u/liamodellbass

A few months back I had Spiny up and running with some borrowed parts from another rig, and it was awesome. It was only alive for a couple weeks before the borrowed parts went back to its original truck, and Spiny sat for a few months while I figured out how I wanted to complete it for real. Eventually the idea was to pull out all the stops, and that leads to now.

Spiny Tex is now powered by a brushless Furitek Nano Unity Speed motor and two Injora +3mm Planet front axles for 4-wheel steer, all controlled with a Meus radio system! The first time it came together honestly wasn't that great, as the weight distribution was not where it needed to be, the tires I had on it were too slippery, I was struggling with how to properly tune the 4WS controls on the transmitter, and I was having occasional motor drop-outs. Yikes! Well, after adding some brass in the front, changing out the tires, finding a happy medium with the rear steer control (it really needs to be updated, but I don't have the dongle or Windows to do that), and updating and tuning the Unity through the app, everything seems to be right where it needs to be for a performance-oriented rig such as this!

Videos to come soon!

Do you drive any RC crawlers yourself? Do you have any favorite crawling/trailing spots in town? Are there any regular group meetups? Let us know, sound off below!

if the SCX30 wasn't already cuter enough, this lil' guy is adorable! Crazy how a few millimeters seems to make it look way smaller. And because of the extra front axle brass I had laying around, it performs rather well too!

Now I'm tempted to find a good body for this one, maybe do a proper scale build. Perhaps a CJ would be cool, if I can find a good example for this chassis. I dunno, any ideas y'all got?

The comp was for 1/24 scale, I didn't participate, but the hang was very fun! Here's my favorite line I found w/ Green Machine on their King Of The Hill course, you'll see I didn't complete it cleanly in this clip but I did manage to get a clean run-through a couple times (I promise, lol). Green Machine is quickly becoming my favorite 30 rig I think!

Started so well, but the second half got pretty crazy pretty quick, haha! The stock SCX10III CJ7 took it like a champ! This was definitely the highlight of our crawl session today.

I brought Green Machine out at this obstacle a few days ago for an hour, and I had a real tough time getting over the first half. It's a narrow line, stray too far left and you slide off sideways, stray too far right and you torque backwards. The trouble I was having was when I was riding the line correctly, my tires were slipping far more often than I'd like. Over the course of that hour, I probably got up and over 3 or 4 times, most likely by chance.

After trimming half the lugs of the front pair of my XHX pin tires last night, I took it out again today to see if I could tackle the line any better. What I noticed was a night and day difference, as my first few practice runs I was able to scale the hill effortlessly, and within ten minutes I had this video clip! This turned out way better than I had expected, I'm quite impressed.

While the Green Machine may not be an absolute line slayer, I definitely feel like I could now be comfortable with this rig in a comp situation! Here's to hoping for more 30-class comps!

I've seen this mod a few times online, though was interested if it would actually work well or not. I decided, what the heck, I'll try it and if it doesn't work well I'll try a different set of tires.

Stay tuned, I'll try some tricky lines at my crawl spot in the next few days and see what's up!

For a brushed motor, this thing creeps along well!

this thing is so dope! I have a driver for it now, but you'll see who it is later...

Balcones District Park, TX

Finally got a 1/10 scale! Driving the 30s after trailing with the big guy feels so different now, haha! The CJ did really well on its maiden trail run, I'm excited to get out more with it.

I've been scouting for a few months now, and I finally decided on this gorgeous Axial SCX10-III CJ7! Just in time for a rainy week, but I'm excited to get some summer trailing in when it clears up!

I have begun making some upgrade plans, though I may try to hold off till I need something replaced. I have some aesthetic ideas for the end game too, still in the research phase.

For all intents and purposes, Green Machine is a complete vehicle now! I may add some more aesthetic touches down the line, and I may eventually try Treal's new oil-filled shocks to see if they're any better than the originals, but not much else needs to change. It looks as good as I imagined it would!

Too bad the week it's finished is the week it starts raining 😩

I figured since I needed something else to do today, I'd dissolve one of my earlier builds into its individual parts! It will be good to have a bunch of spare parts for current builds as well as any future build ideas down the line (4-wheel steer, perhaps?). I also think this teardown gave me more familiarity with each part in a 30. It turns out there's really not a crazy amount of parts in total after all is laid out!

The JLU is no more, for now. I'm thinking about making the chassis on my K10 aesthetically modular, having a couple sets of wheels, tires, & bodies depending on the day/mood.

Finishing the build I had thought up was one thing, driving it and seeing how it performs was another!

Turns out, as I had expected while putting the truck together, it is definitely a bit more top-heavy than I would like, due to the nature of the metal chassis/transmission/skid etc, plus the separate electronics pieces. That paired with tall 41mm tires and stock width axles, side-hill stability is not too great, and steep descents an also be a bit problematic.

To give this build some credit though, the balance point is farther forward than any of my other trucks, and as a result this thing is a great climber! I'm really liking how I set up my XHX Pin tires as well, they hook up nicely on the Universal Rocks at my hobby shop. The Injora MB100 ESC is doing really well paired with the Mofo Neobeast, nice and quiet and really smooth slow crawl. And of course, I think the Treal green anodized parts look ridiculously cool all assembled together!

Something interesting I did with my Treal servo saver: You get two servo savers in the bag, and each one comes with two springs to put into the horn, I'd believe one acts as an extra replacement. Well, I put them both together and installed them to make my servo saver much more rigid, giving me more power for my Injora N30 Pro servo!

Once I get my green Bug30 body in, I'll get some cool photos and scrape together a parts list for those interested!

Project Green Machine was an idea to make a build using all of Treal's green anodized aluminum parts currently available (besides wheels, that is). Pretty much everything else is Injora besides the Mofo RC Neobeast motor and Meus receiver. I've decided on a body too, there is a green Injora Bug30 on order.

Everything went together relatively smoothly, with the following exceptions:

The Treal brass knuckles were a pain to get to steer smoothly, as I had to file down the ends of the axle and drill out the kingpin holes a smidge. Also them being big ol' knuckles my wheel choice was limited. Pro tip: Injora D19 Ripple wheels work wonderfully for larger knuckles!

The Treal upper steering link I bent slightly upwards to aid in steering angle, the ball joint limits its range of motion to one side without the bend.

The Treal shocks are meh, but I made them work well enough by adding some grease as well as the tiny "o" rings from a set of stock shocks applied to the Treal shock shafts (underneath the plunger head, not on it; I'm not sure if it does much but I like to think it takes out some of the side-to-side movement of the shafts).

Also a general note: DO NOT get thread locker in the Treal ball joints! I had two instances where I went a bit overboard with the thread locker putting things together, and came back to the build the next day to a stiff ball joint. Disassembly, cleaning the ball joint out, and reassembly added a few hours to what would have otherwise been a smooth build process!

This project came together way quicker than anticipated! The plan was to collect a few parts every couple weeks or so as things became available, but then I found that most of the parts became widely available about a month after I started collecting. I was thinking my other build, Spiny Tex, would have been finished first, but I'm waiting for some specific parts to be released so it may be awhile lol.

Full parts list, performance takeaways, and videos to come soon!