Coldfire anybody ?

Was back in Singapore for holidays last week. Dropped by the local Tamiya distributor looking for a 'BIN'. I haven't seen the boss for months, so he kinda missed me ... so he gave me a really low low price for this blackfoot. I always wanted the original , but the driving gears (similar to Frogs) always gives me the think twice factor. When I opened the box, well... the body is a nice plastic one ! Loved it ... as always ... I was constantly bugged by my kids to get a monster truck with 'blue fire'. Paid for it with no seconds thoughts.... So here it is.... with another body from Frewer (lexan for bashing). This is quite a handsome body of a Ford F155.... Incidently this is my first time to paint a body with fades .. hope U guys like it.... as for the original body , that will be reserved for another SRB project...

Stock motor for test run , LRP ESC and a grand-daddy Futaba Attack (stick) for controls... drove it around the house and love it.... waiting to see how to do some hopups... mostly on the shocks I guess.

I will get to spraying the rims silver or gold , it still looks kinda yucky with yellow

It seems that I have shown more interest than my son on this truck , inevtably , mods creep in to make it a better runner ;-) ;-) ;-)


Updated (Mods):
1) Did away with the lousy friction shocks and replaced them with 4 Kyosho Platinum jobs. These fit the original without modification to the chassis, added a small length of fuel tubing on the shock shafts to prevent bottoming out 2) Changed the silver can to a type Tamiya type T , with a 20 tooth pinion , also tried a Yokomo 23 turn Super T as well with 20tooth pinion 3) Sprayed the wheels with Tamiya Silver leaf (TS13) and glued all the tires 4) ESC is LRP F1 5) Coiled the antenna wires around the body supports and did away with pipe 6) drilled extra hole on the batt retainers so that it can take 8.4V cells 7 ) Ball raced the whole thing 8 ) added a blue anodised heatsink , it faces downwards, push right against the chassis 9 ) modified all the battery connectors to deans type

Driving experience after mods:-
The truck did not bouced around a lot , and the handling is way much more responsive. At slow speeds, U can see the arms trace the bumps when the truck hits it. Also with the new shocks, the truck hunches backwards when U hit full throttle at standstill.... cool..... ;-) As for the motor , I think the Type T is a better bet , it gives the good top speed versus better running times than the Yokomo. With the Yokomo, the truck has a tad higher top speed with greater amount of torque. It tends to side sweep on hard braking, whereas with the Type T motor won't. The top speed is quite acceptable for something with such big tires. I run mostly on grass , steering is very responsive , but the truck can overturn on high speed turns on grass , but 70% of the time its stays on its feet !!! . On cement floors , it won't , maybe due to the less traction the tires has with cement . Its very stable on cement floor. As for the heatsink facing downwards, I have no problems it snaring the ground, after about 8 runs , its still mint , zero road rash. This car is such fun to drive as I don't have to worry about breaking it ... Another thing , with the Type T , U can push battery after battery through it .... it is just lukewarm to touch ( remember its summer now in Shanghai).... its really a whole lot of fun. With the Yokomo , its warmer , barely touchable. (runtime suffers)
In terms of torque, this gearbox has plenty . It will climb park slopes up to 45 degrees without any problems or any sense of slowing down, no it will tumble as well... I made an attempt to jump it on small mud humps , it always lands on it feet. All I can say is I want to run this again and again... A true basher and fun truck....
For the antenna coiled on the mouting post, I have no problems running the truck up to 150m each side ( right and left ) , so that saves an additional hassle of threading.

I was mucking around with some of the spare arms from Schumacher CAT2000, it will be great with an extended reach of about 1 cm on each side, problem is where to find a longer universal or dogbone to accomodate this additional spacing. If you guys have an experience of this kinda mod, drop me a mail please....

;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)
Final phase mods ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)
Got a pair of Aluminium shock towers from R2C2, and 4 big shocks from Hotbodies , they were originally intended for Tmaxx and Emaxxes , filled it with Losi soft damper oil. It works out OK . I like what I see now... the 8.4V stick paks are here and with the Yokomo motor , it turns this into a speed demon . The runtime is excellent too !! Overall I think this is such a nice robust machine to run.... i love it.
Have fun.. more pics of mods coming :-)