svt923
I wanna be Dave
Greetings.
Let me start off by introducing myself.
My name is Derek, some of you may know me from my work with the TRX-4, TF2, and a pile of junk loosely based on a SCX10.
Now, I'm back and ready to ramble, side track, and occasionally build another truck.
Even though I was completely snubbed on my invitation to the SBG/Harley budget build off, I'm going to build one anyway. The man can't keep me down!
My build will live here, on the great pages of RCC, and not on YouTube. There are 2 reasons for this:
1. 2018 is the year of making good RCC content, not the year to make 1,000 threads on how to fit 2.2s on your TRX-4. Do better everyone, do better.
2. I would be terrible on video. The lighting in my garage is bad, I would forget what I want to say, crappy video editing, and so many other things that would lead to terrible production quality. I guarantee any video of me talking would be unwatchable. Play to your strengths, eloquently expressing thoughts verbally is not mine. 90% of YouTube should follow my lead.
For those that don't know the concept of the Harley budget build, it is $50/week to spend on whatever you want to make the truck better. Whatever you don't spend one week, rolls over to the next week. This makes for good weekly content when you are a YouTube glory boy but I, as a man of the people, know shelling out $200/month on RC junk doesn't fit into everyone's lifestyle. I will define my build as $50 per stage. A stage will be a variable amount of time since I am highly unreliable and can't be boxed in to a schedule. You can follow along at $50 every week, every two weeks, every month, annually, bi-millennially, whatever. I'll shrink and expand the stages as I see fit to keep things interesting.
Got it?
Great, let's begin.
We start on the long ago day of Sunday. I was out driving my TRX-4 with a group of idiots that thought driving when it was 20* out was a good idea. Before you laugh at me from whatever crappy frozen tundra you are currently reading this from, just know we are all pathetic in our own ways. I have watched Canadians nearly suffer heat stroke in 78* weather while locals were still wearing pants. Anyway, the cold must have slowed down that part of my brain that handles rational thought because I left our driving locale and headed to my LHS.
Some cash exchanged hands and we arrive at this point:
It's a box with a truck or a box with an old toaster that weighs approximately the same as a truck, I didn't really know until I got home.
Turned out there was a truck in there.
Enjoy some hasty pictures I took before work.
Naked turk. Hot.
What is this? Safety? Who the hell needs that?
New transmission case. It's great.
Sorry, it's grey. I meant grey.
New plastic links. I cannot stress how much better these are than the previous plastic links. Much stiffer and much more material around the pivot. While I generally agree with the sentiment of "eww, plastic links", these are probably as good as the aluminum links off the old SCX10.
New one piece front axle. It looks good, the dogbones do not. Time will tell how the built in c-hubs hold up. That "we tried way too hard to make it look cool" steering link has quite a bit of flex. The much more utilitarian looking steering and panhard links have none.
The rear axle looks much better without lockouts. Don't know if anything else is better yet.
I will gladly call this the best looking Axial RTR wheel and tire package to date. The Wildpeaks are solid tires for loose terrain but I have little faith in the RTR compound.
A few other bits of note:
There is a new 1-piece battery and servo tray. I like this design much better than the too many piece version of the SCXII kit. Servo winch line routing provisions have been lost though.
I have a confession: I have never owned a Honcho in all my years of crawling. Even having never owned one, I knew I would hate the bumper. While it is sucked all the way in out of the box; it still looks bad and sticks out a ton. Bummer they use a old SCX10 bumper mount, there is major flex in the mount. The SCXII bumper mounts are lightyears ahead of the old ones and it is lame they went back in time for these.
Some good stuff in the spare parts bag. A bunch of light buckets and lenses are thrown in as well as a nearly full set of rod ends for future link upgrades.
Look! A spare tire mount!
Now everyone can stop complaining about everything that is missing from the old Honcho.
Not pictured is the radio. "Why?" you may ask.
Well, I refuse to even acknowledge it's existence. It is a clunky, uncomfortable piece of garbage. For a tiny radio, it has an incredibly fat grip and the placement of the trigger and wheel is bad. Did I mention the radio likes to actively eject the batteries out of the bottom of the handle? That's right, you could be standing there driving and out of nowhere, the 4 AA batteries will eject straight at you feet like they were fired out of a slingshot. RTR radios have never been fabulous but every one I have encountered previously at least could hold it's own power source. Don't bother unpacking it. Instead, use your phone to locate the nearest electronics recycling drop off facility then dispose of it. You will have a positive impact on your driving enjoyment and the planet. Seriously, buy any of the hundreds of Tactic TTX300 radios available for $25 on ebay instead. It is an infinitely better radio that will bind right to the stock receiver and you will never have to suffer through driving with the stock meat tenderizer with buttons. Have I made myself clear?
There you have my box opening assessment of the new SCXII Honcho. I will be tearing down a few things to examine prior to starting the build up. There have been rumblings on the interwebs that some people have gotten metal gears in their transmissions despite the specs saying plastic gears. The new sintered axle gears will likely need a healthy coating of grease as well.
More will come as I tear into my soon to be build off winning despite not being invited to said build off Honcho.
