A Tale of Two Amps

Brake Weight

Brake Weight

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So.Miss
My 6yo girl earned her Amp MT kit yesterday. I let her paint the body after homework and today after school we put it together...er, I put it together. She did good for about 3 parts bags and then couldn't take it any more. After a long day of 2nd grade and following directions all day she wanted to play. I finished it and I found out she wouldn't have been up to the task. I'm not sure if my 12yo will be able to finish it.

My problem areas were the m3 machine threaded bolts. The collared bolts for the knuckles and a few others here and there. They did not want to start at all. I ended up stripped out the allen hex on one for the front that holds the pins in for the A arms. When I help my oldest, I'll go ahead and tap all those out to an m3 before attempting them.

I put a 45 turn RC4WD crawler motor in there and it's about right for her...for now. I have the ECX motor ready to go in when the time is right. I'll be staging her up on pinion size as time goes on and her skill level improves.

I do like the wheels/tires. If they had some foams in them I'd consider running them on some of my other RCs. I'll be looking at a different front bumper also. Something with better protection.

All and all. After using Axial's gear like Legos over the last couple of years and more recently a TA SC10, this RC isn't that bad. It's definitely not on par with a $300+ rig, but for $130 I'm impressesed.

Fresh built and no stickers yet.
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my son has had this truck since Christmas he has hit every thing you can think of at full seed, jumps ,cartwheels, you name it and has yet to brake anything. He is also running on a 2s lipo with a lv buzzer all stock setup. Awesome truck for young kids.
 
Good to know. I just helped my 12yo finish hers up today after church. Identical to the 7yo with the 45 turn motor. She's already setting up boards and jumping them.
 
Brake Weight said:
Is that a Spawn cut into a old Bronco style bed? I like it.
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Kinda, sorta? I just did the roll cage mod thing with the plastic linkage. I'm in the process of trying to make it more "scale" but in reality, I'm just screwing it up. Lol! And I nearly took off my whole finger tip trying to trim the new lexan interior. Brand new exacto blades are CRAZY sharp. Super clean cut, bled for 15 minutes, you can hardly see where the cut was now. Surgical sharp.

Hobbies are dangerous, yo! :p
 
I'll lightly score mine with the blade and snap it off once I get far along enough to do it. A nice pair of lexan scissors has saved me a few times, too.
 
I've hacked myself several times, too. I've got a pair of scissors for the long straight cuts, that I got from work. There's literally about a 12" cutting edge then the handles.
 
My 12 yr old had a hard time too threading some screws. EspecI ally the real small ones. I also ended up tapping some of the holes with a tap first (very carefully) and they went right in. I also used a different screwdriver other than the one that came with the truck as it fit the screws better
 
My 12yo put hers together a few days ago. I just so happened to have an m3 tap and I tapped the smaller holes 2-3 threads worth. Just enough to get them started and then let the tight tolerance hold them in there. The supplied allen wrench isn't very good either. She didn't have the hand strength to push the screw driver in to make it bite to screw the screws in. I went and got one of my Klein screw drivers and she did fine then.
 
These were kits and the bodies had a lot of graffics on them. They appeared to be silkscreen ex or something. Neither kid liked them so I figured I'd send Horizon an email. I asked if I could exchange them for a new body and left it at that. About 3 days later I get an email asking for my name, address, and pics of the bodies then they'd send out two new clear bodies. I replied with everything asked and it's been two days and no reply. Now the long weekend to wait. I may get lucky and have two new bodies en route or they may reject the idea.
 
I think the graphics are awesome!! Much better than plain old paint. Why not just order you a clear body off ebay instead of hassling with the manufacturer about the body it came with when you clearly know the body comes with graphics already on it, or at least I could tell
 
Bigpoppa99 said:
I think the graphics are awesome!! Much better than plain old paint. Why not just order you a clear body off ebay instead of hassling with the manufacturer about the body it came with when you clearly know the body comes with graphics already on it, or at least I could tell
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Why the hate? I knew the bodies had some graffics but I did not know they couldn't be removed. My kids don't like them because they literally wanted a clear, scaler type body like I have on my crawlers. I simply emailed one time to Horizon about swapping them out and they replied for pics to be sure what I had and then they'd send some out. Two emails each. No hassle.

They'll ship out tomorrow, BTW.
 
I moved the middle kid up to a 24 tooth pinion from an 18t. She's doing better but smoked my 5yo pretty hard one time today.

Now those two are competing. Parallel parking, driving little set up courses, and racing laps around some little saplings on one side of the yard. Everyone wants to go faster now.
 
Haha that's good to hear, gives you something to shop around for.

I raced my son around a makeshift course in the backyard a few weeks ago, and he comprehensively beat me with his stock amp against my souped up brushless one. I had to be way careful with the throttle, where he could just floor it and the car would take off perfectly!
 
The 13yo crashed into something hard enough to lose both shoulder screws on a steering knuckle. Brings it to me, eyes swelling up, and asks me why I didn't tighten them.... She's learning how to pay for them now. Lol. LHS had a couple bags of them and I'm awaiting payment to install them.
 
Brake Weight said:
The 13yo crashed into something hard enough to lose both shoulder screws on a steering knuckle. Brings it to me, eyes swelling up, and asks me why I didn't tighten them.... She's learning how to pay for them now. Lol. LHS had a couple bags of them and I'm awaiting payment to install them.
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The dreaded shoulder screws. Lol. that's the only thing I've broke an had to Actualy replace on mine so far. (brushless n 3s lipo) beat mine pretty hard. These seem to handle it well tho
 
I bought some RPM spares when I got these and I've never needed to use them. I think I have some knuckles in that bag but I'll need to find the bag. A few drops of CA should seal the deal if I don't have any spare knuckles.
 

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