cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

Well, i traded for this yesterday, and its on the way. Its a Tower Hobbies tower terror .25. Not a top of the line truck, but they supposedly have a pretty strong driveline, and the rest of the truck isnt too bad either. Plus, its 8 pounds with a big block engine So it should be pretty quick. Anyways, just something that popped up and i happened to trade for it, so im anxious to see how it runs. Comes with a redcat 2.4 radio.

Eric

Nitro Racer 18

It looks good.

mazdaprotege4

My Feedback: (32)

I had one for a while and was going to go BL, but lost interest, I sold it on here. Here is a video of it from the guy I sold it to (he put a mamba monster on it)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erTFiq1PILU

TIGER76

Looks built tough m8 the grey rims would have to go or be sprayed but thats just me enjoy bro

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

Thanks guys. There is a 100 page thread about it in the MT forum, its kind of died down some now. For what ill have in the truck, its well worth a try. I love trying new things and this truck seems very simple built(kinda like a savage with a center spur gear) and fairly tough, so ill give it a shot at least[8D]

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

I saw that video just a few hours before you posted it actually. haha Id say one would be insane brushless. Actually, it has crossed my mind to make a motor mount, and put some battery tray's on it and put a 775 motor and ESC on it. I have an ESC and could make the motor mount no problem. Id say it would be a lot of fun even with the brushed motor on it. Ill have to see how much I like it, and go from there before i get any big ideas though

crazy nick

My Feedback: (29)

Not for nothin , but tower is great w/ support also. Ever need anything just make like you bought it from them, try to get the big discount.n Looks great!

Smiff 24

Great lookin truck cummins, I love the body!
The wheelie bar seems to have seen some pavement too!

proanti1

My Feedback: (2)

Tower hobbies/duratrax makes decent cars, they just somehow manage to make them extremely ugly... I don't understand it.

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

Ill agree, although i dont think all of them look bad. I like a lot of the duratrax stuff. The problem to me is the fact that they never seem to keep anything long and soon after production, the parts are harder to get too. I really liked the looks of the Duratrax Thunder Quake when it was out, and it was a good design, based off of an 1/8 scale buggy/truggy chassis. Id be willing to try one for sure, excep they discontinued them and now its darn near impossible to find parts. The evader is one of the only things duratrax hasnt ditched/upgraded from seems to me.

Eric

moe7404

looks like you are going to have LOTS of fun. burn a gal for me

Ttam Says Blarg

Looks cool! Going to paint up a body for it?

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

We'll have to see what happens[8D] That body looks to be in good shape besides the peeling paint. Might have to see if i can somehow fix it.

The truck is 30 miles from me right now and will be here tomorrow waiting on me when i get off work. Cant wait to try it out

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

Well, the truck came in today. I checked it over when I got off of work and Installed the 2.4 system it came with while one of my receiver batteries charged. I noticed a mismatched screw in the front of one of the TVP's that had like a wood screw head on it. I had one that matched the others pretty well, so I put that one in because i hate mismatched screws. Looking it over it looks pretty clean for the most part and the truck itself seems pretty solid. I hate that the stock tires dont have foams in them, but not much I can do about that right now.

Now for the main problems:
- Radio antenna on the RX is broke in half. Its got about an inch sticking out of the receiver box, however it seems to get fine reception so far.
- The throttle servo worked fine, but the throttle slide on the carb would only move maybe 1/8 inch from full open to full closed on the transmitter
- Carb had some nasty yellow epoxy or something around it. I was hoping it was only used to seal an air leak, but ill get into that in a minute

