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A while back, I tried to turn my Konghead into a trail runner/light crawler. It did ok, but the lack of ground clearance and tallish gearing, even with an outrunner motor, left me somewhat wanting. It looked fantastic, but just didn't perform the way I envisioned. So I tore it back down, put the stock wheels back on, opened up the diffs, dropped in a 3300kv brushless and ripped around the backyard a few times. Very fun chassis. I've had my eye on the Dynahead for a while - the portals would solve both of my problems...but it was quite expensive stateside. A recent significant drop in price overcame my hesitations and I decided to order one. To keep life simple, I used my existing built Kong chassis and just built the portals. Relocked the diffs and bolted them on. So many bearings bushings, and gears.... everything fits perfectly as expected with a Tamiya kit and they spin super smooth and quiet. I'm not sure how Tamiya manages that since this truck has by my count a stunning 54 gears/mating surfaces (!!) Eventually I'll build the Dyna chassis (with about a pound of bearings) and rebuild the Kong as it was such a fun and unique runner. But for now, it's trail time! View under the hood. I used dual servos for 4WS, rear channel is set to run independently on the ch3 switch of my GT3B radio so I can swing the rear tires as needed. I redid the rear linkage slightly as mine tended to bind up in one direction - the servo would easily overextend the bellcrank and it would lock up. I fashioned an 10mm extension for the bellcrank and a more direct link and now it swings perfectly. For electronics, I used a crawler grade WP1080 and a Holmes 5 slot Crawlmaster which with its lower RPM and super smooth control is perfect for this chassis. Decided to go with the Dynahead body, though I ditched the factory scheme and went with something a little more "Prime" inspired. I think it came out great! A bit plain I guess, thinking about something to break up the blue a bit. I used some 1.9 beadlocks and a few sets of Gmade Sawback tires which fit the body perfectly and are decently grippy. Front wheels have just a few grams of weight inside to balance out the chassis. And a few flex shots. Not a ton, but more than enough for this chassis. I'm using the Mini CVA's and a few sets of option CC01 barrel springs so I have a few springs rates to play with. It feels great on the bench - suspension is somewhat soft and supple, but not too much so. Of course, the week I finished this up, we received about 10 inches of snow. so a true trail test will have to wait a bit I'm afraid.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to build a Recovery Boom for the back of my Dynahead, and was wondering if anyone's done something similar before. I was thinking an aluminum Wrecker arm with a winch at the base. Currently, my rig's the only one that's not getting bogged down in stuff and I'm thinking of using the Recovery Boom to go fetch the other drivers' rigs when they get stuck :p