New Site Format
     As you know
  StampedeProject has
  become way more than
  just Stampede, Traxxas,
  to now include other
  RC brands, accessories,
  and cars. I still don't sell
  anything, I just
  enthusiastically promote
  those RC products I think
  are great.
     Take a look through
  the above links.
  I simply had too much
  information for my
  old site format.
  More fun projects
  coming...
  - Tony

  StampedeProject.com

  Please Private Message
  me Here on the
  Traxxas Forum    

  Copyright 2007
  all rights reserved 

The Stampede Project Franken-Crawler
What Eventually Became the Fast Lane Machine SPV2 Chassis - September 7th 2008
Designed by Tony Arnold - StampedeProject.com

It all started when I heard of Losi's mini-crawler several months back.  I though a mini-scale crawler would be cool, but how about a true 1/12th scale... durable and easily built based via Wheelie King parts, a Traxxas Stampede tranny and whatever else I had laying around. 

The result was my 1/12th scale Stampede Project FrankenCrawler with parts from just about everywhere.  The FrankenCrawler is very capable considering it has a Stampede tranny, Wheelie King axles, mix and match driveshafts, EMaxx Shocks (later Axial Shocks) and of course the original very narrow 2.75" prototype of the SPV1 chassis.

Not Franken-Crawler enough for you? The comm on VERY old Trinity Chromium motor I was planning on using was worn out, however the thought of using a spare 27T Wheelie King motor was out because the space was too tight. I yanked the armature from the 27T WK motor and plopped that in the Trinity Chromium can, replaced the brushes and did a water bath brush break in process and cleaned it with motor cleaner. I got lucky that the old motor heatsink I found clipped right on. With a classis like this you HAVE to go with a Tekin Rebel 2 and with not a lot of space about the only option for batteries is an A123 pack.  I found an un-labled RX that happened to work and found an old transmitter than it seemed to work with.

Rummaging through my box of tires I found a set of Dirt Hawg (the originals) Pro-Line tires mounted to what appear to be HPI rims - these things are at least half a decade old. What stunned my was how much traction these old worn tires had - go figure old soft rubber with warn out foams.

The performance of this dink little crawler is surprising and a blast to run as a rock racer.  On a recent trip to a cabin in Minnesota I packed the Franken-Crawler in a small duffle bag with a couple packs and had a blast playing around on the rocks and raced around the yard chasing the dogs.  I have to say that I think Axial an HPI might be on to something with these plastic links.  I gave this thing some pretty substantial hits launching it off some jumps and though I could see the links flex, I never broke a single part.

I of course was going to call this the ProtoWheelyProLineTekinTraxxasAxialTrinityMysteryParts Crawler but I thought Franken-Crawler would be easier to say.

The moral of this build for me was that you don't need the best of the best to have fun... sometimes it's just all the junk you have laying around that ends up being your favorite, not because it's the best, but because it's all uniquely yours.

The result of this project was the design and development of the SPV1 & SPV2 - StampedeProject Version 2 Chassis shown here with the original black Derlin prototype.  The SPV1 was designed specially as a bolt up replacement chassis for the stock Axial chassis. I worked up the first below test version and had Jamie at FLM cut the blank and the rest shall we say is history.

The Final SPV1 and SPV2 Chassis