So anyways, after finding these problems, I decided to try the radio how it was. The carb however, was not going to work without a lot of tweaking. Tower Hobbies apparently found it a good idea to use an awful design on the throttle linkage. One linkage comes from the servo to a pivot, and the other linkage goes from another arm on the pivot to the carburetor slide. This is fine, however the 2 arms on the pivot are seperate and are keyed together, and they keyed parts is purposely made with about 90* of play. I havent figured out the reason for this yet. Basically I think how this was supposed to work from the factory is that the servo is supposed to open the carb, then when you let off the throttle, the servo comes back to neutral, and the throttle return spring closes the carb. This is an awful idea IMO. Anyways, after some relocating of the throttle return spring, and adjusting the carb linkage, I have it where it will open about 3/4 of the way and closes good on its own. Not perfect, but hey, I wanted to drive it. So, I took it outside and primed it by blowing in the pressure line. I assumed it primed and so I pulled on it several times with not even a gurgle out of it. So I finally figured out it wasnt getting fuel and after opening the HSN some and blowing hard it shot fuel out into the carb and was fine then. I guess some fuel had gummed up in the HSN from not being used. After that I got the truck to start and run some, however it was hard to start and as soon as i took the igniter off it would die. I figured it was probably a bad plug, so i grabbed a new one and this time it fired right up and didnt die. Engine sounded alright. So after some tuning and running it, it was running ok. It was almost dark out and I was having a hard time seeing much, so i couldnt run it real hard, but the engine didnt seem to have any air leaks and never died once i got it tuned some. However, I was noticing that it started idling really high at times and then would almost die at others. I checked it out and noticed the carb was spinning in the engine throat. I decided to bring it in and check it out a little more. The pinch bolt was tight. So i pulled the carb out and the carb came out, but the aluminum sleeve that goes over the carb stayed in the engine. After some pulling I got that out too and noticed 3 little pieces of plastic(dowels) that used to hold the aluminum sleeve to the plastic carb throat. Someone had broken it off and so it was free to spin in the aluminum housing, causing it to spin every time I would mess with the throttle. So, after some redneck engineering, I drilled a hole straight through the carb body with the sleeve on it and ran a screw through, then cut the head off with my dremel and ground it smooth. this way the carb fits tight in the sleeve again and they cant come loose from each other. The screw cant fall out either the way its in there. I know its in the flow of air, but I dont really think it will make any difference. I didnt want to give up on the engine, so this was about my only real option. Anyways, I put the carb back in with some good ol'e black RTV sealant and its drying now and the carb is tight in there now. Gonna try it in a minute, and I may work on the throttle linkage some more too.

Anyways, it DOES need some tinkering, but i have very little in this truck and it seems fun to drive so far. Hopefully i can run it some more soon and get a better feel for it. The brakes are awesome! I did a couple front flips on accident

Anyways, here are the pictures. You can see the yellow looking epoxy they used, and the 3 little dowels that came out of the carb sleeve as well as how I fixed it. Still some work to do, but i enjoy this kind of thing

cummins driver

My Feedback: (31)

I was trying to post that about 2hrs ago with no luck, so this is another update.

Got the carb fixed, at some supper with my lovely wife, and then went back out to try it again. Got to do some more tuning on it, and wow. This thing has really come to life! The carb works perfect now. No air leaks, and the bolt going all the way across seems to have no side effects, other than fixing my problem for free I have it tuned almost perfect now. LSN still needs to be leaned a touch I think, but man this thing is fast! Im still only getting about 3/4 throttle, but it still wheelies pretty regularly even in the wet grass and that engine is a screamer. Sounds great and starts very easy. Im impressed with the whole truck really.

My session was cut short when I wheel hub came off. This is a common problem on these trucks if you dont have loctite on them. So i called it quits since it was dark, and came in and loctited ALL the grub screws on the hubs and when i get off work tomorrow, this thing is going back out I really think it is faster than my Ofna buggy with a .25 HPI in it. Its a screamer. This engine is rated to turn 42k rpm. It turns great with the Tower Pro 995mg servo on the steering, and it has a standard servo for the throttle/brakes, but somehow it still manages to flip itself over frontwards regularly. I think this thing would be pretty quick on a track with some fine tuning[8D]

Anyways, very happy with the truck now. Im still not happy with the throttle linkage, especially since it isnt giving full travel, so i may put a better throttle servo in and mod the linkage setup to my liking, but other than that, this seems like a good truck. Id definately take this over my old 2.5 t-maxx. Faster, stronger, and simpler design. I may just hang onto this thing

Eric

cooldriver385

That does look like a pretty wacked out throttle linkage.