortage and other delays so nearly 3 months after placing the order this box finally showed up at my door. Spoiler alert: it was worth the wait.

It came fully assembled, which was a surprise. After spending some time with it, two things really stand out to me:

1. The fit and finish of everything is flawless. Like, actually flawless. Everything is metal or carbon fiber except the battery tray and lower shock/servo mounts, and all of the cutting/machining is spot on. Even after spending a bunch of time being a miserable picky little hobbyist I just couldn’t find anything to complain about. I can’t remember the last time I slid something out of the box with this result.​

2. It’s a thoughtful design that looks simple but actually has a lot of unique features to talk about. The inclusion of leaf springs, mounts for up to 16 shocks (!), the low-CG dual motor mount, all of which are very cool. But the feature I like the most is the beefy center pivot axle setup, which allows for articulation but keeps the axles perfectly centered at all times. Zero slop. Also, the plate that the axles mount to acts like an axle truss. Also also, it looks like the steering should do full lock without clod-sized tires hitting the suspension links, which is an annoying issue stock SMT10’s have. Taken together it’s all very impressive.​

So basically you take this Axis chassis, add an SMT10 kit, plus electronics, tires, and a body and you have a complete truck. You won’t need half of what’s in the SMT10 kit but it’s probably cheaper/easier than piecing things together. I plan to take my time with this build but there will be occasional updates.

 

[350TacoZilla]

I would love to do a leaf sprung retro monster some day. JConcepts keeps putting out these cool retro tires\wheels for them and it reminds me of how much I want one. Any ideas on what body your thinking or maybe a particular truck you plan to pay tribute to?

 

[high plains drifter]

Can't wait to see this evolve. Man, that's an insanely nice looking platform..

 

[OSRC]

That is a killer looking chassis. Can't wait to see it finished!

 

[TooOldForThis]

Axles, meet chassis. Transmission, you get in there.

This brings me to the first thing I've noticed that this chassis is lacking: a skidplate. Without one, the bottom of the trans (and one of the motors) is left very exposed. I've seen pictures of this chassis with a skidplate, not sure if that was a custom job or if version 1 originally came with one. Anyway, its not a big deal because all it needs is basically a flat piece of metal bolted to the bottom of the trans. I've already found something in my parts bin that will do the job.

Any ideas on what body your thinking or maybe a particular truck you plan to pay tribute to?

This is a great question because naming these silly things is one of my favorite parts that I put WAY too much thought into. I named my original SMT10 (which I no longer own) "The Iron Price", which is a term from Game of Thrones in reference to executing someone. I was thinking I would call this one "The Iron Price II", because the SMT10 parts give it a connection to the original and also because putting a "II" on the end of a monster truck's name is a thing they do in the 1:1 world.

The body will be a trail truck body, as long as the proportions look right once the wheels and tires are on.

 

[TooOldForThis]

When you order the Axis chassis, you get to specify the shock length (80mm - 120mm) and the wheelbase (11" - 13"). I asked for 90mm shock length and a 12.5" wheelbase because I knew I wanted to fit a trail truck body. As a result it looks pretty similar to a trail truck chassis at this stage, except for the wide axles. Functionally it wouldn't be the best choice for a trail truck for a variety of reasons, but there are some creative non-monster truck opportunities there for the right person ;-)

Pictured with a Gmade GS02 for reference.

BTW, the shocks on the Axis right now are 90mm TRX-4 shocks that I'll be changing out for a different style. This will have at least 8 shocks, possibly the full 16. I also decided to go with 100mm shocks to get a little more ride height. I think the height of the shock hoops is the only thing about the chassis design that changes based on which shock length you specify, so stock ride height would be about the same for all of them (although I didn't ask to confirm this so I could be wrong).

 

[TooOldForThis]

A little more progress. Motors mounted and homebrew skidplate attached.

The skidplate is an odd shape, but it needs to be to attach to the trans and cover up all the dangly bits. Everything is well-protected now and only one corner of it needed to be trimmed to clear a driveshaft so it's a happy accident that I had something like it laying around. The lesson here is keep hoarding RC junk because once every few years all the stuff cluttering your house pays off... no matter what your wife says!

