Redcat Gen 8 "Clear body" Edition

[Jim85IROC]

This is my thought too. I'm on my 5th pack through my Gen 8 & it's still all stock, including the foams. The foams have broken down & are ok. The steering is fine for crawling. It turns pretty tight in the rocks & the stock servo is hanging in there, but a little slow. My initial plan was to modify the steering first thing, but after driving it a bunch, I don't feel the need yet. My first upgrade will probably be wheels & foams. I actually like the tires. They do pretty well on our Arizona rocks.

I like the tires too. I felt they did a great job on my Gen7, and now with proper foams in the Gen8, I feel the same way. Unfortunately, with our Vermont temps, there's just no way that those concrete memory foams were going to break down at all, so they had to go before I even drove the truck.

Like you, I'm also planning on getting some new wheels.

 

[HumboldtEF]

Thanks Jim, but what I was referring to was the clear body kit shown on RedCat's website (p/n GEN8-CLEAR-BODY-KIT). While it looks like it comes with all of the hardware and accessories to completely build the body, I don't think any of the holes are drilled like they were on the kit you have. I'm just trying to confirm that as true or not.

Answered your question a post or two up

the clear bodies sold separately do not have holes or dimples for the fender flares, there are dimples on the roof and hood i believe for the optional body mount holes.

 

[RCTom]

Thanks HumboldtEF. Somehow I read what you wrote but it didn't sink in, derp.

But now we all know for sure!

 

[Jim85IROC]

My new wheels came the other day, and after 2 nights of struggling, they're on. This style wheel is a solid 1 piece wheel that slides into an outer band mounted in the tire, and gets clamped by a ring that mounts to the back side. It's a nice design because it only takes 6 screws to mount/dismount. The problem is that the diameter of the wheel is pretty small for a 1.9, so the internal ring has to be small too. Because of this, there's not much room to fit the tire bead. The Redcat tires have a thick bead that completely prevented me from mounting them. I had to thin down the beads with my dremel until they were less than 1/2 of their original thickness. Once that was done, I was finally able to get them together. Now I'm extremely satisfied with how the truck looks.

 

[soze]

Looks great man! I just responded to you in PM. I'm not sure why yours were so hard to mount, but I was able to mount mine easily. Maybe your colder weather over there is causing some tighter tolerances.

 

[mgputer]

I really like the white. It looks great!

Sent from my Vivo XI+ using Tapatalk

 

[Jim85IROC]

Looks great man! I just responded to you in PM. I'm not sure why yours were so hard to mount, but I was able to mount mine easily. Maybe your colder weather over there is causing some tighter tolerances.

yeah man, that's got me confused. These were a bitch. The tire bead was wedged so tightly between the wheel and the outer ring that I needed a screwdriver to get them apart the first few times, and it actually wore all of the paint off the inner part of the wheel from installing and removing it. Even after I thinned the tire beads down it was a struggle to get them together. There's got to be a difference between your set and mine. Whether it's the tires or the wheels I don't know. Originally the tire bead was roughtly 3/16" of an inch in thickness, and there was only about 1/2 of that between the wheel and the outer ring.

 

[DukeMinnix]

looks fantastic

 

[Jim85IROC]

The weather has finally allowed me to use the truck a little bit. On Friday it was in the 50s, and then on Saturday and yesterday it was below freezing, so the snow pack hardened up enough for the truck to stay on top. My boy and I took it out and hit the snowbanks, the snowmobile tracks in the back yard, and then up into the woods, then later my daughter drove it around the yard. Aside from the CI tire foams, the truck is 100% stock, and I'm very happy with how it works. The bump steer is a complete non issue at crawling and trailing speeds. The truck turns great, and it climbs great. My kids tumbled the truck multiple times, and the truck bed liner on the roof still looks perfect.

I'm very happy with this truck so far. My only disappointment is that I don't really have any interesting upgrade videos to make because the truck doesn't really need anything.

 

[soze]

The weather has finally allowed me to use the truck a little bit. On Friday it was in the 50s, and then on Saturday and yesterday it was below freezing, so the snow pack hardened up enough for the truck to stay on top. My boy and I took it out and hit the snowbanks, the snowmobile tracks in the back yard, and then up into the woods, then later my daughter drove it around the yard. Aside from the CI tire foams, the truck is 100% stock, and I'm very happy with how it works. The bump steer is a complete non issue at crawling and trailing speeds. The truck turns great, and it climbs great. My kids tumbled the truck multiple times, and the truck bed liner on the roof still looks perfect.

I'm very happy with this truck so far. My only disappointment is that I don't really have any interesting upgrade videos to make because the truck doesn't really need anything.

Yeah it doesn't really need much to just run it. All the other stuff is just nitpicky stuff to try to make everything as "perfect" as possible as something to do.

I think the biggest impact were the foams and tires. I put a set of Hyrax with Dual-stage foams and it works great. Other than that, it's not like I have much invested in the truck. I probably will change out the ESC, and possibly look at the steel gears for the transfer case depending on how the plastic ones hold up.

 

[Jim85IROC]

I had to replace the stock foams before I even ran it. In sub-freezing temperatures, the stock foams are so hard that they should be sponsored by Cialis.

 

[svt923]

I had to replace the stock foams before I even ran it. In sub-freezing temperatures, the stock foams are so hard that they should be sponsored by Cialis.

In an interesting twist, 2 of my stock foams are still rock hard and 2 of them are now too soft to provide any sidewall support.

 

[HumboldtEF]

In an interesting twist, 2 of my stock foams are still rock hard and 2 of them are now too soft to provide any sidewall support.

Before I yanked out my stock foams I noticed what seemed like a pair that was soft and the rest were harder. After pulling them out I think the difference may have been from the air venting from the rim being different from wheel to wheel. The soft ones let the air out freely while these others were very slow to vent, but I dont think this was intentional.

 

[Jim85IROC]

Here's a pic from yesterday's outing.

 

[b17fan]

Nice work, it looks great!

 

[maxinflixion]

Here's a pic from yesterday's outing.

This really does look great!

 

[kincer]

Gotta agree it looks great!

 

[Jim85IROC]

thanks!

Last night the magnets for the truck body came in and I got those installed. As others have experienced, I was having difficulty getting the velcro to stay stuck to the body. I cut new velcro and installed it, and that came off the first time I lifted the lid too. I think the issue is that there's still some mold release on the plastic that's preventing the adhesive from sticking. The other 3 pieces, plus all 4 on the chassis were still very firmly attached.

For magnets, I went with 20mm x 3mm neo magnets from eBay. These are a perfect fit in the existing indentations. I cleaned the indentations with some brake cleaner, then used shoe goo to glue 4 magnets to the body. After a few hours of dry time, I inverted the body, stuck another set of magnets directly to those magnets, spread more shoe goo on them, and then set the chassis down onto the body. I gave it a firm press and let everything sit overnight.

This morning I gave it a try and it works great. I wanted to try it with 4 magnets first before adding 4 more, and I'm glad I did. This setup holds the body firmly, but is still easy enough to separate the body from the chassis. If I find that the body is coming off too much during tumbles, I can always add the 2nd set of magnets.

 

[kincer]

Thanks for that magnet info, I haven't had any real trouble with the Velcro yet but eventually I wanna go to the magnets.

 

[Jim85IROC]

I felt like the velcro was a huge pain in the ass even before it separated from the body. I had to get things to line up just right, squeeze within the wheel wells, and then it took a hand of god to get it apart later.

Magnets snap on, and come right off with a tug. It's SO much easier. It's a worthwhile upgrade even if your velcro is working OK.