Titan 2.2 monster race truck

[hawnmt]

Well the 2.2 monster truck racing class has died out around here and part of it is my fault for not giving it much of my time. Over the last year and half I've turned my attention to other trucks and other things, never really diving in to make the class work. Well now I'm going to give it one last big push to see if it can work because I still am a believer that this class can be as big, if not bigger in the long term, than the Clod classes. This is actually one of two 2.2 monster truck racer builds I have but the other, a tube chassis, will take the back burner until I get this one done.

The truck I'll be doing is Donald Epidendio's Titan. It quickly became a favorite of mine last year as that guy can drive the he!! out of the truck! Bari Musawir in Spiderman beat him in the first round of the Young Guns shootout this year in the closest race of that event.

I came up with the idea for the setup of this build while making the chassis for my Bounty Hunter Clod-O-Pounder. It is basically a Redcat Ground Pounder with Axial axles and Wheely King tires. I plan on some mods to get everything as low as I can and get the suspension tuned for the smaller tires. Started mocking up the truck yesterday and is coming along nicely.

The Axial axles are a near bolt on replacement for the GP axles. The biggest headache so far has been find the right link setup. One great thing about the Axial axles is the steering setup is perfect right out of the box but I did change out the stock servo plate for one that can mount a 4-link setup.

Going to drop the electronics tray as low as I can get it. That should give me a chance of getting the motor and battery below the height of the tires. The motor is a HPI Firebolt 15T brushed motor. Although the class is currently open to any motor, brushed or brushless, I like the power, affordability, availablity, and user friendliness of the HPI motor. If you look closely you can see it's in the chassis but I haven't drilled the new holes to mount the tray because I want to make sure everything is setup and it will all(driveshaft, motor, links, etc) clear each other.

Size comparison of this truck next to my Predator stock class race truck(which has Axial axles and is tiny by Clod standards).

The battery I'll be using is a small 2200mah 40-80C lipo made for the 1/16 Traxxas trucks. Hoping to mount it sideways in the chassis, under the electronics tray. Here's a comparison shot of it next to a NiMH pack and a high output 2s lipo. I've used this battery in conjuction with the HPI 15T Firebolt motor in my tlt race truck. Slightly overpowered for that application so I'm hoping it's right on the money for this one.

Still a lot of work to do before I get it running. After I do that I'll tear it all down for paint and finishing. And I still have to find a big picture of the Titan logo because the small I am finding pixellate when I blow them up.

 

[hawnmt]

Life keeps getting in the way of this build but I finally found sometime last night to make some progress.

I modified the electronics tray so I could lower it and have room for the battery underneath. This took a ridiculous amount of time and measuring and only lowers the tray about an inch, but to me it was worth it.

Got it mounted up in the chassis to make sure it's aligned properly.

Form the rear you can see the tray barely clears the small 48t 32p spur gear. The motor had to be positioned just right to clear the links and the driveshaft and still have a little play so I can have some pinion options. I mocked the HPI motor with a 12t pinion but can go slightly smaller or larger.

From the front, I made a TAD brace and combined it with the front mount for the tray.

Same view but with the battery mocked up in it's position.

View from below.

Tonight I'll be taking the chassis and links apart to strip the annodizing. Hopefully this weekend I can paint them and reassemble the truck. I want to do some testing next week so I can have this truck ready to race on the 21st.

 

[hawnmt]

Broke the truck completely down to strip, prep, paint and baked the individual parts. Through the magic of the internet I'll skip all that and show the results.

Still a lot to do. I'm working on the body right now but I still have to do the swaybars, make new planetaries, fill the shocks with oil and tune them, and wire everything up.

 

[WHITE-TRASH]

This is a really cool build. I get a kick out of bashing my crawler trying to get the monster truck jump technique down to a science.


Are your shocks internally sprung? They look pretty scale without the springs on there.

 

[hawnmt]

Are your shocks internally sprung? They look pretty scale without the springs on there.

Yup, they are internally sprung.

 

[hawnmt]

it's getting there, almost done......

 

[hawnmt]

Well it's done, kinda. I had to skimp on the decals because I couldn't find a high res image of the Titan logo. I ended up using one off a pic and it pixellated so I had to keep it a little small. I'll get it fixed up later. But here's she is, all ready for tomorrow's race.

All the essential components like the motor, trans, esc, receiver and battery are in the cradle. I did that to keep the CoG low and torque twist in check. With everything crammed down there the rest of the chassis looked empty so I added a fake engine from a little New Bright Bigfoot just so there isn't a big empty hole in the back.

Got a couple of packs through it for testing and it's pretty fast. Turning is sensitive compared to my other trucks so that's going to take some getting used to. Jumps pretty well but I still have to see how it'll do in a race situation. Overall very happy how it turned out and considering it went from concept to completion in 2 weeks, I'm ecstatic it works so well.

 

[Szczerba]

Nice rework/blending of the trucks. I always have wanted a monster truck tired based truck to race around the yard. I almost bought a ground pounder when they came out.

Great build.