Balducci Bro's Racing 09 buggy build

[zucruisers]

i figured i'd finally start a thread about this, a few of you might already know about it
me and dom are competing in RCROCS at rausch creek again this year, we took 1st place overall in class 3 last season, and are hoping to do the same thing again
we started collecting parts this past fall, and sold the sami buggy in january(i think )
this project started about 6 or 7 weeks ago, around the beginning of february...its coming together nicely, but im just going to leave you with a teaser pic for now

this was the day i pulled the donor tracker into the shop, i got it from rob(ghost), who got it from goober awhile back, the frame is clean and the body was ok

[Mr_DIY]

  woot, 1st response... this will surely be an exciting buildup.  glad to see you posting it.  you guys do nice work.

[geotoy]

ok, enough of the teaser photo. now post some of the build on this one.

[crazysammi87]

this thing should be sweet 

[Mr_DIY]

needs more triangulation :flipoff:   

[zucruisers]

im not going to post up a lot of tech on this build, i just dont have time considering it has to be done in about 5 weeks from now! ...its just me and dom building it at night and on the weekends

so here's a parts list off the top of my head -

drivertrain - 1.6 16v, 3spd auto, kicker 4(i will never buy from ott again ), stock geared dual toy cases, marlin mc07-r10 adapter, longfield chromoly rear output, twin sticks, trail tough rear disconnect, custom engine and tcase mounts using poly leaf spring bushings, and a front range offroad fab tcase crossmember center plate

axles - ifs toy rear axle, 4.88's, ARB, front range full floater/disc brake kit(vented rotors), longfield chromo drive flanges
85 toy minitruck front axle, HP fj80 diff, 4.88's, ARB, 5" widened housing, custom longfield 30 spline inner shafts(kinda), long birfs, long chromo drive flanges, ifs wheel bearing hubs, taco rotors

suspension - thanks to CLAYTON OFFROAD MANUFACTURING, we are using clayton's links with johnny joints, custom length long arms, triangulated 4-link in the rear with 16" SAW airshocks, 3-link/panhard up front with 14" SAW airshocks

steering - going to be full hydro, dont have space for anything else , marlin crawler competition series high steer arms with upgraded trunion kit, ARP steering arm studs

wheels are 17" campbell enterprises aluminum beadlocks, with a beadlocked steel soft 8 for a spare, we have red label 37" krawlers right now, but are looking into getting maxxis trepadors

Sean Devinney of aftermarket4x4 is doing the wiring harness for us, cutting it down and getting rid of all the unecessary stuff

sponsors for this year are Clayton Offroad Manufacturing, A-Z fabrication, and Aftermarket 4X4

www.claytonoffroad.com
www.atozfabrication.com
www.aftermarket4x4.com

[geotoy]

well at least post a picture or two when it is down so we can all drool all over our keyboards

[zucruisers]

a day or two later, after i stripped off all the stock parts to give back to rob -


started cutting soon after that -




more pics later, gotta go get some work done

[zucruisers]

when we started building some of the brackets, dom was cutting them out with the plasma at A-Z, but zach decided to upgrade his plasma cutter, so dom bought his old one, we figured it out that it would almost pay for itself just throughout this build alone in the amount of cutoff wheels we would have used, plus it is a huge time saver, once we got it home i made an ugly little cart for it, its a slightly older hypertherm which is really heavy compared to the new ones

[zucruisers]

a few more teaser pics



front lower frame side link mounts -


rear lower frame side link mounts -

[zucruisers]

[Mr_DIY]

you guys work SOOOO fast it's unbelievable.  kudos on a great job so far.

[zucruisers]

you guys work SOOOO fast it's unbelievable.  kudos on a great job so far.

thanks ...there's a lot more done...we just havent been taking many pictures

[Mr_DIY]

   I don't get it? 

[projecttractor]

nice progress...
will be watching...