Let me start off by introducing myself.
My name is Derek, some of you may know me from my work with the TRX-4, TF2, and a pile of junk loosely based on a SCX10.
Now, I'm back and ready to ramble, side track, and occasionally build another truck.
Even though I was completely snubbed on my invitation to the SBG/Harley budget build off, I'm going to build one anyway. The man can't keep me down!
My build will live here, on the great pages of RCC, and not on YouTube. There are 2 reasons for this:
1. 2018 is the year of making good RCC content, not the year to make 1,000 threads on how to fit 2.2s on your TRX-4. Do better everyone, do better.
2. I would be terrible on video. The lighting in my garage is bad, I would forget what I want to say, crappy video editing, and so many other things that would lead to terrible production quality. I guarantee any video of me talking would be unwatchable. Play to your strengths, eloquently expressing thoughts verbally is not mine. 90% of YouTube should follow my lead.
For those that don't know the concept of the Harley budget build, it is $50/week to spend on whatever you want to make the truck better. Whatever you don't spend one week, rolls over to the next week. This makes for good weekly content when you are a YouTube glory boy but I, as a man of the people, know shelling out $200/month on RC junk doesn't fit into everyone's lifestyle. I will define my build as $50 per stage. A stage will be a variable amount of time since I am highly unreliable and can't be boxed in to a schedule. You can follow along at $50 every week, every two weeks, every month, annually, bi-millennially, whatever. I'll shrink and expand the stages as I see fit to keep things interesting.
Got it?
Great, let's begin.
We start on the long ago day of Sunday. I was out driving my TRX-4 with a group of idiots that thought driving when it was 20* out was a good idea. Before you laugh at me from whatever crappy frozen tundra you are currently reading this from, just know we are all pathetic in our own ways. I have watched Canadians nearly suffer heat stroke in 78* weather while locals were still wearing pants. Anyway, the cold must have slowed down that part of my brain that handles rational thought because I left our driving locale and headed to my LHS.
Some cash exchanged hands and we arrive at this point:
It's a box with a truck or a box with an old toaster that weighs approximately the same as a truck, I didn't really know until I got home.
Turned out there was a truck in there.
Enjoy some hasty pictures I took before work.
Naked turk. Hot.
What is this? Safety? Who the hell needs that?
New transmission case. It's great.
Sorry, it's grey. I meant grey.
New plastic links. I cannot stress how much better these are than the previous plastic links. Much stiffer and much more material around the pivot. While I generally agree with the sentiment of "eww, plastic links", these are probably as good as the aluminum links off the old SCX10.
New one piece front axle. It looks good, the dogbones do not. Time will tell how the built in c-hubs hold up. That "we tried way too hard to make it look cool" steering link has quite a bit of flex. The much more utilitarian looking steering and panhard links have none.
The rear axle looks much better without lockouts. Don't know if anything else is better yet.
I will gladly call this the best looking Axial RTR wheel and tire package to date. The Wildpeaks are solid tires for loose terrain but I have little faith in the RTR compound.
A few other bits of note:
There is a new 1-piece battery and servo tray. I like this design much better than the too many piece version of the SCXII kit. Servo winch line routing provisions have been lost though.
I have a confession: I have never owned a Honcho in all my years of crawling. Even having never owned one, I knew I would hate the bumper. While it is sucked all the way in out of the box; it still looks bad and sticks out a ton. Bummer they use a old SCX10 bumper mount, there is major flex in the mount. The SCXII bumper mounts are lightyears ahead of the old ones and it is lame they went back in time for these.
Some good stuff in the spare parts bag. A bunch of light buckets and lenses are thrown in as well as a nearly full set of rod ends for future link upgrades.
Look! A spare tire mount!
Now everyone can stop complaining about everything that is missing from the old Honcho.
Not pictured is the radio. "Why?" you may ask.
Well, I refuse to even acknowledge it's existence. It is a clunky, uncomfortable piece of garbage. For a tiny radio, it has an incredibly fat grip and the placement of the trigger and wheel is bad. Did I mention the radio likes to actively eject the batteries out of the bottom of the handle? That's right, you could be standing there driving and out of nowhere, the 4 AA batteries will eject straight at you feet like they were fired out of a slingshot. RTR radios have never been fabulous but every one I have encountered previously at least could hold it's own power source. Don't bother unpacking it. Instead, use your phone to locate the nearest electronics recycling drop off facility then dispose of it. You will have a positive impact on your driving enjoyment and the planet. Seriously, buy any of the hundreds of Tactic TTX300 radios available for $25 on ebay instead. It is an infinitely better radio that will bind right to the stock receiver and you will never have to suffer through driving with the stock meat tenderizer with buttons. Have I made myself clear?
There you have my box opening assessment of the new SCXII Honcho. I will be tearing down a few things to examine prior to starting the build up. There have been rumblings on the interwebs that some people have gotten metal gears in their transmissions despite the specs saying plastic gears. The new sintered axle gears will likely need a healthy coating of grease as well.
More will come as I tear into my soon to be build off winning despite not being invited to said build off Honcho.
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