RC4WD Bully ARTC.. good for 1st time crawler?
 

Between Chris's trucks, Freezebyte's "why crawling?" thread and my growing disinterest in racing, I've been thinking about thinning the herd at home to make way for a crawler to go with my SavageXL basher. I've seen some crazy awesome builds, but I'm not looking to go out and build a custom rig, nor do I want to buy something too cheap and end up spending way more in endless upgrades to get it to perform well.

So I saw RC4WD has a prebuilt Bully rig MOA for not that much $. I have spare sidewinder escs, radios, etc, 300oz TG servos, so really I would just need some cheap motors and a body for the most part to be ready to go.

It looks like the Losi nightcrawler is a decent off the shelf crawler, but looks like many people drop big $ in axles and other stuff in the end anyway.

I don't think I'll be doing comps or anything like that, but I do want something good. IE, any reason not to get this?

How are A123s for crawling rigs? Got tons of loose ones at home not doing anything, but not new enough I'd want to sell. Quick browsing @ RCC shows alot of guys using small 3S lipos. Don't have, but could get from HK easy enough.
LMK.

From what I have seen, the Bully and the Berg are the 2 best MOA axles out there. The night crawler axles don't need any money put into them, they just require extra maintenance because of the worm gears. Another option would be an AX10 if you're looking for a single motor shaft drive.

-JB

For your first crawler, I think a bully would be a bit overkill. RC4WD does make a nice product, however my opinion is that they are way overpriced. For a MOA set up berg might be the way to go for you, but again those axles sure aint free. I'd start with a shafty like an axial if it were me, but again it depends on what you want to do with it. There is also trail trucks, axial has a few new ones out.

Give me a call Ryan and I'll talk you through the options... Bully is a good way to go but worthwhile asking for a custom one with the lightweight axles.

There is a really good club that competes in your neck of the woods...

Crawling is now my thing more than fast brushless at the moment...

Cheap motors? How about GOOD cheap motors? :smile:

http://holmeshobbies.com/product.php...&cat=17&page=1

I run them on my Berg- 2s at the moment. It's really slow, but they have soooo much torque. More than an 85T lathe motor. One of these days I'm gonna get a 3s pack.

Sorry to butt in on this conversation, but any chance you can post up some of these options and their advantages and reasons for choosing as I am interested in this myself and others may be as well. I currently have an AX10 with a few minor mods on it, but am interested in possibly building something else in the future.

AX10 - Good start - but get expensive to make robust and comp worthy - if you get hooked thats a lot of cash down the drain as it'll won't get all the way
LCC - Better start - worm gears and built in dig - less upgrades required (still shafty - but comp worthy)
Bully - Better start - Comp worthy, cheap bit heavy, more complicated as build your own but packages now available
Berg - Best Start - Comp king, most expensive, more complicated as build your own

I decided to start off with the Bully axles. They seemed to be the easiest to start a build with because the axles didn't need any upgrades, yet they were still comp worthy and weren't too pricey.

Arct1k is definitely the one to go to on this forum about crawling, but I just wanted to let you guys considering building a crawler that it is much easier than it looks. To me, I was pretty overwhelmed with the number of parts available for each section of the crawler from the lower and upper links, to chassis', to rims, tires, motors, etc.

This is a work in progress, but I'm personally proud of it since I came from knowing absolutely nothing about crawlers up until a couple months ago. Not that I know that much now, but definitely more than before. :wink: Still needs an ESC and battery, but I'll probably change some other stuff around as well (like steering) to better suite the car.
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_1697.jpg

That looks great...especially for your first one.

Looks good - Try some white rovers for $25 they will make a hell of a difference...

Your front uppers might be a little long - you look over clocked...

For comp'ing you will need to add side panels to the cab'd hellstrom...

Did you go for a punk dig? Remember a MM will do just fine now with the new software.

Nice truck! I had "dogman" links on my rig for a bit too, however that one is parted out now and trying to get my hands on another trail truck.

IIRC I think these are JPC links...

http://www.jpcustomrcs.com/i//DSCF5214.JPG

Thanks for the tips Arct1k. I did notice the front steering seemed a little too far slanted forward, so I'll look into new links. I wasn't aware that side panels were needed so thank you for that information as well. Do they need to cover just the windows of the cab or also the actual chassis?

I did end up going with the Punk dig switch which I already received. I am planning on getting the BR-XL since it doesn't need an external BEC (less wiring is always nice) and its only $100. Just need a little extra $$ in PayPal and I'll be ordering it. :wink:

Side from window line to skid would be normal...

This is good info, thanks!