Even more love for the XR10 from Axial has some sweet carbon fiber hop-ups! These replace the stick aluminum XR10 components. You can buy them in a kit, or separately. The complete kit is 50% lighter than the stock parts!
Check out Axial’s site for more info!

Looks like the XR10 from Axial is already getting some hop-up love! These new aluminum C-Hub’s look very tough! You can buy them as a upgrade kit or as separate parts.

Check out Axial’s site for more info!

We got our hands on a Axial XR10 here at the Big Squid RC Headquarters, and I have to say the guys here are pretty stoked about it. This is going to be one of those kits you can’t rush, but when it’s done, it will all be worth it!
As expected here are the official unboxing photos. I’m not sure if they all come this way, or if were special, but it was wrapped very well. The box itself is cool, flat black has been the trend lately, and this box looks really good with it. It’s a true kit, and lets you know your going to need a good amount of stuff to complete it. Not recommended for kids under 10… now we are in trouble!
Unlike most unboxings, we have a ton of parts here, an no big ‘chassis’ to look at, so this is all you get. We haven’t opened all the bags yet, we don’t want to loose anything before the rest of our parts (motors, esc’s..) get here. Hopefully these few pics will hold you over till we start the build!

Check out Axial’s site for more info on this beast!

Those lovely gents at Pro-Line have some more paraphernalia for you Jeep addicts.  The Jeep Comanche light truck is finally getting it’s just deserts and has been faithfully reproduced in crystal clear polycarbonate.  Two versions are available, one specifically for the Axial SCX10 Trail Honcho and one for every other 12.3″ wheelbase rock crawler.  Both versions of the body are two-piece setups.  The Trail Honcho version comes with a bed that has been designed around the Trail Honcho’s cage system, and the other version has a regular bed.  Both versions include all the decals you’ll need to decorate them, plus the usual window masks, overspray film, and necessary hardware.  They are also compatible with Pro-Line’s 12.3″ PL-C Floor Plan and PL-C Interior.

You can expect to pay around $45 for a Comanche body and they should be hitting hobby shop shelves very soon.  Check out the Pro-Line web site for more info about these bodies.

Now Pro-Line just needs an official J10 body and I’ll be a happy person.

Pro-Line Jeep Comanche body gallery

Pro-Line is all about the scalers now-a-days.  Licensed bodies, detailed interiors and floor pans, and all that jazz.  The Axial Trail Honcho is a kit that is very popular with scale builders and as such Pro-Line has taken to making a lot of their scaler products compatible with it.  Their PL-C Floor Pan is now available for the Trail Honcho and other 12.3″ wheelbase crawlers.  So if you’ve been looking for ways to make your Trail Honcho even more scale, you might want to check it out.

The floor pan will start shipping later this month and you should expect to see it for around $30.  Check out the Pro-Line web site for more info.

The Axial XR10 is going to be all the rage in the crawling scene here real soon, and to keep the ball rolling Axial is releasing some cool looking 2.2 VWS Beadlock Wheels to go along with it. I really dig the orange and carbon fiber look! They are compatable with the Vanquish Products wheel weight system as well.

Check out Axial’s site for the official info!

This new body from Axial looks pretty slick! I can see this thing catching on in the rc rock crawling scene for sure. It meets all U.S.R.C.C.A. minimum requirements, it’s designed for competition, has a rounded roof line (yeah! no more VW’s!) and is made from .040 polycarbonate plastic.

Check out Axial’s site for more info!

Axial Hardline Body gallery

Recently we reviewed the Gatekeeper Mini GC Chassis from Duratrax for the Losi Mini Rock Crawler. Well it looks like Austin “Gatekeeper” Dunn is at it again with his new chassis for the Axial AX-10! The GC-3A is made from CNC-Machined T6 Aluminum, has a axle mounted servo plate and rear axle link plate. It also includes aluminum upper and lower links and center chassis braces along with a Delrin skid plate. The kit comes with everything you need to do the conversion from AX-10 to the new GC-3A.

Go check out the Duratrax website for more info.

So you remember that leaked info we posted about the Axial XR10? While we finally have some pictures of the awesome beast! Looking forward to getting my hands on one of these! Looks pretty cool! As Cubby would say, a little martian.. but sweet!

Check out Axial’s site for all the info!

Axial has been teasing fans for a while now about a new vehicle arriving soon, many people think that’s it’s finally going to be the arrival of a Axial MOA (motor on axle) vehicle. Doing a little snooping we have found the following info. We don’t know if this is for their new vehicle or not.. but they do look like something interesting. They plan to officially announce the vehicle May 10th. Guess we’ll have to wait. But for now.. check out this info!

