Axial Racing/bender Customs Swx Chassis Kit

[TWINSET]

Been playing with this for a few weeks now - and had a good run out a couple of weekends back at Bradgate Park.

Probably the single biggest benefit to prospective buyers of this chassis over any other is that it's designed primarily to replace the stock Ax-10 chassis setup.

As such, it's a piece of cake to convert a stock AX-10 into a Bender rig

The kit includes replacement chassis sides, suspension links, plate braces and even the skid plate.

As they're designed 'with a purpose', converting the stock truck couldn't be simpler.

The design of the skidplate is also worth a mention - the bottom face extends underneath the sideplates, so the chassis sides are never 'bottomed' on the rocks - all the rock ever hits is delrin.

The skid also has a channel on it's underside, running front-to-back so that if the truck does belly out, it can only 'slide' forwards or backwards onto it's wheels, and not slide off to the side and roll over.

For the sake of the shakedown, the kit has been built mainly stock, with the odd 'necessary' mods.

Namely;

Stock tyres were replaced with Proline Flat Irons (already mounted to GMade weighted rims)

I personally find the stock Rock Lizard tyres a touch hard so swapped them out for a tyre I'm familiar with.

I think most drivers contamplating replacing the chassis will have replaced the tyres by now anyway.

The battery was 'saddle packed' over the front axle.

This was more of a necesssity than a preference though, as the stock chassis's battery plate cannot be used on this chassis kit without a lot of DIY, plus placing the battery back up on top would severely hamper the 'new' truck's ability.

The battery halves were zip-tied to the axles, either side of the steering servo.

Because the battery plate is not used, the ESC and receiver also need a new home.

I'm using the kit Y pieces for the top links (as this keeps the links a set 'size'), so I made triangular 'decks' to mount the electrics to - a couple of credit-card sized pieces of plastic and eight or so zip ties are all you'd need

And so, to the assembly;

Building the chassis into the truck is painless - there are a couple of screws mentioned that I couldn't find in the stock kit, but there were plenty of alternatives to chose from.

The supplied manual does need reading once or twice - there are two sets of instructions for building the 'rear' when one of them is actually the front!

The assembly drawings are very good though, so using them as a double-check is adviseable - I built the 'real' rear using the long spacer for the Y piece and nothing's exploded yet!

There were four small spacers left over at the end of the build - I used them to space the shocks from the chassis plates

The whole build is remarkably straightforward - I started with a new kit and a chassis set at about 17:40 and by midnight was only left with electrics to mount and wheels to build (household ban on drilling after 22:00)

The truck was ready to be run by the 8th of November (which considering I started on the 4th is nothing short of impressive for me) but a problem with my car meant the maiden crawl on the 9th couldn't happen.

I did, however, get the chance to give it a good run at Bradgate on Dec 6th though and was left very impressed;

Now that the weight of the battery is down off the top-plate, torque twist isn't so much of a problem - the original design was pre-disposed to a fair bit of roll, just because of the high battery location, let alone the drivetrain's extra influence.

With the high weight gone, if there was any twist the shocks could easily right it - the shocks were built totally stock (kit spring, kit oil, no preload on any of them), and I didn't notice it twisting much at all.

For general crawling, the truck felt very agile - at times it seemed very light, even though the wheels probably accounted for a good 1/2-3/4kg of the running weight.

Traction through the new Flat Irons wasn't great, but after a bit of scrubbing they imporoved.

The truck had no problem following Rich and John's comp rigs about, and it was frequently out climbing Pete's Rock Force.

The chassis and consequent refinements make it a very capable climber - the lower slopes were easilly 60+ degrees and it scaled them no problem - sidesloping the same inclines was equally carefree - the only time it lost any footing, was more down to poor traction and sliding sideways down the face, rather than the old 'top heavy' roll.

Indeed, it never felt like it would roll at any point, traction was always the limiting factor (when there was one)

For 65 you'd be hard pressed to find a comparable chassis (in terms of quality of build or simplicity of installation) and it's not just a bit of pointless bling, it really does add to the AX-10's already impressive performance.

Having given it a good run on the Saturday, I can't think of anything that needs changing really - although my steering links are now black!

[DudeWalker]

Sweet rig. Thanks for the pics.

[CR-01nut]

That looks sharp, i am not a fan of "moon buggy's like the axail but that is sweet! just needs a scale shell.