Awesome Kit for the Experienced Builder

Review by Matt on 30 Jul 2020

review stating Awesome Kit for the Experienced Builder

I've been building RC car kits for the past 30 years, and have wanted a crawler for a few years to complement to my buggy collection now that I own some woods with some obstacles to run it in. I bought the kit at my local hobby store to build with my 4 year old daughter who has been practicing driving with her LaTrax Prerunner and some of my older buggies. I had a 3 channel radio system sitting around, and a Tamiya Sport Tuned motor and matching ESC removed from my now brushless Manta Ray that I figured I'd throw in just to get it going. Assembling this kit is not for the faint of heart. The fine thread screws are hard to get started and once they are, they are tight for an adult let alone a 4 year old. Some of the less critical screws I first tapped with my M3x.5 bottoming tap that I use for my other RC models, then let my daughter put those screws in. The directions are ok, but could be a little vague for someone that has never built a kit before. The owner of the hobby shop warned me about the kit and tried pushing me to the RTR due to how tedious the kit is. Once built, I let my daughter take it for the initial test run. The 23 turn motor is a bit too fast for the kit's center of gravity, but the radio I have lets me set throttle endpoints, so I can limit the speed for her to run around the yard. The capabilities of this thing are awesome. I set up some skids and boards for my daughter to drive over and it tackles them extremely well. I throw a battery in and just let her loose in the yard which entertains the almost 2 year old watching it crawl over stuff. So far she's run about 6 batteries through it with not a scratch on the jeep. The kit is set up for LEDs for the headlights and taillights. I buy high intensity LEDs in bulk to build light bars for my friends and myself, so that's the next step. I own a JK Wrangler, and even though this is a JL, my daughter wanted to paint it like the real one, so we picked the closest paint we could. Details are amazing, it almost looks real, BUT it is hard to get the body off with the clips being tight under the bumpers instead of on top of the body. I will probably modify the mounts with some 1/4 turn fasteners or something because swapping batteries takes a little longer than it should as my big fingers don't fit where the clips are. Overall, a good high quality kit that is well packaged, has high quality rugged components, and extreme attention to detail.