With the crappy weather the past few days I haven't been on the KLX much. Instead I've been sanding, painting, sanding, decalling and clear coating one of my RC's. They paint came out OK but there are some blemishes in it but its going to get scratched up anyway so I guess I won't worry about it too much. Little info, its the Tamiya High Lift F350 model, 3 speed remotely shifted tranny with full time 4wd through a geared transfer case. The differentials can be locked or left open by removing a rubber plug and inserting a screw pin. The suspension is a true to scale leaf spring/shackle design. It came with extra leafs so you can make the pack to suit you. Enough babble here's some pics...

It went from plain Jane factory height and no details:


To detailed down to windshield wipers and mirrors. I added 13mm of suspension lift and 15 mm of body lift to clear the 5" tall tires:




The wheels are actually chrome but they are dusty from the last run in a sandpit, same for the grille.

 

very nice. now, time for a nitro kit of that model

 

That particular one isn't well suited to nitro, steel frame rails and weighs ~12lbs, not to mention the hard plastic body is $100 by itself. I've done the nitro scene and at $35/gallon I'd rather ride the KLX

 

dang! looks nice.
No RC's here, just race karts and rides. But that hobby looks kinda cool, although a little spendy!

 

Here's a video of two of my buddies with their nitro trucks in a quarry....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYj3jiwKks

 

Dang, they hit hard! That has to tear up components!

 

Nope they run them like that all day with no breakage. The suspension is designed such that the chassis bottoms out instead of the shocks and linkages having to take the brunt of it. They do have 4 inches of travel though at each wheel. They sound kinda buzzy in that video because, well because they are. They put out 2.5 HP at 40,000 rpm. And no I didn't add an extra 0, they idle around 10,000 and burn 20% nitromethane mix.

Here's some naked shots of mine, its the same as what was in the video.

 

wow, a work of art. Where do you get the nitromethane? 2.5hp is pretty darn good.

 

Local hobby shop carries it by the gallon. When I averaged out how many tanks per gallon there were it equalled around $1 every tank of fuel run through it, and at 15 minutes per tank it was an expensive endeavor. It was easy to burn up a couple gallons a day. 2.5 hp doesn't seem like much but compare 2.5 hp in an 8lb truck to I dunno say a Ferrari or a Viper for power to weight.

 

Is the f350the same asthe old Tamiya Bruiser. I remember that had the the 3 speed tranny and a lot of the stuff that you said the f350 has. Itscool that tamiya reintroduced some of the old models that were around when I was a kid. I still have my old Blackfoot and frog. My local hobby shop has a lunchbox on the shelf that I think I am going to get my son for the experiance of putting it together and some father son bonding time.