Originally posted by Rich Derry on August 1, 2016
The Axial Racing Yeti is the prefect platform for some amazing IFS Trophy Truck builds but, what about those KOH solid axle rigs? Now there’s the Axial Racing Bomber, which is an amazing machine, but what about Bomber performance with a shorter wheelbase, something in between the SCX10 and Bomber?
While I was going through my spare parts to find some ball ends but instead, I decided to see how much of one of these off-road monsters I could build only using spare parts.
I started out with some Axial SCX10 frame rails from a past build that I had cut off about a half inch of the rear, SCX10 axles, and some STRC yeti trailing arms with shorter ball ends.
Decided I’d use the Boom Racing phat axles that I won from Axialfest this year, and load it up with some Cow Rc udder butter.
Tried out some Vaterra Ascender shocks and decided on using a Proline Racing Yeti Raptor body so I had to lengthen out the rear end using the leftover plastic trailing arms and upper links from my Bomber. What’s a Baja truck without some Baja tires? I happen to be a tire hoarder, so I have a set of 5 Proline 1.9 Baja KR2’s with some cheap 2.2 eBay wheels mounted up.
After watching YouTube videos and looking at some pre-runner/trophy truck pictures on Pinterest, I needed some name brand shocks. I swapped out my Ascender shocks for a set of Kings that were on another build, used 100mm’s in the back and 90mm ones in the front. I also removed the rear shock frame X support, made a shock tower brace, chopped off the remaining frame rails after the rear shock towers, and lopped off the sides of the rear upper axle link mount. Tons of rear up travel now!
I had a spare Axial Yeti cage lying around so I decided to drop it on the chassis, luckily the Yeti RTR/Kit comes with a rear body mount that will work with the SCX10 all you have to do is figure out the front mount. The cage fit like a glove when I attached it to the SCX10 frame.
Now that I got the cage mounted up I needed to decide where and how to mount the battery and electronics. I had an old Jevne Racing battery plate that was collecting dust, all I needed to do is notch the front a bit to get the cage to lay down. I also “fabbed” up an esc and RX mount on the rear with an Axial Racing Wraith esc mount and some left over aluminum links. Don’t be too jealous of my skills! Motor and esc are a sensored 13.5T Hobbywing Quicrun with a 16T pinon, it should have some nice wheel speed yet still be able to get slow. I had also won a ScalerFab front SCX10 stinger bumper at AxialFest so I put that to good use.
Now on to the body…
This being a KOH style build, and when I think of that Poison Spyder’s Crispy build comes to mind so…
My body of choice is the Proline Racing Jeep Rubicon body, I’ve always thought it looked kinda weird with the diagonal cut fenders, but for the Yeti IFS, you need that type of travel ability.
Looking at the body, there are some nice deep lines to assist with cutting the body the way you want. I decided to leave the roof and windshield attached (for now) and cut out the rear cage area.
Now on to the painting…I ordered some blue vinyl Poison Spyder decals from rpphobby.com and picked up some Tamiya Gunmetal and White from my local hobby store. The decal set comes with sides and a hood blackout, since I wasn’t going to use the hood decal I decided it was going to become a mask for the roof spyder.
Here’s the video of the shakedown run at the rock wall in Ogden.
There are a few driving characteristics that need to be corrected as well as the inevitable upgrades to help it perform even better.
The sensored Hobbywing esc and motor combo helped give it some decent speed and torque but I will be swapping the motor out for a 4-pole motor very soon.
The Pro-line Racing 1.9 BFGoodrich Baja KR2 tires are one of the best tires in my opinion, they did very well on every surface that they encountered.