Father of Dragons(Bakugan Dragonoid monster truck replica)

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Other than the lighting, this one is done :) Need to put some heavier shock oil in as well, it's a little too springy with 32wt.

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Fire and Ice...Ying and Yang....

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Got the lighting finished. Added a flag :)

Those shocks leak like hell. In fact they are horrendous. Soooo. Going to use some of the leftover internal spring skinny shocks I had from the Fire version, and put oil in those with no springs to use as dampeners.

Put a flag on the Fire as well :)

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Gonna take these out this week and get everything dialed in. Also probably going to do a new body for the Fire, with realistic flames, and keep this busted body for practice runs. Maybe something like this(excuse my crappy photoshop skills):

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Man I love those trucks. Pardon me if this was mentioned somewhere in this thread and I just missed it but what trucks are those built on?
 
Man I love those trucks. Pardon me if this was mentioned somewhere in this thread and I just missed it but what trucks are those built on?

They are built from Kyosho Mad Crushers. The Fire has almost no stock parts at all - the frame, pretty much everything all custom CF and aluminum. The Ice version is using more stock parts (basically the leftovers), but has modified suspension and steering and drivetrain. Both are very purpose built, removing the 3 speed transmission for single speed that is made for going 0-50ft very quickly and sacrificing some top end in the process. At some point I really want to find a set of aluminum axles for the Ice version, but for now stuck with the stock ones.
 
Took em both out for a bit of testing, and getting my track layout tweaked.

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Ice Dragonoid really jumped much better with the improved suspension, but those Firestorms, uh, they gotsta go!! Truck was insanely squirrelly and impossible to control. Fire Dragonoid was super dialed in, cornered like a beast and had good traction. I won't say great though - more on that.

My track I got set up pretty good, but it's painfully obvious that my speed trap ramp is far too narrow. I need to pretty much double it's width. I will make two "extender" ramps and move the reflectors to the outside of those, and have latches that will attach the extenders to the main ramp.

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I also need to finish the start ramp, which has a piece that butts up against the rear for trucks to drive up onto the platform. That's always been the plan though. Once I get this finished, tested, I'm going to start planning my racing series events, maybe early September or late August for that. I'd like to squeeze in four, but this year it'll probably be three.

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Back to the trucks though. I've concluded that the Firestorms are totally worthless racing tires. Some people at other events have told me so as well, most everyone is running Renegades. The difference is pretty startling IMO. Putting the Firestorms on that truck made it go from a pretty decent handling machine to a nightmare of spinning and drifting sideways with even the tiniest blip of the throttle. I didn't want to put Renegades on that truck because it's geared lower, and I was trying to keep the tire size similar to the Firestorm, so I've ordered up a set of RC4WD B&H tires that are a pretty close match size wise, and have the similar back-cut tread like Firestorms.

I'm also considering locking the diffs in both trucks. Trying to keep these things planted and in a straight line in dirt is freaking impossible. I've got the extra spider gears in the Ice Dragonoid, but it's not making too much difference other than adding a little extra whine sound, lol.

All in all a nice little evening, at least with the Fire truck. Even with the narrow speed trap, I managed to put together some decent runs using some delicate throttle control. On a side note, I really, really wish somebody would make an aluminum roto start housing. These cheap plastic ones constantly break if you have any need to run the starter more than a few seconds - they heat up and literally melt or fall apart.
 
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Replaced the Firestorms with RC4WD B&H tires, these things look like some SERIOUS earth eaters! I also put 10k wt oil in the diffs. Working on the Dragonoid Fire now doing the same mods. Adding these tires added about 1/4 lb or so over the Firestorms - the sidewalls are roughly the same height, but the width is more, and the treads are obviously significantly larger and scalloped. Hopefully this solves the traction issues. And hopefully by doing so it doesn't create other problems like exploding drive/swing shafts. Probably should be a little leary of doing wide open throttle hole shots :D

This truck is just under 13 lbs, so the other one is going to be just under 14 with these changes.
 
Spent some time on my Dragonoids. I've got a customer to build a body for, err make that two. It's tedious work, but it's Winter and I've got a ton of free time. For mine, I tore the engine down to inspect, cleaned it up and re-assembled. I broke out my Dremel and put on a buffer tool and polished up one of my bodies for the "Fire" version. This body has been through hell and back, but looks pretty fresh again :D

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Mechanically, the truck is dialed in. I worked on the transmitter programming some on it too. Both of my Dragonoids are now using the Spectrum DX5-Rugged. Feeling pretty good about these two for the No Limit RC World Finals in May. Gotta work on Pouncer and Predator next for that as well, and get them switched over to the DX5. BTW, I am probably going to sell off a couple of transmitters soon, as I really don't need all of these spares.

As for the two I'm building for customers, one is another one for none other than Camden Murphy, the driver of the 1:1 truck :D Camden wanted a spare body because he's actually going to start running his and didn't want to mess up the one I made for him last year that is pristine. So I had some spare parts, and formed another main body this weekend. Meanwhile, this morning he sent me some pics of the one from last year that he got mounted on a Losi LMT, and it looks great on that chassis!

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Camden took a cool pic, showing the 1:1 behind the 1:8!

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I also got his "spare" done, just had to paint up another main body section which took very little time. Not too bad for a beater body. And I still have an entire spare body of my own for my personal backup.

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@johnnydmd The pic with the 1/1 is freakin' awesome. you should have one framed and hanging on the wall. 😍
Agreed! One with the actual driver of Demonoid holding the RC truck in front of the 1:1 would be a goal after all the work on this. This belongs in a freakin magazine, full spread, and gracing the cover.
 
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Weekend of printing and prepping some of the pieces. Each of these is mounted on plywood so that suction can occur and pull it tight around the bottom edges. In the case of the wing, the main wood section is supported off of the platen and I will drill holes all around the perimeter for suction around the edges. Printed at 50% infill, they are pretty solid and should hold up ok, plus I'll have them cooled prior to forming to help offset any heat coming from the lamps or the hot PETG sheet when it's dropped on them. Surfaces are coated with epoxy resin and will be sanded where needed as well. I'm confident the wing will form very well, but slightly concerned about the head - may need to drill some tiny holes in some of the crevices like around the eye to get the PETG to form tight, but will try first without holes.

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I'm going to make a couple of these bodies with different color schemes. The first one will be fitted to my T Maxx racer(I am growing quite the collection of custom bodies for that thing!), but the second one will be for a new solid axle project that I've been planning for a long time but just haven't gotten around to seeing it through. I'm contemplating which platform to go with - it's going to be nitro regardless, but not sure yet whether or not to get a new Mad Crusher and just start hopping it up, or get a new SMT10 kit and convert to nitro. Not sure if it's doable actually, and I wonder if anyone has? I've seem some Ground Pounder nitro conversions though, but I don't think I want a Ground Pounder, SMT10 has way more aftermarket stuff.
Looks great, well done
 
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