Blackfoot, stiff front end.

[ST]

Hi,

Yesterday I went ahead and bought the Blackfoot, I immediately traded the body with a polycarbonate body and decals from a Bison, as the shop would not let me keep the Blackfoot decals saying that they wanted to keep it as a complete set and they did not have an extra set. I assembled it and had the body painted metallic purple, it looks great with the Mad Bison decals. What I am really disappointed in is the front end. As well as the crappy shocks the front end is a bit stiff. In fact I removed the rubber from the shocks and letting the front end pivots do the damping until it wears in a little. I also don't like the steering geometry, it's in such a way that as the front end bottoms out the steering rods push the wheels inwards towards each other. Other than that it's a great truck, it is faster than the Dagger out of the box and can't wait to install a hot motor and ESC and shocks of course. Any ideas about the motor? I thought that a 19-22 turn motor is more than enough. What esc should I get? I want one which is not too expensive yet fuctional and reliable.

Regards

[DerAlex]

Blackfoot, Super Blackfoot or King Blackfoot [?]

[Shodog]

I am assuming you bought a king blackfoot. Try loosening the bolts on the radius rods. This will allow the front suspension to move more freely. The stock shocks suck plain and simple. There are all kinds of replacement shocks out there. For the steering mount the ball ends on the underside of the knuckle arm. This will reduce bump steer somewhat. I would get rid of the steering bell crank setup and run some steering rods straight from a servo saver connceted directly to the servo

Jim

[ST]

Sorry for not being specific about what kind of Blackfoot, I didn't know there were three, it's actually the King Blackfoot. I did manage to loosen some of the stiffness of the front end. I re-installed the rubber tubes in the front shocks but this time I smeared some petroleum jelly in them, and with about 1 cm of preload, I ended out with a super smooth front end. I wouldn't recommend petroleum jelly in the rear shocks because the springs are a little bit stiffer and would end up with nearly no damping.

Hi Jim (shodog), can you please give me more details about how I should connect the steering rods?

Regards