AX90017 Axial XR10 – 1/10th Scale Electric 4WD Rock Crawler Competition Kit
Complete “No-Compromise” competition ready kit

* All new front and rear specific nylon lightweight axles
* Low profile design for extra ground clearance
* Front steering axle with the ability to clock the motor up/down
* Rear axle is 16mm narrower to squeeze through the obstacles
* All new Behind the axle steering and oversized universals
* Enclosed steering slide with adjustable tie rods to adjust toe in/out
* 8* kingpin angle to increase steering response
* Double sheer knuckles with replaceable aluminum steering arm
* Adjustable C’s with splined design to provide caster adjustment in 15* increments
* Oversized 12.5mm universals with 4mm and 2.5mm cross-pins
* 45* of steering out of the box
* 37.9:1 Gear ratio using the included 14T Pinion. Gear box allows for use of 12-19T Pinions for gear ratios of 44.2:1 through 27.9:1.
* With the use of dual motors you can easily adjust your front and rear gear ratios independently for fine tuning.
* Front and Rear compact and lightweight gearboxes keep the motor tucked in close and above axle centerline for extra clearance
* Aluminum chassis plates with tapered molded nylon skid plate
* Chassis provides multiple upper link adjustment holes for suspension tuning
* Adjustable shock mounts for fine tuning ride height and driving style
* Adjustable body mounts move with shock mounts to provide finite adjustment (angle and height)
* Removable electronics tray for easy maintenance and installation
* Waterproof receiver box with wire routing guides

Read the rest of this entry »

Axial’s got a new .28 size nitro engine that may help satisfy all your big block desires.  The new Spec 2s is a big engine that you’ll be able to stuff into any .21 size engine mount for an instant power boost.  This thing can be spun up to a max of 37,500 RPM.  Some other features are an easy to adjust three needle slide carb, an oversized heat-sink head, and a selection of venturis in 8.0, 8.5, and 9.0mm sizes.  It also comes with a pull starter that can be swapped out for most aftermarket shaft start systems.  You’re going to be looking at somewhere around 2 bills for this bad boy, and it should be on store shelves soon.

Check out Axial’s site for all the details.

Check out the new Axial SCX10 with Trail Honcho Body – TR (Trail Ready!) Trail Ready means all you need is batteries, and you are ready to hit the trails. It comes with a 27T motor, high torque steering servo, full bearings, and is ready to get out there and crawl! It’s a sweet looking body, and the SCX10 chassis has been getting good praise.

Check out the Axial Racing site for more details.

Ask Cub Reporter, A Weekly Advice Column- 01.20.2010
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First off a couple quick notes. If you have a question for the “Ask Cub Reporter” column, just shoot’em to cubby at BigSquidRC.com. Secondly, the “Ask Cub Reporter” segment is for all questions, from Formula One, to Supercross, to how to set the mesh on your E-Maxx, so feel free to ask Anything.

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Hey there Cubby,

I am in no means new to the hobby. I got my first truck, a Stampede, when I was seven. But I recently put together an Axial SCX-10 kit. Since my first and only electric truck is my stampede. And my newest stick pack is 5 years old, I’m in a way very out of touch in the electric scene(only things I’ve driven in the past few years are a T-Maxx, Savage, And my truggy. I have the an ax-1 ESC on it that I borrowed from a friend (the ESC from the TR version) and I really wanna go LiPo. I just need ya to point me in the right direction for a pack thats not a 5000 mah, 22.4v beast. Just a cheap reliable pack. Thanks a lot bro.
Cenzo Reyes
from Chi-Town

Ya know Cenzo, that Axial truck is one good looking truck, congrats on having one in your stable. So first off some facts for you and the others reading. The SCX-10 is set up to use a normal 6 cell Ni-mh Stick Pack, meaning two sets of 3 Ni-mh cells set side by side. That size of battery tray pretty much holds any standard 6 cell Ni-mh, and all the ROAR legal 2S Li-po’s out there. Next, the speedo that comes stock in the Trail Ready SCX-10, does not have a built in Li-po cut-off. What does a Li-po cut off do? It keeps you from running a Li-po battery down so far that it damages the battery. So to run a Li-po in your truck, you’ll also need one a Li-po cut off or warning device. Lastly, because you haven’t run much electric in recent years, you may not have a charger capable of charging a Lithium battery pack, so you might very well be looking at buying a new charger as well.

So what’s a cheap reliable battery for your Axial? If you want a good pack, todays Ni-mh’s put out good voltage, and have lots of capacity (lot of capacity means lots of run time). A Ni-mh weighs a bit more than a Li-po, so it won’t quite have the yank of a good Lithium pack, but that slight loss of punch might be worth the money you’ll save on a new charger and a Li-po low voltage alarm. So, if you go the Ni-mh route, I’d highly recommend the MaxAmps 5000 mah 6 cell Ni-mh Shotgun pack. It will fit perfect, has lots of power, and won’t break the bank. You can see more info on that pack HERE.

If you want to go the Li-po route to get into todays new technology, I’d recommend the MaxAmps 5250 7.4v Li-po, info HERE., in conjunction with a Li-po low voltage alarm such as this HERE.. The MaxAmps 5250 will give you extremely long run times, as well lots of rip snorting power. The low voltage alarm will warn you when you are about to discharge your battery too far and damage it.

