The Most Upgraded MINI-Z Jeep 4x4.. ON THE PLANET!.. I Think

[DeepLCG]

Hey all. Just wanted to share my Mini-Z Jeep 4x4, nearly unrecognizable at this point. I spent a good amount of time and $$$, a few years back, putting this together. Basically, I have a couple SCX24's that have been upgraded and I wanted the Mini-Z to be capable of going head to head with all of them. Mission Accomplished. In some cases this little beast, that I named Bumble after the abominable snowman of the north, will outperform a modestly upgraded SCX24. Here it is!

Here is the Mini-Z 4x4, performance upgrade. As you can see, it could be mistaken for a SCX-24, very easily. The Axial body on the Kyosho Chassis almost makes it look like an old school 4x4 suburban. The wheels are SSD bead lock and the tires are RC4WD Interco TSL Bogger Super Swampers 1.0, with X3 soft compound. I spent some time trying different tires out. There was a fine line between too short / tall, too sticky / not stick enough, too much tread / too little tread and these ended up being perfect.

Here it is from another angle. You can see how much of the body I cut away, to get maximum articulation.

Here, some of the stickers give away what is going on inside. There have been MANY changes to the original components, aside from one very important stock element. I will delve into what's happening under the hood, in the next post.

 

[DeepLCG]

Continuing with the Mini-Z 4x4 tour

You can probably already see the Reefs99 Micro servo behind the trimmed stock bumper. Amber LED running lights added. Metal Steering links and two brass front steering knuckles by Yeah Racing. What you don't see here is one of the most important upgrades for any Mini-Z 4x4. The optional hardened steel Kyosho Universal Joint set. It seems crazy to spend $40 on this simple upgrade, but the stock joints will fail quickly, once you start adding mass to the overall crawler.

A closer look at the awesome SSD bead locks and tires with RC4WD Interco TSL Bogger Super Swampers

I reused all of the original body mounting hardware. Here is where the SCX24 stock jeep body clips in, with the two springs underneath. It's a brilliant mounting system, by kyosho.

Underneath I've installed the steel, adjustable tie rods, steering link and brass ball ends. Brass rear axle cups. Red aluminum upper pull rods. The wheel base is extended slightly. The YR armor plates protect the stock plastic transmission mounting plate and plastic axles. I'm not super crazy about the plastic drive shafts, which pop off once in awhile and are a pain to re install. That said, they haven't broken yet, after tons of abuse. Kyosho uses top quality plastics. If anyone knows of a metal replacement for these drive shafts, it would really finish off the build. Installed an on off switch, for the updated electrics, which I will cover next.

Upside down / side view

Tie rod and brass inner cup

 

[DeepLCG]

Moving on

From behind. The speed control is the Furitek Tegu speed controller with blue tooth. Apparently now you can purchase an entire system together for this truck the Furitek Folivora Brushless Power System, which includes the speed controller, micro Komodo brushless motor, motor adapter housing, speed control and bluetooth for $125. Not bad, once you feel how the truck runs after being upgraded to brushless. Also here, are the custom tail lights mounted to the frame and the Yeah Racing black metal shocks and shock tower upgrade.

Furitek CNC motor mount and micro komodo brushless outrunner installed on the stock Kyosho Mini Z transmission. The transmission is the part I was referring as being an important stock component. It runs more like a full sized 1/10 crawler with this tranny and drive system, being that it doesn't use the SCX24 worm gear. It's pretty slick to drive and has a decent top speed, depending on which pinion you decide to use. Obviously can do a staggeringly slow crawl, as well.

I removed the spur / pinion guard, since I don't plan on running this thing in mud. Trimmed up the ESC / Motor wires to fit and installed a Flysky FS-A3 Reciver for my FS-GT5 transmitter.

99micro Reefs Servo installed. It is buttery smooth, with enough torque to command the heavy wheels / tires. I wouldn't recommend doing any of this with a stock servo.

Here is how I have mounted the battery, which is a Venom Fly 300C 2s 300 Mah. It is the only battery I could find that could fit the modified / 3D printed frame upgrade. Upgrade can be purchased on Ebay Seller Sleekun. The plastic is a bit brittle, so be prepared to upgrade the shock tower assemblies and a few other bits with E-6000.

Here is how it all comes together inside. Hope this inspires others to upgrade this platform. Something different, to show off at your local hobby shop 1/24th crawler course. It is capable of far superior technical crawling compared with the stock version and you can ditch the AAA batteries. Haha!

 

[fishsplish]

Amazing set of mods. Mine is in bits awaiting various parts at the mo. How did you adapt the lower shock mounts to accept ‘normal’ shocks? I’m trying tiny eyebolts through the axles with the lower shock end bolted through the eyelets…