Ground up Honcho build

[USP45]

I have considered building another SCX10 for a little while now, but I wanted to focus on a build that would a bit lighter in weight, and be eligible for both Class 1 & 2. I have noticed that the nearly box stock Deadbolt my son has a much easier time with climbs then my decked out, scaled out SCX10 Bronco does. My Bronco weighs about 10lbs with Vanquish Rock Jocks, lights, heavy bumpers, scale interior, roof rack with stuff on it etc. The Bronco looks great and is fun to drive, but it cannot perform anywhere near as well as my sons 5lbs 8oz near stock Deadbolt!

So as I was considering what SCX to start with I looked over at my Bomber and realized that if I bought another cage then I could just about build another stock Bomber with all of the parts that I have replaced... :|

Sooo.... Rather than buy a box SCX and throw away just about everything, I might as well just order parts and build one. I would be ordering all of the same stuff anyway. And this is a good thing because the only "stock" Axial parts that I would have on it are.

1. Rear axles
2. Two of the frame cross braces (and I might change one of those)
3. Body posts
4. Honcho body

I would literally have the whole kit sitting in the parts bin.

So the parts that I am using other than mentioned.

Frame

1. The Scale Shop SCXHR v3 aluminum frame rails (3.8oz)
2. The Scale Shop Smooth Skid
3. Hot Racing locked up transmission
4. Robinson Racing 80t 48p slipper
5. SSD CMS kit
6. RC4WD Tough Armor Side Bars
7. RC Rock Armor Shield front bumper
8. American Machine Works aluminum links
9. Traxxas Slash receiver box

Front Axle

1. SSD D60 axle case
2. Fast Eddie bearings
3. Axial 43/13 U/D gearset
4. GripFab SS Spool
5. Vanquish Stage 1 Chubs and Knuckles
6. Vanquish bushings
7 SSD CVD's (which RPP just got in yesterday so should be here Monday)
8. Vanquish Tie Rod
9. MIP 13360 shafts (set so same for rear)
10. Yeah Racing clamping hex

Rear Axle

1. SSD D60 axle case
2. Fast Eddie bearings
3. Axial 43/13 U/D gearset
4. GripFab SS Spool
5. Vanquish Stage 1 Lockouts
6. Yeah Racing clamping hex

Wheels/Tires/Foams for class 2, have not decided for class 1

1. Boom Racing "Aegis" 1.9 beadlocks (I actually like these things and very heavy for weight down low, whole setup is 2lbs 6oz!)
2. Pitbull Growlers
3. Crawler Innovations Duece's Wild F&R

Electronics

1. Futaba R603FS receiver
2. Hitec 7955TG servo
3. Castle 10 amp BEC
4. Tekin Pro4 3300kv waterproofed
5. Holmes BLS ESC waterproof
6. HeyOk servo winch

Body

1. Dinky Honcho interior to go with body
2. Bunch of little Yeah Racing scaler accessories

So far I have both axles built save for the front CVD's which I am waiting for. I also just realized that I ordered a Wraith/Bomber tie rod, so I need to get the correct stuff now..

The build has gone eerily smooth up to this point save for one item, getting the Chubs onto the SSD housing was nearly impossible. With the bearing out they will go on, but tight. Bearing out and put chubs on it was impossible to get bearing in! So I ended up using a dremel at very low speed (500rpm) to open up the bearing pockets some, but bearings in, and used about 180 of my 230lbs weight to push the axle housing down onto the chubs while the chubs were on a carpet mat. I will probably have to destroy the axle housing to get the chubs off, and that is no joke. I do like the SSD D60 housing, but they need to work on their tolerances. The rear lockouts were just about as hard and I am not the only person to have run into this issue.

So now I need to get the correct tie rod and I am writing on the links to come in. I still need to figure out the best way to mount the winch as well, and I am sure that I am forgetting a few things, but for now a few pictures..



Photobucket is not playing nice today..









Few more

 

[Bananaclip]

It's going to be nice:mrgreen:

 

[bilinvic]

I can never get enough of seeing a table full of new parts....never gets old! Definitely sub'd.

 

[Spunkybob]

Im going to follow here also

I was thinking of making one from the ground up like this but parts are so expencive in australia it would cost 2x what a kit is to buy all the good stuff.

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk

 

[Bananaclip]

Can I see a pic of the honcho body sitting on the frame and sliders? I'm building my daughter a honcho currently..

 

[USP45]

I think that I have found a pretty clean method of mounting the winch. Funny how sometimes things just kind of fall in place (knock on wood)..

The line can just barely rub the steering servo so I will probably make a loop at the front to guide the winch line, but I think it will work.

Can I see a pic of the honcho body sitting on the frame and sliders? I'm building my daughter a honcho currently..

