Scaling a TRX4 Sport factory body and general build thread

[FJC_GUY]

Time to start playing with weight distribution.

 

[Greywolf74]

Ill see your 12oz and raid you 6.5oz more!

 

[FJC_GUY]

Ill see your 12oz and raid you 6.5oz more!

View attachment 154821

12oz? That's a full box of 1/4 oz weights. Serious time.

 

[Greywolf74]

12oz? That's a full box of 1/4 oz weights. Serious time.

LOL, I just see the one layer of 48 1/4oz weights. I didnt know you had a whole box.

 

[FJC_GUY]

LOL, I just see the one layer of 48 1/4oz weights. I didnt know you had a whole box.

I probably won't use the whole box of 40 3oz strips.

 

[Doom!]

At least you don't have to worry if there is a radiation leak.

 

[FJC_GUY]

At least you don't have to worry if there is a radiation leak.

I like my techs so we use steel weights. They get exposed to enough crap with all the welding and fabrication we do.


It's a scale build so I'm shooting for scale realism. I've corner weighed a lot of Tacomas and Jeeps, a well kitted Tacoma is going to run between 5k and 6k lbs.

So my truck needs to be about 50lbs right? Might need a couple more upgrades, probably a few more metal parts.

EDIT: LOL, forgot a decimal place. 1/10th would be 500lbs. My wheel/tire package on my FJC weighs 85lbs per corner and my wheels are only 28lbs of that. I think I'm going to have to go brushless and do some gearing changes if I want to run 8lbs per corner on the TRX4.

Really though, things like that are why I don't take "scale building" terribly seriously. It's kind of an "eye of the beholder" type thing.

 

[FJC_GUY]

Played with weight a little last night. For the chassis to have enough weight to compress the suspension like I, as a person that works with real off road trucks every day, thinks it should I have 12oz in the front and 8 in the rear. My drivetrain is pretty light with the aluminum housings and caster blocks. adding weight there isn't going to get the suspension loaded like it should be though.

Supposed to get a break from the rain tomorrow, hard to believe it was in the 80s just over a week ago. Plan to take it out to my spot, assuming it's not flooded now lol, and see how it runs. Weight is just getting zip tied to the cross members tonight then I can see how it does with it, then remove it easily and see the difference.

 

[FJC_GUY]

Spent some time adding weight to the truck Friday night, 20oz total, 12oz just forward of the front axle on the frame and 8 just behind the rear axle on the frame. Total weight right about 10lbs 6oz now.

Also printed another set of wheels with a little more negative offset and put together a set of my 24mm lights to test fitment and durability. I didn't do any finish work on the light buckets yet, just cleaned up some of the printing artifacts, threw together some lenses and hot glued them to the bumper. I think painted and finished they will look pretty good. I made the face ring as a separate piece so it could be colored different than the housing. I think I might try to do a lens in clear PETG because if I do a concentric print pattern I "think" it will look pretty cool. Don't know until I try.

Speaking of transparent PETG. I printed the new battery tray in transparent because it's what was in the printer when I wanted to print it, playing around I threw a little light strip on it under the battery. Lot's of light lol.

Pics and a long video of a bunch of clips below, there is a slow motion section that is fun to see how the rear bumper takes an impact. Performed well, the weight made a huge difference. The wheels hold the bead very well, especially considering these are the $20 Hobbypark tires. Which are also performing well, and much better with the new weight. About 2.5 hours of run time on them now and they don't show any wear. I thought I was going to pull the bead a couple times when I bound them up but nope, the $20 tires and foams are doing well at this weight. There are a couple spots in the video clips when you can see them pulling the bead pretty hard.

At some point I intend to get into editing video but for now I just shoot clips and string them all together. Not trying to be famous, just raw footage of how it performs.

I'm really happy with how the truck is coming along from both an appearance and performance perspective. Now that I know the parts work I need to spend some time doing some finish work on them.

 

[Doom!]

Love the belly light!

 

[FJC_GUY]

Love the belly light!

It's so bright. I was just playing around while I was tearing the printhead apart on my printer. That is shining through the battery tray. I have 12ft of that orange LED strip. Might cut a couple of pieces and run them under the sides behind the sliders. Need to see how low they will function voltage wise. That is hooked directly into a 3s pack. The strip used in the picture is about 6 LEDs long and draws .12 amps so two of them might be ok. Probably need to get a controller so I can just hook them to an available receiver channel because I don't think I would want them on all the time.