When it came to choosing motors and gearing, I went rogue and guessed. The motors are 12 turn 550's with 18 tooth pinions on the stock SMT10 spur. If an 18 tooth pinion isn't the biggest that will fit, it's very close. My thinking was to go with low turns and high gearing for speed, because the extra torque from having two big motors would help get it rolling from a stop. We'll see how it pans out. Realistically one nice sensored brushless motor would be a superior option, but in this thread we're about what looks cool not what works good :mrgreen:

 

[TooOldForThis]

I've got updates. Lining the body up to Shoe-goo the magnets on meant getting things mocked up to the extent you see here. It's the Pro-line 1978 Chevy K-10 pickup body for crawlers. I mounted it up extra high so you can see the frame because some old-school 1:1 monster trucks were built that way... and because more higher is more better :mrgreen:. It's running Jconcepts tribute wheels with the narrowest of the 3 hub offsets they come with. The finished ride height will be about 10mm higher when the new 100mm shocks come in but besides that, this is the stance.

Here it is next to the same trail truck pictured earlier in this thread. Like my grandma used to say, big badass tires make all the difference.

 

[TooOldForThis]

Your new business idea sounds great and I would like to invest, but I have all my money tied up in tiny shock absorbers.

Actually Aliexpress only wanted $50 for all 16, and I didn't even have to swim to china to pick them up. Not bad.

Currently mulling over how to mount them. One shock spring per corner seems to be enough to support the weight, so any more than one shock is just for looks because the others will have the internal springs removed. I kind of like the last 3 options equally so this may be a hard decision. As mentioned, these are 100mm length.

 

[TooOldForThis]

Welcome to Paint Chat, where we chat about paint.

I'm a huge fan of Danny Huynh's work. He's an absolute artist, and in my opinion the very best there is at weathering lexan. There's a lot of pictures and videos of his work out there, which I recommend everyone check out, but here's an example of the effect:

The thing is, I haven't been able to find any tutorials about how he does it so I've been left to figure it out on my own. This was the process I tried for this body:

1. Mask windows from the inside and spray Tamiya PS-5 black on the inside.

2. Remove overspray film from the outside of the body, cutting around the windows and front grill with a hobby knife so the overspray film stays on in those places.

3. Spray Tamiya PS-55 flat clear on the outside. This is to give non-polycarbonate paint something to stick to.

4. Spray Rustoleum Painter's Touch Aluminum Metallic paint on the outside.

5. Spray the door logos on with Rustoleum Black Enamel using custom vinyl decals as a mask.

6. Remove remaining overspray film from outside. Apply stickers (grill, headlights, etc.)

7. Spray Krylon Matte Clear over everything. This is supposed to give the acrylic paint in the next steps something to stick to.

8. Fling acrylic brown paint randomly all over using a paint brush. Suddenly remember you wanted to be documenting everything so take the first picture now.

9. Use a cheap airbrush to spray acrylic black paint (thinned with some water) all over the outside. Do it in the kitchen because it's windy outside today and you don't have a garage.

10. Spray Krylon Matte Clear over everything again. The idea being this will help "seal in" the acrylic paint so it won't wash right off during the wet sanding in the next step.

11. Carefully wet sand everything with 600 grit sand paper, removing most of the acrylic black and some of the brown. Here you can see the fender has been sanded but the hood hasn't yet:

Although it's definitely not on Danny's level, I'm reasonably happy with the effect so far. But I do feel like I overcomplicated things. Instead of screwing around with the acrylic paints and the Krylon Matte Clear, next time I want to try painting everything on the outside using only Tamiya TS paints. More expensive but probably worth it in terms of time saved and the end result.

 

[TooOldForThis]

Since the body is close to finished and there's a clear shot of the door logo in the previous post, now is a good time to post a pic of the original "The Iron Price" truck. I've been trying to ratchet up the effort/difficulty with the paint on new truck because the door logos on the original were vinyl decals (not painted) and obviously nothing was weathered.

I don't regret selling this one but I do wonder where it ended up and what happened to it.

 

[TooOldForThis]

Turk accomplished.

I'm trying out new image hosting and attempted to resize these but I feel like they probably still aren't right. I'll do better next time, but for now drink in that grimy paint :mrgreen:

There will be future posts about various odds and ends, but the aesthetic is done. Not much more to say about the chassis itself. Really good stuff. The body, on the other hand, was not good. For the money, Pro-Line bodies are straight up garbage. There's a variety of different forming defects throughout, some of which still show up even when camouflaged with a paint job this messy. This wasn't my first Pro-Line body, not by a long shot, but it will be the last. Their designs are generally good but the production quality is shameful.