Happy trails Cenzo, and be sure and shoot us some pics of your Axial when you get it good and muddy.

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Cubby,

I saw a pro racer throw his radio after his car broke in a big race in Ohio last weekend. Why did he do that?

Tony
Columbus

Well hello Tony from Columbus. So why did that pro racer guy throw his transmitter after his car broke last weekend? Well, I wasn’t at the CRCRCRCRC race last weekend, nor can I read peoples mind, so I am not going to speculate. What I will say is the racer in question is normally one of the cooler heads on the stand, and is normally a class act. If the racer in question (who’s nic name rhymes with fudge) did actually let his emotions get to him, I’d hope he’d openly apologize to the public, as that’s really the stand up thing to do. It would just take him a minute to post something on his Myspace page if he did actually lose his temper. If he didn’t, all the rumor mongers need to be forced to drink a full quart of carrot juice (ever try that stuff? OMG it’s horrible).

People look up to the pro’s, if they see some “big name” guy throwing a transmitter, they think it’s ok for them (or maybe even cool) to do the same. It’s really not that uncommon to see a 4PK flying across the pits, even at a local race, now days. Racers get too wound up, and there really are no repercussions for their poor sportsmanship. Local track directors never dock laps or throw people out at a local level, and at the national level, I’ve yet to see a racer penalized for turning a DX3R into a frisbee. Until the people behind the scoring computers get their sh#t together, we can expect to see more flying transmitters, trucks, fuel bottles, etc. At a regional or national level, if a racer did throw an item out of anger, then his racing privileges were revoked for a year or so, I’d bet we’d see far fewer outbursts like that. Just say’n……

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That’s it for this weeks edition of “Ask Cub Reporter”. Thanks for reading, and see you bright and early Monday morning for another exciting (LOL) edition of “THE Cub Report”.

YOUR Cub Reporter

Welcome to yet another wonderful edition of THE Cub Report, the opinion piece that keeps industry types constantly hitting the refresh button.

Did you see the press release on the latest offering from Axial? Hubba, hubba! Axials new truck is called the SCX10, and is perhaps the best looking truck released in years. It’s intended for the crawling crowd, but its authentic scaling and trick looks will surely attract a much wider spread of the market.

Speaking of “scale” appearance- it’s seems our favorite sanctioning body wants all the body manufactures to start producing more “realistic” bodies in the truggy class. Now, since when has a truggy ever looked even faintly realistic? Why now should the bodies look more realistic while their wheels, tires, suspension, and ever other components can look like they were designed by a martian? Will a more realistic bodied truggy even enhance racing? I believe more scale realism will lead to more mainstream acceptance of our hobby, but that means the entire car/truck has to look scale, not just it’s body. The trend towards realism is good for our hobby, lets hope the sanctioning bodies get on board with more support of this trend. It might tick off the hard core racers (the type that run off noobs anyways) for a while, but the masses will come, and the increased revenue will be appreciated by everyone making a living in this hobby.

Brian hates it when I give props to any of the print rags, but this week I just have to. Once again the guys over at RC Car have put out a mag worth spending the $5 on. In their January issue, they have two outstanding interviews. The first is with the whole crew from AKA tires- Gil Jr, Pops, Joel Johnson, and Mark Pavidis. The second interview is from Jay Thames, the guy that did the docu/film about carpet racing called “Carpet Racers: A Crash Course“. You won’t find interviews like these in the other rags, and both only have one downside, they just aren’t long enough. Both interviews are good reading, something rarely found in the rc rags these days.

Once again, if you are a battery or charger manufacture, and want to be included in the next BigSquidRC shootouts, be sure and shoot us an email at Brian at BigSquidRC.com to get complete info on how to be included. Looks like we’ve got some big names already lined up, brands that consumers are really interested in seeing tested, so readers rejoice, you are gonna dig the shootouts when we’re done.

As I was having an email exchange the other day with a friend of mine in the industry, we were discussing just how many different genres of cars and trucks there are on the market right now. Then the convo turned to what we both thought our “perfect” cars were. Strangely, even though there are dozens of different genres of cars already out there, nobody makes the two “perfect” cars that my friend and I would really prefer. So now I am asking you readers to submit to us what your “perfect” rc car would be. If it’s already on the market, don’t bother emailing us, but if your true “perfect” car is not out there, shoot us an email and let us know what is it. For instance, is your “perfect” car an 8th scale nitro 4wd crawler? A 12th scale 4wd short course truck? Let us know, and if we get enough responses I’ll post what the “most wanted but not produced” rc car is.

That’s it for this week, support your hobby, hit your LHS and local tracks, and most importantly, have fun playing with your toy cars and trucks.

Your Cub Reporter

Representing your favorite RC brands has always been a great way to promote the hobby. Axial recognized this and is working on putting out a line of really cool shirts and hats. No word is out yet on when they will be available, but you can bet on them being ready for the upcoming winter holidays.

You can check out the rest of the designs here: Axial Shirts.