Wheelie King - The Family Project

A few years ago I decided to buy a remote control truck known as an HPI Wheely King. I purchased the truck used from a neighbor with the intent of letting my kids play with it as a way to help them have a little kid sized automotive fun. It wasn't long after I bought the silly thing before I decided maybe I should give it a try, it's just a goofy kids toy what's the worst that could happen? I'll tell you what's the worst that could happen, after running the juice out of all of the batteries I was HOOKED on the damn thing! The next time I had my boys I was on a mission, we jumped in the pickup and headed to the RC store to buy all the "cool guy" parts they had for the Wheely King immediately, "It's for the kids" I justified. I can tell you right now that they've played with it maybe 1/2 as much as I have! Now the stock Wheely King was pretty good but I wanted more, I wanted to show my boys just how cool their dad could make this thing!

 

So I ordered front and rear lockers, a new body (the original one didn't survive it's backflip attempt off the shed), paint, a bigger badder motor, waterproof esc, new radio and transmitter, gears, the list goes on and on. My boys were ecstatic about all the new parts and I couldn't wait to get to work on our "family rc truck".

I spent the next couple of days trying to conform my giant hands into the tiny working crevices of the wheely king, it requires millions of itty bitty screws, special paint and microscopic odds and ends. To cut the out the body you must be at least a level 10 samurai or you'll simply screw it up (yeah, I must only be like a level 7 I totally screwed mine up) but finally, after I had yelled enough swear words at it and lost most of the screws 100 times it was finished and ready for some fun!

We had locked axles, a 12 turn 550 titan motor with waterproof everything, we had mud tires, upgraded pinion and spur gears, a bigger battery, and a custom built wheely bar! Oh yeah, the time had come to put this bad girl to the test!

Our first order of business was to see if this baby could do a wheelie across the slushy snow. I suppose a picture can tell a thousand words. This thing can pull a wheel stand as long as you like and it's a BLAST to try to keep it from going over backwards.

The next thing on our agenda was to see how the Wheely King would do in the snow, afterall it was now waterproof and snow has always been a big no no.

Some people might ease their way into something like this to see if it can really handle getting we without frying the electronics but I have more of a "WHOOOOOOOO!" approach. So we just tossed it into the slushy stuff and held the throttle down!

So far we'd conquered the snow and done some awesome wheelies but it just felt like there was something missing............ Yeah, it was mud.

We found a nice sloppy spot where the snow had melted away and sent our truck in to put some mud in the air.

The little Wheely King was a BEAST in the mud, it was nearly unstoppable! That big bad motor and those mud tires had that thing clawing it's way to victory! So obviously it was time for some more wheelies.

Just look at that thing standing on the wheelie bar! What a kickass little truck!

Our family project was a success, it had taken everything we could throw at it and it never batted and eye. The real victory here though is that I have 2 little boys (and their friends) who have memories of helping dad build and play with the coolest remote control truck ever built! It's not the cheapest hobby in the world but take it from me it's a VERY rewarding experience, if you've got kids I recommend you give it a try.

Thank you for reading this weeks blog post

Clint J. Grover