 

[OSRC]

That looks fantastic...love the gray with the black wheels. Looks menacing!

 

[TooOldForThis]

That looks fantastic...love the gray with the black wheels. Looks menacing!

Yikes, people are actually viewing this thread?!? :ror: Thanks for the kind words.

So I've been driving it around some and doing the typical shakedown after a new build. The motor/gearing combo seems to work well. Plenty of torque from a stop, decent top speed for what it is and heat doesn't seem to be an issue. It's a dead simple electronic setup consisting of a Hobbywing 880 ESC and a shorty 2S Lipo. It should be good for short runs on 3S too if you really wanted to party.

The narrow offset hubs on the wheels were limiting steering angle quite a bit because the inside of the wheels were hitting the steering link. Oops. I switched the hubs out to the middle width option to take care of that. It's so nice that Jconcepts includes 3 different hub offsets with their Tribute wheels. She's a little wider now.

Still left to do is some minor styrene work for the chassis (to make something like front inner fenders) and later on convert it to 4 wheel steer.

 

[350TacoZilla]

I like the weathering you did. I don't know anything about the show but it reminds me of old blacksmith hammered iron in the look along with ye' old lettering font.

 

[Shinook]

I've been following! I like this a lot, it's a shame Freestyle RC is shutting down. I have a pair of axles on the way but no transmission or chassis to run it on, him moving on is def gonna leave a massive hole in the scale monster truck community.

Truck looks great! Anxious to hear how it drives.

 

[TooOldForThis]

I've been following! I like this a lot, it's a shame Freestyle RC is shutting down. I have a pair of axles on the way but no transmission or chassis to run it on, him moving on is def gonna leave a massive hole in the scale monster truck community.

Truck looks great! Anxious to hear how it drives.

Oh man, I didn't know Freestyle RC was shutting down. That's too bad because it seems like the monster truck scene has only been picking up steam lately. I feel lucky to have snatched one of these up when I did.

As for how it drives, it's good for what it is. Bouncy, but that's mostly my fault because there's no oil in the shocks. 1:1 monster trucks from the leaf-sprung era looked bouncy too so I'm happy with it. I won't be driving it in anger anyway, especially now that spare parts won't be available.

I whipped up something out of styrene (call it a firewall?) to make it so you can't see through the front wheel openings into the cab. There was a big visual hole there that bothered me. Also it has rear steer now, which was a very straightforward addition.

I'm calling this one done, and I'm super chuffed with how it turned out. Pour one out for Freestyle RC :sad:

 

[Shinook]

Oh man, I didn't know Freestyle RC was shutting down. That's too bad because it seems like the monster truck scene has only been picking up steam lately. I feel lucky to have snatched one of these up when I did.

He announced it a while back, I managed to get a set of axles a few months ago and now have no idea what to put them on. I wish I had gotten a chassis also.

It's kindof a shame, his stuff was REALLY nice and monster truck racing seems to be surging right now in some places. He released the chassis you built there then shut down shortly after.

My feeling is that he got too burned out trying to deal with it as a side gig. Whenever I tried to contact them, it took me weeks to get a reply and orders would take months to fulfill. It's easy to get behind and overwhelmed with something like this, then burn out with it, which is what I expect happened. Another vendor announced the same thing recently, as well, and closed up shop in the same space.

I feel for the people who invested $1k+ into building these though, they now have no way to source replacement parts or get help if there is a problem. Less of an issue with some of the trucks, but with others like the Pro C that have a bunch of carbon components, gonna be rough if something breaks.

 

[TooOldForThis]

I feel for the people who invested $1k+ into building these though, they now have no way to source replacement parts or get help if there is a problem. Less of an issue with some of the trucks, but with others like the Pro C that have a bunch of carbon components, gonna be rough if something breaks.

I was thinking about this and it dawned on me that you could probably make your own replacement parts by taking measurements from the originals and ordering replacements through SendCutSend. Any flat component seems totally doable, like the carbon shock towers on this Axis chassis for example. It wouldn't be as easy as ordering something off the shelf, but it's an option to help keep the Freestyle RC rigs out there smashing stuff.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

This is awesome. That chassis is bad ass. Leaf springs!!!