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Andyrt200

Some little Blackfoot Xtream mods

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Nothing exactly ground breaking, but I thought someone may like looking at the pics…

As I got it hardly used & unpainted:

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A spare shell I had:

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Some other wheels, but the tyres were too small for gearing & the arches.

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Advertised as fully ball raced, I asked him if he’d done the gear box & got a blank look back!

So I finished ball racing it & fitted with some oil shocks it was very good:

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I decide to try brushless out with it for the first time – amazing! Only I then managed to break one the front upper wish bone / suspension arm mounts. So I ordered the alloy damper mount thinking that would solve my problem, but when it turned up I found it still needed the original suspension mounts to be inplace (obvious really) so I had to get a new ones, but the alloy plate will strengthen them. Only trouble was it needs longer shocks so I had to dig about to find some, I need to get four silver ones so I can fit the rear shock mount & the light blue shocks look rubbish! They do give more suspension travel, but the problem with that is the front tyres catch on the proper body on hard landings now!

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I tried a bit of strengthening where I found my King BF broke, just a bit of plastex in the middle:

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At the front I snapped the usual lower corner off on one of the first outings, so stuck that back on with plastex but filled the bolt holes with plastex too & bonded the grill in with fibreglass (fibreglass can be just about removed if needed, plastex can't with out cutting). It spreads the load evenly over the body from the grill when you hit something, when there is just the screw the hole weakens the body & puts all the force in that week spot though the bolt.

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Looks much better with out the bolt in the arch too:

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I sprayed it with Tamiya metallic black & clear over that but wasn’t very happy about the lack of shine, it’s not much shiner than the original plastic finish. Shame as the other solid colour Tamiya paints I’ve used had a lovely deep shine.

The roll bar was the last mod, I find they always snap in the middle, for my king I tried gluing a screw into it:

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But it came out after a few hard rolls, so for this xtream I’m trying plastex reinforced with fibreglass matt, the plastex bonds to the plastic much better & fibreglass matt give it real strength:

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I decided to go with the original decals because the truck looked a little bland with out & I think they help mask the mismatching wheel base by loosing the definition at the back of the rear arches:

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I sanded the spikes of the tyres as the on road performance was rubbish, it's much better now & can still get up damp grass hills.

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I’ve always loved my original Blackfoot & thought the wheel base issue would really put me off, but actually with the decals it’s not too bad, I still don’t like its bland chassis though.

It is very nice to be able to take it out for a good bashing with out it breaking on every outing though, unlike the original! I think the flexible body mounts the xtream has help a lot with that, I’ve just tried to fix the other little problems.

So far so good with lots of heavy barrel rolls down the hill all I’ve broken is a spot light off the roll bar, that is one place it’s worse than the original, they could move freely round out of the way on the original these stop half way then snap off :(

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You have a nice setup on that Blackfoot

What shocks are those?

Thanks, they are Ansman, not amazing quality, but then they don't cost much either so can't complain! As long as they are working they do a good job.

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That looks like fun! I got a Blackfoot Extreme for my son. Its a hoot. Wish I lived closer to a beach. Only ever managed to get an RC on a beach once. Every time I go, there is never room in the car for my RC's :(

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I just bought the VW Amarok based off the WT-01 chassis. I bought larger dampers, but I noticed the suspension geometry was off compared to your pictures. I then noticed that your suspension arms are longer. Are those suspension arms from a certain type of blackfoot chassis? I'm guessing if I wanted a wider stance, I'd need to get replacement upper and lower suspension arms for front and rear, as well as longer dogbones.

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yes the arms are the Blackfoot/Dualhunter/Twin Detonator..

Yours are from another WT style kit but shorter.. I have installed the short ones on my Blackfoot kit as I wanted to draw the wheels inward.. I also installed Wild Willys 2 wheels

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yes the arms are the Blackfoot/Dualhunter/Twin Detonator..

Yours are from another WT style kit but shorter.. I have installed the short ones on my Blackfoot kit as I wanted to draw the wheels inward.. I also installed Wild Willys 2 wheels

Thanks for the info! I'm just getting back into the RC world and re-learning everything from scratch. Last car I had was an old Kyosho Tracker that I just got up and running after pulling it out of my parents' shed.

I love the VW Amarok kit, and I'm taking it as an opportunity to upgrade it nicely rather than just stick with what came in the box. Are there any recommended upgrades I should be doing chassis wise? I've already bought the taller metal shock mounts for the longer metal dampers that I also bought.

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I have black can motors on mine and a Traxxas xl5 ESC

I have to ask what parts tree does the lower front nerf bar come on in your kit?

I want that for my truck

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I have black can motors on mine and a Traxxas xl5 ESC

I have to ask what parts tree does the lower front nerf bar come on in your kit?

I want that for my truck

I'll have to check when I get home from work. Are you talking about the front bumper attached to the underside?

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I have black can motors on mine and a Traxxas xl5 ESC

I have to ask what parts tree does the lower front nerf bar come on in your kit?

I want that for my truck

 

So Jeff, I have 2 questions:

1.) Do you use plastic E-maxx shocks?

If yes, how do they perform?

2.) Do you use tamiya sport tuned motors?

If yes, aren't they timed? Do they run at the same speed?

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So Jeff, I have 2 questions:

1.) Do you use plastic E-maxx shocks?

If yes, how do they perform?

2.) Do you use tamiya sport tuned motors?

If yes, aren't they timed? Do they run at the same speed?

1) Yes I think they are E-MAxx ( I know they are traxxas)

They seem to work well for me

2) I don't recall, when I bought them there were a few variations in them, I need to check.. I did not think the ones I have were timed differently

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I have black can motors on mine and a Traxxas xl5 ESC

I have to ask what parts tree does the lower front nerf bar come on in your kit?

I want that for my truck

Front bumper doesn't come on a parts tree. It comes just by itself in one of the bags. Part# 19335744

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If you type into the search function 'WT01' (which is your chassis -except yours is the WT01N (narrow),shared by lots of other models) or 'WR01' which is the twin motor variant of the same chassis you'll get a huge amount of info and inspiration.

I love the chassis and as a family we run 5 of them and I'm currently building up a 6th.

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