By Brandon Wilcox
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Let's face it; everybody loves 4X4 trucks
with huge monster truck tires that can climb over
anything. RC rock crawling is awesome, and building
a truck is just as much fun as driving it. But spending
over $700 dollars on a single purpose, slow rock crawler
isn't what everyone wants to do with their hard earned
money. Being out of rock crawling for a couple months,
I decided I wanted to build myself another competition
rig, but I still wanted to be able to bash, jump,
and have fun with this truck, not just crawl slowly
over things. I've decided to build a truck that can
still be fun around the house, and still tackle the
local rock crawling competitions. After looking around
at a couple different chassis's, I've decided to build
a gecko 2 kit from RCGuy.com
The gecko 2 has many nice improvements
over the original gecko, which is thee truck that
started the rock crawling fad. An aluminum upper link
mount that doesn't pivot, beautiful machined lower
links, and adjustable body mounts really add to the
truck. The wheelbase is 13.5 inches which will be
great for bashing and still be good enough for rock
crawling. This gecko 2 will definitely fit the bill
for my dual purpose crawler, but I also needed some
strong electronics to make this build successful.
After doing a lot of research and talking
around to some local guys, I decided that the best
speed control to use is the tekin rebel 2. Lots of
guys use these to race, because the controller supports
a nice 10 turn motor limit, but it is also the most
popular used in crawling because it has a huge 5 amp
rating at the BEC. What this means is I can easily
run 2 servos and 2 motors and have plenty of power
so I don't have to hassle around with a receiver pack
and current regulators. The tekin rebel 2 is the only
speed control I found that has such a good rating,
most others I saw only had a 3amp rating at the most,
which is mediocre at best for running dual motors
and dual servos. As you can see in the picture below,
the tekin rebel 2 has a huge heat sink that keeps
it running cool, no need for a fan on this baby! To
check out more info about this great speed control
check out team tekin's new site, it really looks awesome:
http://www.teamtekin.com/
For my truck I decided to run the following items:
Chassis - RCguy.com Gecko 2
Body - Custom painted Bigfoot Body
Axles - Clod axles with diff lockers
Motors - Integy lathe 35 turn w/stock pinion
Speed Control - Tekin Rebel 2
Radio / Receiver - Traxxas TQ3
Servo - Hitec HS-645MG x 2
RCguy.com Steering kit
RCguy.com Adjustable motor mounts
Rims - White clod buster rims
Wheels - Pro-Line Giant Trac's
Y-harness for true 4 wheel steering
I went with Integy lathe 35 turn motors
because they have good torque, but can still provide
me some good wheel speed with stock clod pinions.
Right now I can almost wheelie from a stopped position
with this setup, yet it has enough torque to rock
crawl with. As long as you have good throttle control
this setup works great for a dual purpose crawler.
I may also try some 8 tooth pinions that RCguy sent
me, to get a little extra torque on the rocks. For
my wheels, there was only 1 choice; I needed a wheel
that can tackle any terrain. Giant tracs by pro-line
are discontinued, but if you see some on eBay snatch
them up, they are awesome on all types of terrain.
Setting up my gecko2 was easy, the kit
comes preassembled, so all I had to do was bolt my
axles and install my electronics and I was ready to
go. The gecko 2 was machined with quality and durability
in mind, its strong yet still lightweight, and the
quality is superb. My tekin rebel 2 is sweet; it only
took a couple seconds to program. I fashioned it to
the chassis with Velcro, and it hasn't come lose yet.
I decided to upgrade from the stock bullet connectors
to deans, only because I have deans on all my other
trucks and batteries. Once I got my truck built I
headed to New Milford to tackle some new terrain I
haven't been too before. There was snow on the ground
so I was a little worried about traction, but the
giant tracs, in conjunction with the soft shock setup
I used worked great. The rocks that were peeking out
of the snow I gripped easily, and was able to crawl
up no problem. Right now im running 20 weight oil
in the shocks, it seems to be pretty good, but I may
go to a shorter shock and a heavier oil to reduce
some sag, but still allow me to get that jacked down
look for rock crawling. The gecko 2 works great as
a rock crawler, I've been very happy with what it
can do, but If you're just into rock crawling, and
don't want to bash, then RCguy makes a beautiful pro
kit that is a better crawler, that comes with everything
you need for your project, you can find that info
here: Click here to view the Gecko 2 Pro Kit on their new website.
Now that I know my truck can do great
on the rocks, I decided to bash around in the snow
and on some pavement. I set up a little jump to see
if I had enough speed to hit the ramps with. I was
surprised how quick this truck still goes. I flipped
the truck my first jump. After playing with the throttle
control I was able to do a couple jumps and land them.
I was glad I can not only rock crawl, but still be
able to have some fun bashing around. It's not a stable
jumper like a stampede, but with 5 min's thru a pack
you will get the hang of it.
Overall I am very happy with my new
truck, I look forward to competing in an upcoming
rock crawling comp we have every year. I am also going
to be bringing some extra batteries so I can bash
around once im done competing. Some changes I will
be making in the near future will be to change the
motors. The tekin rebel 2 can support a 10 turn motor,
so (2) 20 turn stingers motors will look like (1)
10 turn motor to the esc. This will be incredibly
fast, so I am definitely going to use those RCguy
8 tooth pinions. If it's too fast I can always go
back to the lathe motors. I also think that shorter,
stiffer shocks will work better on this setup. The
only thing I didn't care for on the gecko 2 kit was
the battery cup, its a little tuff to get the battery
in and out, not really a big deal when battery times
are upwards of 20-25 minutes. Here is how I rated
my performance of this dual purpose truck:
Design 9.5/10
Assembly 10/10
Durability 10/10
Rock Crawling 8/10
Bashing 10/10
Overall
rating I give this truck a 9.5 highly
recommend!
Where can you get the Gecko 2 chassis?
Directly from RCGuy.com
Where can you get a Tekin Rebel 2 speed control? Directly
from Team
Tekin http://www.teamtekin.com/ or Tower
Hobbies http://www.towerhobbies.com/index.html
