You’ll recall our first look at a body-on Venture FJ in this video post from December 18. Now we get a look under the shell for Venture’s take on the scaler formula. No official details yet, but we can see HPI went for a front-motor, chassis-mounted servo setup, and the front suspension gets a Panhard bar instead of triangulated upper links. The rear end is 4-link, with telescoping CV-joint driveshafts. The chassis rails are fixed-length, and the suspension lengths don’t appear to be adjustable, so wheelbase is fixed unless there are different mounting locations on the chassis for the links. Note too how the rear lower links mount to an arm well offset from the axle–we’ll have to wait to see what’s going on there. We like the well-supported rear body mounts and threaded shocks (aluminum? Metallic-colored plastic? We’ll see), and the rear tire carrier and front bumper are looking good. We expect another hold-down option for the battery tray that will take square-cornered LiPos, but it appears the tray will be rear-mount only–there’s no obvious way to center- or front-mount it.
In all, looking pretty good. Can’t wait to review one…
Click pics to enlarge