Munchbox

As i've been getting my vintage Blackfoot back into running condition i've had a thought about the front end. To begin with I have wanted to run Lunchbox wheels and tires on this build since I started refurbishing it but the crazy big front c hubs wont allow the Lunchbox wheels to fit. The other major thing I see is that the very short front arms cause the suspension to want to bind up rather than pivot, forcing excess stress into the joints and c hubs rather than into the suspension as it should. Being that I have a dt03 I couldn't help but wonder if any of the arms would be close enough in length/width to do the trick. After a bit of measuring and comparing parts, test fitting, i've decided that I think I can use the upper front arms of the dt03, trimmed slightly in a few places, as lower front arms for the Blackfoot. Bolting the arms straight onto the metal carriers for the original front arms would work fine. The c hubs from the dt03 would work perfectly with this and I could use a turnbuckle for the upper arm of the double wishbone. Lunchbox spindles fit the dt03 c hubs perfectly. This would produce a setup with better geometry for the front suspension (longer arms, smaller c hubs) and would allow the use of the cheap and cheerful Lunchbox wheel/tire setup. It would also increase the front track width by about 3/4" overall. The front shocks will have to be longer and will tie in to the lower arms. I know I could run the Lunchbox spindles, spaced properly, on the Blackfoot c hubs and still fit the Lunchbox wheels on but it seems like there is definitely the potential for some good increases in handling with a setup like this. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Yeah, the 3prka is my #1. The one that came with my HPI is #2 and the gool is #3. I believe the HPI one is a combo receiver/brushed ESC.

The EPA for the steering on mine isnt housed with the other controls. It's on a small wheel by my left thumb, sort of next to the steering wheel.

I have a Futaba 3prka ($65 us) and a Goolrc tg3 ($30 us). The Futaba is leaps and bounds ahead of the gool. The gool feels much cheaper to begin with. After a few runs the steering wheel decided it wanted to turn further than it was supposed to and then got stuck there. Some modification was necessary to return it to working order and ensure that it wouldn't break like that again. For $65 you can't go wrong with the Futaba. It has a great feel and has all the EPA stuff you're looking for.

I don't have any first hand experience with the fx10 setup but I've heard it's just as tough as the stock setup. If I were going to go double wish bone up front I would definitely go fx10. I've heard that the Ampro parts are a much simpler setup because they bolt straight on but the fx10 parts need some working to get them just right. The way I abuse my Lunchbox I would have to go fx10. Ive already noticed stress bends in the stock A arms and I've only had the truck since last Christmas.

So I finally decided to do a partial restore on my vintage Blackfoot. I ordered the necessary parts trees and set to work replacing parts. It has new rear trailing arms and mounts and new shock mounts for the rear shocks. Up front I replaced the cracked c hubs and steering knuckles. The rear end has been rebuilt with custom pressure plates for the gearbox sides and the current gen Blackfoot cvds. I mounted a 27t HPI Saturn motor. All moving parts on the car were removed and scrubbed free of an unknown wretched black goo. The rear body mounts were trimmed down to allow the new body to sit more level. The body is a Traxxas Stampede. The tires are Stadium Blitzer mounted on stock Blackfoot wheels. Lunchbox tires were my original idea for this truck but it seems they don't fit the Blackfoot wheels and the Lunchbox wheels don't fit the Blackfoot front end. I am considering oil shocks but I want to look at options for strengthening the weak points of the chassis and see how my pressure plates and the gearbox hold up. It's miles beyond where it started but if it runs well in this form I'll work the suspension a bit more and probably do a full tear down and rebuild.

That motor should be ok for the Lunchbox on the standard pinion. If you want to use the Hornet 18t pinion I'd run a sub 3000kv. (Mines 2400). You are also going to want to make some upgrades to the suspension along with the bigger motor. Oil shocks, 5th shock, front end brace are musts to help keep the truck on its wheels. A lexan body does wonders for bringing down the center of gravity and is an often overlooked mod for this chassis.. I'm considering the fx10 front end to fix the horrendous bumpsteer. My stock a arms are pretty bent now anyways.

I actually have a set of steel diff plates that seem to have worked fine for the short time I had run the car. Tightening them properly (tight enough not to spread, not too tight that it constricts the gear motion) is a pain when I need to take the gearbox apart. I also actually had a King Blackfoot at one point too. Was dropped in my lap as junk and I decided to tear down, restore and return to the owner rather than keep it myself. Was a wreck when I got it, was a very workable vehicle when I returned it. I guess I'm asking more to see how they went about doing this; whomever had commented about it before. Looking at the two cars side by side it seems like it would be fairly simple possibly with the inclusion of some simple brackets to mount the rear end and shocks to the chassis. Another one I wonder about is the front suspension. Are the c hubs a weak point or am I just dealing with old plastic?

I don't remember where I heard it but I recall reading that someone had done a Blackfoot with a Lunchbox rear end to circumvent the gearbox issues. I have a vintage Blackfoot that I'd like to make into a runner but it seems some of the parts (trailing arms, c hubs) are pretty fatigued and cracked. I broke one of the C's last time I ran it, hardly scraping on of the front tires against a garage door. So my Lunchbox is probably the toughest rc I have and I wouldn't mind downgrading the technology a bit to lend some of that to the Blackfoot. Anyone know anything about this?

