I took the Carbon Comp Chassis car for a test drive outside and it was great! ...to start with :/

Definitely going to need some stronger servos on this car!

Sounds like you need to upgrade at least 3 pieces. So you'll have more parts for a 3d-printed chassis ;)

Crab steering sounds like a niche but fun experience. Manual front AND back just sounds like pain but hey, if you think it's fun, that's cool.

Yes, this one has 4 wheel steering. I added several modes for controlling the steering, on my radio transmitter. 1) Front wheels only 2) four wheel steer with rears opposite direction to the front (tight turns) 3) crabbing mode with front and rear turning in the same direction 4) fully manual front and rear steering (front on right stick and rears on left stick). Should be fun trying to get my head around the manual front and rear steering! XD

I do think I might need to upgrade the steering servos on this car to something a bit more powerful, but at £30 each for stronger ones I'll try out these servos first.

Even though this car is a TRX4M there is actually on 1 part on the car made by Traxxas and that is the plastic gearbox case! Every other part of this car is an upgrade or mod part.

Oh, nice options with that kit.
Are you going for all-wheel steering too?

These wheels are made from a big lump of brass and are really heavy. Each wheel is 68g. The wheels on this car are also slightly larger than the ones on the other car, 1.3" instead of 1.0" wheels and 70mm rather than 64mm tyres.

The shocks are mounted at an angle, rather than vertical which allows for more movement and articulation.

Pretty pleased with how it's coming together.

I still need to get some better fixings for mounting the shocks to the chassis, and I have all the electronics stuff to do.

Front and rear axles fitted. Well technically speaking they are both front axles!?!

59mm shocks with soft springs and brass parts low down to help add a little extra weight low down. With the extra length shocks we are looking for more articulation rather than extra ride height so the soft springs help the car sit lower.

With this chassis the speed controller and radio receiver fit above the motor and gearbox. On the other mini rock crawler they fit behind the gearbox. Thankfully the ESC and receiver are tiny so it's very little weight high up.

This car is powered by a tiny little brushless motor. It's pretty funky as the entire outer case spins along with the motor spindle. Only the faceplate of the motor doesn't spin! It's paired with a programmable AM32 speed controller (not shown). It's insane how controllable the motor is at very low speed. The only downside of this setup is the fairly loud high pitch whine from the motor at anything other than full power. It's totally normal that it makes that noise, just would be nicer if it was quiet.

Don't get me started! I'll end up buying a 3rd chassis for the few spares I have and then end up buying even more parts to complete that build!?!? XD

You're changing so much, you have a spare car in the end ;)

Carbon battery holder
59mm Shocks with 2 pairs of springs and brass bottom parts for better centre of gravity
2x metal front portal axles with helical gears and ballrace bearings for buttery smooth performance

Still waiting on some parts for this one, but it should be pretty sweet once I get it built.

I haven't really run it much yet because of the esc and motor connector issue I mentioned before, but from what I have done it drives great. I expect it's going to want some more weight low down to improve handling and I've already swapped the springs to the softer ones. I've got most of the wiring tidied up, I just need to sort out the lighting wires now.

okay, THAT looks wicked good!

It has a decent amount of axle articulation, but these springs are too stiff for good rock crawling, best for trail driving really. Thankfully the shocks I bought include a second set of softer springs which will hopefully be better for rock crawling.

Mr Amazon was just kind enough to visit so I could finally attach the wheels and steering link to complete the build... ...kind of XD

I still have a bit of work to do tidying up cables and I need to get new fittings for the esc and motor as they both have 2 pin female JST conectors!?!? I temporarily tested with some wires to jump between them and it runs really nicely. Slow speed control is quite good considering it's a stock brushed motor and super cheap generic esc.

Similar to my big rock crawler this one has a clipless design and swings fully open. The big rock crawler only swing open enough for you to disconnect the battery.

Instead of stock body I went with an Injora IR-40. Which just like my big rock crawler is a copy of a Toyota FJ40 or FJ45 Land Cruiser.

Having half built the bloody thing I realised you can't fit the motor wit the gearbox installed! I also noticed it would be hard to fit the driveshafts tot the gearbox too.

I don't remember winning the jackpot, but I'm pretty sure I spent it XD

That's just the script for my infomercial when I open my new store, JC's Custom TRX4M Parts Emporium

Cheesus, did you won the jackpot?

And who's "we"?

we got 1.0" aluminium & brass wheels,
we got 1.3" all brass wheels,
we got tyres for both types of wheels,
we got a body shell,
we got a 7.2V battery,
we got a 11.1v battery,
we got pinion gears,
we got a brushless motor,
we got a brushless esc,
we got a brushless esc programmer,
we got a brushed esc,
we got a brushed motor,
we got a set of driveshafts,
we got a carbon comp chassis,
we got stainless steel straight links,
we got 24.4:1 gears,
we got a gearbox case,
we got a stock front axle,
we got a stock servo holder,
we got a stock chassis,
we got stainless steel bent links,
we got a stock gearbox and gears,
we got a stock rear axle,
we got servos,
we got 53mm shocks,
we got proper ballrace bearings for everything (none of that bushing shit),
we got radio receivers,
we got a bank balance that may have taken a little bit of a hit XD.

We're waiting on more driveshafts,
we're waiting on more axles,
we're waiting on a carbon fibre battery holder.

We haven't decided on a set of shocks for the carbon comp chassis.

Yeah, just a little bit of stuff :D

I have most of the parts I need now, ordered if not received. Still deciding on whether to get standard 53mm shocks or extended 59mm shocks for the carbon comp chassis.

I wanted to get in to building the stock chassis car over the weekend, but I just wasn't feeling up to it. Been feeling pretty shit the past couple of weeks :/

I'll take some photos soon and you can see all the parts I've got. It'll be nice to build one of these cars soon too, just struggling with a brain and body that refuse to function lately.

>>39656 Yeah, the cheeky little buggers tried to escape! XD

EEK! THEY LIVE!

This is the body I'm going to put on the stock chassis. It's a close copy of a Toyota FJ40. I'm also thinking I'll 3D print some bodies for these cars in the future.

The stock cars use 180 brushed motors, but performance at low rpm is apparently not great. Running a brushless motor is preferable.

I've ordered a super cheap open-source ESC from China, called an AM32, and a cheap brushless motor to try out. All in about £24!

The stock ESC is built in to the Traxxas ECM, which also contains the receiver. I don't want to use the Traxxas radio gear so I'm looking to see if I can find a cheap little brushed esc so I can check all that out.

The standard battery is a 750mah 7.4V lipo. The best performance using a brushless motor is to gear down and use 3S, 11.1V lipo instead. I'm not sure how room there will be under the body of the stock chassis currently so I'm waiting for that to arrive so I can measure up and find a battery to fit.

Do they normally use brushed or brushless motors? And what battery will fit?

It's a stock transmission and plastic gears, but I've already replaced the sintered bushings with ball-race bearings. I have some metal gears ordered too which are a different ratio and will be better for slow rock crawling than these stock gears.

But no axles to link to currently :D

The links for the carbon chassis arrived too, but I can't fit them until the skid plate arrives for that one.

Neat!