I am thinking I'm going to need to regear with the added weight now. I'm still running the stock servo and motor, motor was getting a little warm after the weight addition. Probably be fine through the winter but I need to keep it in mind as the weather warms up in the spring.

 

[FJC_GUY]

Made some progress this week. Completely updated my lighting. Got the revised bumper printed, badly painted due to forgetting my can of flat black was bad the last time I used it. Revised pod lights done. I have a revision of the rear bumper but the print is giving me some issues so I added lenses to the integrated reverse lights. In the revision I'm going to try something a little harder with the rear bumper lamps and try to integrate a small brake lamp into the reverse light. We will see.

And yes that is the Sports fake winch in the bumper. I needed to fill that hole and because of vet bills with the cat I won't be ordering a winch for a while. It's funny because one of the first things I did with this truck was take that off.

In the video you may see the left rear tire has a wobble. I had a bad print on the last wheel and the inner is slightly tilted. I was out of that filament so it had to wait. Drives fine but I try not to look at that side to much when it's moving lol.


First design

New design

 

[Doom!]

Gettin' better each time. The lights are lookin' really good. Been fun to watch the bumpers evolve.

 

[FJC_GUY]

Thank you.

My wife just left to visit her mom for the day so I just loaded up a couple batteries and my tools and am heading out to my spot for a bit.

 

[FJC_GUY]

Yesterday I was not quite joking about turning this at a slightly larger scale into an intake for a 40mm ducted right onto the motor.

Then I found this and I'm sold on the project. Funny enough it's a fan intake for an Ender printer but it is the perfect size for what I want.

I'm working on it in fusion to add some mounting locations to the scoop and have a duct down to the motor.

The motor sits quite a ways back and below the hood and since my servo is mounted at the end of the frame instead of at the shock towers I've got a pretty straight shot down to the motor.

Lots of room for a duct, I've also been thinking about a different body and I'll do an interior with that so maybe even print a duct integrated with a different style body mount. I'm not sold on magnets having them on the wife's scout, but I think I might work on a somewhat disguised screw down style mount.

Don't judge my wiring. I mounted all the lights earlier in the week then ended up just throwing it together so I could go crawl on Saturday. It was all zip tied up but if I left it like that I would never go back and finish it so I clipped the zip ties.

 

[Doom!]

Love the intake!

 

[FJC_GUY]

I've had the inner fender extensions for the TRX4 Sport sitting in a drawer for a couple of years, don't know why I never installed them but last weekend I decided to throw them in. Wish I had done it earlier. We got some crappy wet snow yesterday that was turning to rain when I got home but I wanted to go play.

The first year I had my Sport I ran it in the snow before I installed the inner fenders. Packed the entire body full of snow, pretty sure the reason I broke an axle was because the truck weighed about 20 pounds when I went to pick it up.

I installed the inner fenders and it helped keep the inside pretty clean but it still got a fair amount of snow in it.

Last night with the extensions when I pulled the body off there was nothing inside, clean and dry.

 

[FJC_GUY]

Wife got me some parts for the TRX4, some I asked for and some I didn't.

First is the TRX4 Sport Camper body. When I bought the Sport I fully intended to dump the body and go to something licensed. As I've run it and modified it thought the Sport body has really grown on me. Having designed the bumpers I'm currently running specifically for the Sport body I was struggling because I wanted a kind of big change but didn't want to re-invent the wheel. Then I remembered the 8112 Sport Camper body from Traxxas.

It will fit with the bumpers and fenders exactly like the current body, my wife got the Traxxas light housings and Accessories for it so it will all be direct fit. I'm going to run an interior at some point so I'm going to leave the windows clear but I will probably throw the stickers on the outside in the back because I think it will take me a while to get to the rear interior.

Then as you can see in the accessories picture she got me the HW Fusion Pro 2300 2n1.

I swapped it in and wow! I loved my HW 1080 and brushed motor and will probably buy a roller to put it in but this thing is next level control wise. I made a couple of minor tweaks based on the settings I used on my 1080 and holy crap is it smooth. It's pouring down rain after the recent ice storm so I didn't go out for long but man I was impressed in the quick run I put in.

At this point, hype deserved.

 

[Doom!]

Nice!

 

[FJC_GUY]

Paint turned out ok. Probably the wrong choice of color for my first body paint since the 90's but for the abuse it's going to take it will work.

Little bit of hazing I think caused by coating too heavy and not long enough between coats for the humidity.

Should get the headlights, tail lights, ,mirrors and snorkel installed tonight.

Totally forgot I needed a long set of body posts for the rear so set the printer to work before I left this morning.