I like that Turnip. Driven beyond it's limits and those of it's driver. This is the essence of a basher. I respect the guys who put hours into collecting, detailing, racing, hunting down that rare part to complete their collection. But for me the fun has always been driving the car with reckless abandon and modifying it to take more. Go faster, handle better, last longer. It's also fun trying to chase down modern designs with much simpler designs. My dt03 getting snuggly with a Rock Rey and a TenSCBE comes to mind. Not fair by any stretch but it's a blast to try.

What about Basher: A car that is driven mercilessly and upgraded/rebuilt as parts break. I guess it fits into the Runner category as well but Twinsets description is much too gentle for what I do with my cars.

I have recently tried some Stadium Blitzer tires mounted on Blackfoot rims on my Lunchbox. They look a little funny but what a difference in traction over the stock chevrons! I think I could also run my Hpi mud thrashers on the Blackfoot rims or run the Blitzer tires on the HPI rims nd mount them on my Dt03. I may get some Blitzer wheels for my Dt03 and do it that way. Any other interesting wheel and tire options for these 2 cars? Besides the stock chevrons will fit on the 2 inch Lunchbox wheels?

Both of my brushless motors (15.5t, 2400kv in Lunchbox and 10.5, 3600kv in my Dt03) get hot. They're both sensored brushless and don't cog unless you're physically pushing the car around with your hand. Both cars run the largest pinions available and both have loads of torque. The runtimes are similar to the original brushed motors I was running with smaller pinions but they're both much faster than stock. I recommend this kv rating and setup for both cars, it keeps them both pushed right to the limit of their handling.

King the Lunchbox and Hornet share the same gearbox the difference is that the Hornet uses a shorter 18 tooth pinion and no motor spacer mount. The motor goes straight to the gearbox making lots of room for the shocks. The stock LB pinion is a 10 tooth so you'll need a medium kg brushless or high kv/lipo setup to keep enough torque to do wheelies. The 2400kv I use is perfect for this and was neck and neck when I drag raced a Pumpkin with a sport tuned motor (on the 10 tooth pinion) I think it topped out at 17 mph was what the gps said. On the 18 tooth pinion I have clocked 28mph. A word of warning: you will not want to use the Hornet pinion unless you are using a brushless motor. Your ESC will be bouncing off the thermal limiter in just a few minutes with a Sport tuned brushed motor.

King, I run Blackfoot cvas on my non double wish bone front Lunchbox. I built the fronts to a length for neutral camber and the rear to match standard ride height. I use the brass colored (rear BF) springs on the front of my Lunchbox and silver springs on the rear. The ride is great. With this setup, third shock mod and a front strut brace it was ready for brushless. So I went with a 2400kv sensored brushless motor and that was pretty close to your Sport Tuned but with tons more torque. Runtimes were insane. 60+ mins on a 3000mah NIMH. Of course that wasn't enough so I switched to the Hornet pinion and lost the Lunchbox motor mount. This made tons of clearance for my motor from the rear shocks and close to doubled my top speed. All the torque in that brushless motor means I'm still doing great wheelies too, just that I can make 28mph in a straight line. Funny thing is I still don't think I want to try the front double wish bone setup. The front seems fine at full speed even on bumps but my main problem is traction. I was thinking maybe spiked Chevron tires next time around..

MagicLube. It's a ptfe (Teflon) based waterproof lube for pool valves and the like. Works excellent on nylon gears and metal. It's a good bit sticky so it makes for a limited slip feel in an otherwise open rear end setup.

I think Jason or someone around did a Nissan Titan dt03

No but I'd go for the Nissan Titan body. It makes the DT03 into more of a SCT, the large body soaking up a lot of the impact from crashes and such.

My brother uses small pieces of rubber tubing inside the cup before the dog bone goes in to fill out the play in the dog bones. Similar to the Tamiya o ring and seems to work well.

First one was a Traxxas Stampede when I was a kid.. Now 31, I got a Lunchbox from my Dad last Xmas and the first I bought was a Dt03 Racing Fighter. Since I have bought an original Blackfoot that's in pieces and an HPI Wheely King. My favorite is still the Lunchbox which regularly makes 28-30mph. I am starting to Jones for a SCT after driving my brothers' ECX Torment 4wd. Amazing truck in a loose dirt/sand situation which is generally what we run on.

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I'm interested in the steering mod. The stock KBF has super sloppy steering. It seems like facing the servo forward a la the original Blackfoot would be a huge improvement. What steering setup did you end up with?

Well you chose the appropriate car for the job. As the name implies it excels at busting clods of all sorts

Actually there are plenty of guys running 2s lipo on the tble02s. I've run several lipos through my Lunchbox and Dt03, both running the tble02s though I usually run NIMH. The problem there is the low voltage cutoff. Way too low for lipos. You need a low voltage alarm, supposedly cheap on eBay, to run lipos safely and effectively with the tble02s.

I have some steel plates I made for a vintage Blackfoot that have never even been used. They don't look spectacular but should work just fine. I tried the frogshot thing and broke my tap off in the cup trying to thread it. The cups aren't made from soft metal by any means and the thread has to be fairly deep to work. This makes it a challenging option to say the least. I also have a set of Blackfoot universals that I bought for it that I don't need if you're interested (and in the US) send me a PM and I'm sure we can work something out.