MN999 Upgrades and Update 1. Ups and Downs.

It's been a while but I'm finally back on the MN999, looking at how I can make this a better crawler. In fact, the plan is to make it a really good crawler, so watch this space. I've been focusing on other cars for a bit, so haven't devoted much time to the big MN but I have ordered a few bits and have now put them on to try them out. The drive I've just had started off very badly. We parked the car, opened the boot/trunk and the MN rolled straight out, landed on its front bumper and toppled over forwards. The rear window fell out, the bumper broke and it got pretty scuffed up. I'd bought a few sets of tyres for a few vehicles and figured that one set would probably work well on this. Some were too small and some were too big but I think these look pretty good. Unfortunately, the wheel-arches are way too big for this scale of D90 and it's leaving things looking a little odd when it's wearing more scale wheels and tyres. The original tyres were OK for a bit of trailing and coped OK in wet conditions but they were pretty poor on rock and were just too big, making the Landy look strange. The one's that are currently on are from Injora and are reported to be an old Voodoo tyre that they lost ownership of (I don't know whether that's the case), so I though they were worth a go. I also got the wheels (which are lovely) and some dual stage foams from Injora at the same time and together they look and feel great and are really heavy! On the one run that I've just had with it, these tyres did really well, outperforming the RGT Rescuer on just about everything. I was impressed. The steering was another area that needed work. There are several issues as stock. 1. Crazy caster angle. 2. Awful bump steer. 3. Pathetically weak servo. 4. Rubbish maximum steering lock. For now, I seem to have dramatically improved the first three by buying a 35kg servo, mounting it from underneath to reduce the angle of the tie rod and therefore reducing bump steer, whilst switching the servo horn to stop it from catching on the main steering link between the wheels. It's worked wonders for the bump steer but the steering lock is still poor. The caster angle has been improved by changing the lower suspension links for slightly longer ones.. I've also moved the stock receiver/ESC to the side tray so that I can use a full-sized LiPo. This was simple and well worth it. Just remember to move that front suspension tower brace to ease access. I zip-tied the power switch to this as well, so it can be accessed through the bonnet/hood. I had initially removed the brace that goes under the back of the battery tray but I've replaced it for two reasons. 1. If you're using a full LiPo you need the tray to be stable. 2. The perceived advantage of increasing the suspension travel is just not right as you just don't need the whole front end to have loads of travel as a single unit. This would only be needed if hitting something at speed and as this is a crawler, it's not relevant. One or other front wheel can gain full travel with the brace in place, so it makes sense to keep it for overall rigidity. So, that's about it for now. I'm going to look at what to do with the bumper - fix it or spend money? This is supposed to be a budget car, so trying not to spend too much beyond what everyone is likely to do to any rig. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you want to get hold of one, you can get one here: MN999: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_ADXtCz Wheels & Tyres: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_9Q20WT Foams: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_AqiMO3 Servo: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_AnBG11 Suspension links (only 2 were used): https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_AqGFDl (RC Pie will get a tiny commission from using these links which will help us to keep the channel going and let us get more RC stuff to show you.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stay tuned for more videos of it running and being upgraded. Please subscribe and get in touch. Subscribing will really help to keep the channel going, so please click this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pE... If you'd like to support me to buy things to review and produce more content, you can 'Buy Me A Coffee' https://www.buymeacoffee.com/piehobbies Thanks for watching! -----------------------------------------------------------