I might start trimming tonight, but it is still in the bag right now!

I was hoping that the links would arrive today so I could get it on it feet, but alas they did not. So working on the body may be my next step, I will post once I get there though.

 

[USP45]

Well don't you love it when you talk too soon... :roll:

So I trimmed the body out and built the cage so I could see how it was going to fit on the chassis and wouldn't you know it but it didn't fit well at all. The Honcho has that neat cage style back half that happens to have a lower spine running right down the middle. Well, one of the features of the TSS frame is that the rails have been raised for better clearance..... which puts the rear chassis brace right where that spine wants to be. And since the rails are higher the rear lower bar of the cage is also resting on the frame.

Thankfully that last part is pretty easy to address due to the updated v3 version of the frame where they added an additional mounting location for the rear chassis brace that has been lowered to the stock position. This at least allowed me to notch my brand new $50 frame so that the rear rail could clear, that part actually came out pretty nicely.

The chassis brace under the shock rear shock mount will require a little bit of work, but I have a plan. I am going to make a dropped brace out of some aluminum L channel that I have connected with some aluminum flat sheet. It will run even with the bottom of the frame rails and will be plenty stiff without giving up any potential clearance for the rear pumpkin on the axle, but that will have to wait until tomorrow as I have military duty in the morning so it is time to hang it up tonight.

I also had to flip the rear shock tower mounts to the outside of the shock hoops, but that is no big deal as there is still plenty of space to mount the posts through the bed. I am not going to drill any holes though until I have the shocks mounted so as to find the final placement of the body post mounts.

I also fitted the Dinky interior as I was concerned about interference with the winch servo but that actually required very little trimming to the interior which will be easily concealed so that at least went well. On to some pictures...







Few more

 

[USP45]

Ok, I have done quite a bit more work to the Honcho over the past few days. One thing that I already knew would probably be an issue is that when you throw a whole bunch of parts together, even if they are high quality well made parts, they may not all fit as originally intended. Any one of the parts if added to a stock SCX10 would fit perfectly, but as an aggregate seeing as how they were not designed to work with a bunch of other aftermarket parts.... well, it has been challenging. But I think I have it all figured out.

I have already dealt with some of the original issues which I was having in fitting the Honcho body/back cage to the TSS frame. This has all been taken care of so I will go on to the other issues.

Rear brace - this was easy enough to make even if it did require a little bit of time. The pictures of the brace are pretty self explanatory, and it is more than stiff enough. Clears the rear cage portion of the Honcho body very well.

SSD front CVD axles - Ok, there are no issues with these, I just wanted to say that so far I am really impressed. They are not as pretty as the Vanquish VVD's (which seem to have gone the way of the Dodo bird), but the are very beefy and have 50 degree's of steering angle! :shock: I test fitted a few wheel/tire combinations and I do not even know if I will be able to use all of the steering before the tires start to rub on things.. hard. And they are just smooth throughout the whole throw, like I said, so far I am impressed. If they do not break then this piece will be my go to CVD for an SCX and maybe others once produced.

Links - The links that I bought were quite simply made to go onto a stock SCX10 and as such were designed for the stock pick-up points on the frame. As the TSS rails have raised upper mounts that for the rear are placed up and to the rear, and for the front up and forward, this automatically means the upper links for both the front and the rear need to be shorter. At the rear I left the links long which rotates the pinion up and I do not mind this at all. If we were playing in 1:1 world this would be no bueno, but in 1:10 world it actually helps to pull the driveshaft up and out of the way from obstacles. Good deal.

Now in the front this is a different issue as I do not want to run the pinion high as the caster angle would be all wrong. Also the links were designed for a 4 link setup, I am running a 3 link with CMS. The SSD CMS kit comes with its own upper link for the 3rd link, it is nice and made out of titanium. First, titanium makes for some pretty sparks as you are cutting it with a dremel and cutoff disk. Second, titanium does NOT bend either easily or well... Due to the placement of my winch servo I need a bend in the 3rd link to clear it, while I was able to cut the titanium, once I tried to put a mild bend in it (which took a LOT of effort) the Ti rod simply snapped. But I had the two aluminum upper links that came with the link kit as a backup.. 8) So I then proceeded to put the needed bend in it without a problem and then cut it down to the length I needed. From there I used the drill and by some miracle was able to freehand bore a hole right down the middle on both ends before tapping the link for the rod ends. I am amazed at how well I was able to center and drill the hole, it came out perfectly! "thumbsup"

One thing I did do was to slightly shim the rear of the transmission up to lower the angle of the front drive where the MIP shaft connects to. Otherwise to get the front pinion angle I wanted (for caster purposes) was putting the MIP cup where it comes out of the transmission into a bind. Raising the rear output angle is not an issue due to the raised pinion in the rear, as it is right now all alignments are good, and everything spins very freely.

