My first impression after opening the box of my new dynamite 1/10 scale monster truck and taking off the body was wow, this thing looks really cool. I was just hoping it ran as good as it looked. It actually runs better than it looks but we will get to that in a moment. The things that immediately stand out are the 3300 KV brushless motor and the 75 amp ESC. But having owned quite a few RC trucks in my life I was looking a little closer. Exceed has gone from an aluminum chassis to plastic, while that may sound like a bad thing I think it was a great move. The plastic should hold up better to the thrashing this truck is sure to get. The actual design which you can see in the pictures is a plastic lower chassis and an aluminum upper chassis support for stiffness. The chassis looks great but there are a few other problems that I can see immediately.

The first thing that popped out was the shock towers; they are very flimsy and have considerable movement with slight pressure. The bumpers on both the front and back are spring loaded and push against the shock towers, so I can see some pretty serious breakage going on with them. The good news is that exceed makes an aluminum upgrade for them and if you are going to do any serious bashing I would highly recommend that you get them right away.

Like with any RC you should make sure you don’t land under acceleration, but with no slipper clutch it is very important not to in this truck. You could end up breaking a differential or driveline if you get too serious of a jolt from a hard landing.

The A arms are plastic like every RC truck and are very flexible. I stepped on the front left wheel and bent it almost completely sideways and nothing broke. There are also aluminum upgrades for the A arms but I wouldn’t go for them right away like the shock towers. Wait until you hit a curb or tree and then go for the upgrade. I think these will be pretty durable and should stand up to a lot of thrashing, but this thing is super fast so a new and uncontrolled driver may have some issues. Here are links to the upgraded A arms. Aluminum Front lower arms Aluminum Rear lower arms

Now for the fun. I put in a 2s lipo and took it to the street in front of my house. This thing blazes. Like any 1/10 scale monster truck it is prone to flip over during high speed turns, but the low COG and wide stance keeps it on its wheels very well. I did flip it a few times while pushing it to its limits, but it came out of it with just a few scratches to the body. Even just a 2s lipo and the dynamite lives up to its name. It explodes into action and a WOT it is as fast as any RTR RC on the market. Way faster than most. I can’t wait to see it in a drag race with my brushless E-REVO.

I will be upgrading the receiver to the Airtronics sport 3 channel 2.4ghz receiver before I do a running video. The AM receiver that comes with the car works fine but is a little glitchy. 2.4ghz is the best way to run and the park I will be shooting video in has some high power electric lines that cause interference. So for me it is the only way I can make sure I don’t lose contact with the truck. I will take some pictures of the receiver and add them to this article before I shoot the video.

After the first run I brought the truck in a gave it a good looking over to make sure nothing came loose or fell off and had an epiphany. This truck would make a great 4x4 short course truck. Look for me to make some changes to it in the near future. And with Traxxas making an announcement about a new 4wd slash for $400.00, this is the perfect time to convert this truck to a short course racer and blow the doors off of the new slash.

Modifications to date:

1.  Replaced the tape holding the ESC with industrial strength velcro from Wal-Mart.  And moved it forward

2.  2.4ghz transmitter and receiver