Beasty Build-off

Paul, this post and all its gory details are for you to enjoy at your leisure. I want you to be able to smell the plastic and rubber (starting to sound a bit iffy, but go with me here) of this freshly minted kit.

First up, the gear boxes. They come pre-assembled and there are two identical ones. As stated previously, its a symmetrical car, almost in both axis. I see no reason why it comes pre-assembled, there is not much more going on than Mevil and its easy to grasp. I would have thought a madcap ball diff much more fiddly. The diff in this is a bevel gear, same as bear hawk/mevil

This is the gearbox with its 3 gears, 1 diff and motor. Its has nylon bearings everywhere and two metal ones on the first gear, just visible. I built it as standard but it has been given ball bearings everywhere...24 of the buggers. Good thing they are all the same size.

Rear end put together. It looks like a sway bar but its actually the wishbone pivots, however its one piece rather than a bolt per side

Main chassis together. Twin motor esc on top, battery slung in centre underneath. You can just make out the circle cuts outs on the bottom for the gearboxes to fit into

Two gearboxes and some (huuruumphh...madcap shocks....hurrumphhh. Sorry bad cough there)

Ta-da! Simple build really and would have been very quick had i not stuffed around with trying to get non-standard shocks to fit. They are a 70mm shock, mevils were 100mm so i have used the ones of the madcap for now. I'm planning to modify this car so that 100mm can fit anyway, so they'll be back on the madcap very soon!

Overall the design seems pretty good, with no obvious flaws like the Bush Devil had. However the plastic is definitely softer and 'soapy' and the arms twist and flex quite a lot for something with this much potential. Not a real problem as i will be modifying all these parts, but a little disappointing for something that I was hoping would supersede mevil in every way

Next up, the body!