SSD CMS kit - Ok, the quality of this kit is off the charts. It is very, very nice and fits great. The only issue that I have is not due to the kit itself, but due to the combination of the TSS frames with the SSD CMS kit. Since the TSS frame has raised rails this automatically means that the upper pickup point for the panhard bar is also raised... Which puts the steering link and panhard bar out of parallel alignment, which leads to bump steer. The solution for this is going to be small carbon fiber plates which will raise the pickup point on the axle, and at the same time will make the panhard bar more parallel with the ground. This helps to negate sideways axle movement when the suspension is compressed and the TSS frame allows more than enough room to do this while allowing for full articulation without hitting the frame. I will work on this tonight.

So other than painting the body, doing final installation on electronics, and installing the Dinky interior the build is close to done. If I do not have it finished by tonight it will more than likely be complete tomorrow. At that point it will be time to do the fine tuning! "thumbsup"





Few more...

 

[USP45]

Well, I think this one is just about wrapped up. All of the electronics are installed, body is painted and the Dinky interior is in. I still need to find an old rim/tire to put in the back for a spare, I have ordered a hook for the winch, and I need to find a driver figure for inside but by and large it is done.

If I do use it for class 1 I will need a different set of wheels and tire along with the Dinky rear fender set for the Honcho rear end. I have done a basic setup with the electronics but have not run it yet as I still am waiting for the batteries, they should be delivered today so I will try it out once I get back in town from our place in East Texas.

The weight with battery will be right at 8lbs read to run with the heavy wheel and tire combination that I have on it right now, they weight 2.5lbs alone. If I go with some lighter weight wheels and 4.19 tires I could probably come in right under 7lbs which would actually be pretty good considering all of the things it has on it; winch, heavy front bumper, scale accessories, interior, lights etc. So I am pretty happy with how it all came out, now I just need to get it tuned in and find some local competitions to try my hand at!





......

 

[Spunkybob]

That's awesome. For the winch, how do you get the servo to turn continuously?

Australia
SCX10 Honcho, Twin Hammers

 

[Gramps]

Nice looking truck. What did it end up weighing?

 

[USP45]

That's awesome. For the winch, how do you get the servo to turn continuously?

The servo has been modified by Al, he makes the Heyok line of products. It is dead simple, just hook into your reciever and put it on a 3 position switch. When you hit the switch one way it goes out until you tell it to stop and to go in you hit switch in other direction. RPP sells them as well, under $60 and 180in/oz of torque. It will literally lift the truck...

Nice looking truck. What did it end up weighing?

Right now 8lbs, with my class 1 wheel/tire setup I am anticipating around 7lbs.

 

[USP45]

So I finally had a chance to get it out and do a shake down run this afternoon..... and it is exceeding my expectations. It simply works and I was able to pull lines that I have never been able to do with one of my other scx's. I was able to go places and do things that give my bomber fits, it is very nice to build something and have it perform better than I had hoped.

About all that is left is to put a spare on it, get a driver figure, and I have a new servo ordered. I think the 7955 in it would probably be fine and I have been a big Hitec fan for many years, but the new 6200 series from Spektrum have caught my interest. Specifically the S6280, it is rated at 496oz/in and .10 transition at 8.4v. Better yet it is supposed to be waterproof and has a interchangeable wire harness so you can plug in the length you need. I figure for the price it is worth trying and I ordered from Amain, they have really good customer service should it not work out.

With the Holmes BLE/Tekin Pro4 3300kv combination running 17t/80t and 43/13 diff gears it will just creep along but still get with it when I pull the trigger. I ran for 40 minutes this afternoon doing a lot of hooning along with crawling and pulled 1,400mAh which is not bad at all. If you cannot tell I am pretty stoked with it!

Here are a few shots of the way it sits now and the steering angles I have now. I am really digging the SSD CVD's.

 

[USP45]

.......

 

[eugnandez]

I'm building my daughter a honcho currently..

 

[1beatjeep]

Sweet build What shocks are you using?

 

[USP45]

Sweet build What shocks are you using?

Pro-Line scalers. I have finally learned that a whole bunch of flex is not necessarily a whole lot of good. I have enough, but not so much that my tires drop into every hole.

 

[trig n tahoe]

Super clean build, not your first rodeo, thanks for all the pic. Worth a thousand words:mrgreen:

 

[Spunkybob]

Just have a question about the D60 axle's.. can you run the stock front upper 3 link setup with them? or are you forced to go 4 link or the Panhard setup?

 

[trig n tahoe]

Any clearance issues with the C.M.S.? At full flex?