Mattzilla Tundra Truggy

[joe.bielski]

Ever since getting into the scale crawling scene I've always dreamed of owning a Mattzilla Chassis with a Tamiya Hard Body. A couple months ago I was able to finally afford one!!! They ain't cheap, but man!!!! The craftsmanship is second to none on this bad boy!!!

I'm finally ready to retire my TCS X-Trail Bronco Truggy and will use most of the goodies from under that rig. That rig was pretty bad ass itself even when it had TLT's underneath. The issue is that the X-trail chassis is just a tiny bit too wide for running the SCX10 axles the way I like to. It's PERFECT for the TLT's BTW.

I know I'll be sacrificing some weight on this build with the solid rod cage and steel chassis, but I'll still try and keep her under 8Lbs. The ole' truck weighed 6.4 Lbs with ALL running gear and 2700Mah 3s battery.

OK, enough jibba jabba!!!






And that's what she looks like at the moment. I'm still debating on the color. I'm thinking either a nice red or a champagne gold or something

 

[Ballistic17]

I have had 3 MattZilla chassis' and all have been great. The truggy is next on my list. Yours looks good. Can't wait to see more progress.

 

[allanon1965]

I have had 3 MattZilla chassis' and all have been great. The truggy is next on my list. Yours looks good. Can't wait to see more progress.

I have had 2 so far and am looking for a third myself! nice quality builds!

 

[joe.bielski]

I'll try to get it up and running ASAP. There is a little get together on Oct 4th I want to attend.
PS: Is anyone having problems seeing the pics? It's my 1st time using imgur to host pics....

 

[Bananaclip]

I like how MZ followed the lines of the cab back with the main hoop. Very cool8)

 

[joe.bielski]

Gonna have to redo the upper 4 links. They sit so low in the SCX10 skid and I'm getting some binding :S

Never as easy as you think it will be

 

[joe.bielski]

The old and the new:

 

[joe.bielski]

UPDATE!!!!!

I've got the truck setup so far. Had to rework the link lengths to fit under the front wheel wells. She's sitting at a 305mm wheelbase. Still trying to figure out the placement for the ESC, RX and battery.






The body is primed and I started painting it red. I had to stop as I ran out of paint
Still not sure about the width with those wheels.... but it's all I got right now....

 

[joe.bielski]

Small update.
I made a back for the cab out of lexan and got my electronics all sorted out. I'll use black zip ties on the back when finished. Still need to get more paint to finish off the body... blah

 

[joe.bielski]

Got the truck mostly done. I think I will extend the wheelbase another 5mm for a 310mm wheelbase. And I gotta polish the body.
But now I realize how hard it's gonna be to change batteries let alone just plug the battery to the ESC... How do you guys do it?
Any suggestions?

 

[joe.bielski]

Oh yeah, I did weigh her and she's a portly 7Lbs and 4oz with battery.
Specs are as follows:

Mattzilla Chassis
Sidewinder 3 waterproof
Holmes CrawlMaster Pro 540 20T
3S 2700mah batteries

The front has Beef tubes, Axial CVD's, Axial High Steer Knuckles, SSD Titanium Steering Links, HD Gear set, Gripfab SS Locker and STRC aluminum CHUBS. The rear has the Axial HD underdrive gear set, GripFab SS locker and STRC lockouts.

Gearhead Trail Kings with Rock beasts all around. Stock foams (never had a problem with them, I go pretty slow)

 

[Dingo74]

Glad I am not the only one trying to figure out how to get to the battery to charge easily with a hard shell. I also need to do what you did behind the rear cab but was planning on using styrene.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[joe.bielski]

Today was the trucks first outing at the Socrawl fun run at Rattlesnake Point Park. The truck handled beautifully!!! I was worried about the extra pound of weight putting a toll on the motor or drive train, but it was all good. And after the first bit of rock rash, I let her have it. And she took it all. Did manage to bend one of the solid steel rods that make up the cage though... oops



This was a funny poser shot. Someone in our group was using a FlySky radio that was making my truck glitch every so often. As I had it on the side of the cliff, I was like, "Please don't glitch, please don't glitch..." and of course the tuck jumps half a foot forward right then. Glad it wasn't backwards or else it would be gone!!!

 

[joe.bielski]

I just finished rebuilding the shocks and taking a poser shots..... yay....

 

[joe.bielski]

Well bit of an update.
I felt the Proline shocks were a bit too squishy for the rig and the bottom caps kept unscrewing and dumping oil everywhere so I put on a set of Junfac Gmade XD Diaphragm 93mm Shocks. I've heard mixed reviews on these shocks. Some people say that these leak quite a bit but after several runs, I haven't noticed any leaks. The springs are a bit too stiff but I did order the soft ones so I'll let you know how those work out.

(NOTE, these were a PITA to put together even while being the regular diaphragm shocks. The plastic bottom parts that hold the washers didn't want to properly screw into the bodies on 3 out of 4. One I almost stripped the plastic. The shock caps were a very tight fit and I really had to grease them up so I could screw them down past the overflow valve. I also hacked up some of the outside threads on the shock bodies, but that was my own fault for using a thin cloth between the bodies and the wrench while putting on the caps)

I've also put beef tubes in the rear axle. She's a portly 7Lbs and 10oz now but the motor and ESC are staying cool. I might gear up a tooth or two to get some more speed. She crawls at a slow jog now.

I also noticed the stock Rock Beast foams are too soft for the weight of the rig. I did order some stiffer CI lil Nova dual stage foams, but I kinda like the way the rig just pulls hard lines now. Plus I don't go very fast anyway

 

[joe.bielski]

I did notice I lost some down travel with the new shocks and the rig sits a bit higher now. This raises my CG a bit and I'm not cool with that. I think I'll remove the red bump stops and get at least the down travel back. I double checked and the spring retainer is thick enough to prevent the piston from hitting the diaphragm. Hopefully the softer springs will drop the chassis a bit more. I like draggin' belly.

 

[joe.bielski]

Got around to making a quick video. Jeez, there's like nowhere good to crawl around my neighborhood so I had to hop a fence to a construction site by the track

And apparently this is as HD as my camera gets.... Even the raw files looked like this

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zyqMJoXoxZA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Jeepfixer1]

Cool truck, nice vidya!

 

[joe.bielski]

I've run about 5 batteries though the rig and the XD Diaphragm shocks are NOT leaking yet. That's good

 

[joe.bielski]

Not much of an update but I wanted to let y'all know that I removed the red "bump stops" off the XD shocks and it's quite an improvement. You get more articulation and down travel is increased by about 5mm (doesn't sound like much, but at 1/10 scale it's good) I also put the Green soft springs on the rear and they seem a touch softer.

Still no leaks from the shocks. One thing I did notice is that the shocks are quite "fat" and when articulating my axles, the springs hit the chassis a bit. I'll snap some photos of this later.