Gambler bumper mod

Stock Gambler bumper

Another significant change I wanted to do for a long time was the front-bumper.

The bumper of the original Gambler faces downward, This gives the front part of the chassis very high stress when landing on the nose after a jump or so. And when you get the landing completely wrong, the bumper nearly digs into the ground which unsettles the truck a lot.

I wanted to modify the bumper in a way that it helps the chassis over obstacles and guides it into the right direction when landing after a jump. So the bumper should face upwards.

This is very easy to do with the Gambler. I was wondering why this mod hasn't been done by more Gambler owners.

1. unscrew the bumper from the chassis and seperate it from the guide-plate (which can stay attached to the chassis)
2. turn around the bumper a 180 degrees and bolt it onto the front shock-tower as it was before.
3. drill two holes in the bumper just where the holes in the guide-plate has them and screw in two self-tapping screws. (golden in that pic above for better visibility)
4. ready to rumble!

This is how it looks like after the mod.

Of course you have to modify the body a little bit at the front to clear the new bumper. I think this sleek look even enhances the look and makes it more aggressive.



Cost of this bumper-mod:
2 screws, 10 minutes of your time and just a tiny little bit of brain-power.


Edit: After the first race with the new bumper, I can say that it worked very well and it didn't let me down in any way. So I can really recommend it.

Gambler steering update

Finally I got the latest edition front- and rear-arms for the Gambler, together with the great aluminium steering set, which should remove whe steering-wobble I was fighting with from the beginning.

I can say, that aluminium-set did the job. Fantastic!

But I am just as happy to have original Venom Gambler front arms installed again. I was running with HPI Blitz front arms because my old generation arms were broken and the new ones were not available. It did work ok, but not as good as the Gambler-arms, because the geometry was changed slightly and I was missing the cornering-stability I had before. Especially on the high grip astro-turf tracks we have out here in Germany. Now everything is fine as it should be and the new front arms feel much more rigid than the old ones. Looks great - feels great - perfect!

Thanks a lot to Rick and Clint from Venom!

Race Report from Geilenkirchen

This Sunday the NRW Offroad Series  took place in Geilenkirchen on another Astro-Turf track.

The very hard track (and some opponents) tortured the Gambler a lot, but everything went flawlessly. Nothing broke, despite other cars having a lot of problems with parts breakage.

Came home 4th after holding the 3rd spot all day but losing it by 3 secs in the last run.

Ran Proline Bow Tie M3 tires all round on Proline-Wheels.

Shocks were filled with 40WT front and 60WT rear. Orange Losi springs all round.

I was again using the modified Blitz front arms and 1.5° aluminium rear hub.

I will miss the next race due to a well earned holiday break, but I'll be back racing at an international race in Holland.at 17th of July.

The Real Deal?

Found this one on Venom's Facebook-site:


Venom's been sponsoring Jonathan Elkins #32 Pro Lite truck. Check out his truck in all new Venom Gambler graphics!

2nd Race of the season with the Gambler

This weekends race-meeting took me to the Duisburg Track, which I know for many years now. Starting with some slight rain in the morning but drying out very quickly and becoming extremely dusty.

I stayed with the mid-motor-setup and the 17.5T Speedpassion motor. Shock-oils were 40WT front and 50WT rear with orange Losi-springs all round.

I did not have a single technical issue the whole day. The Gambler was running flawlessly. Despite that I only reached 8th place, having some very bad racing luck.

As the rear end is nearly perfect now, I will do some more tests on the front-end to gain more stability. I'll keep you posted on that.

More updates

Updated my gambler before the upcoming race on sunday.

First of all I filled the diff with 1000WT oil. No more weight, because I don't want to sacrifice too much steering. Then I installed the 1,5° aluminium rear uprights, which should give more straight line traction on a slippery track (which is expected for the weekend)

Most important and most substantial change are new front-arms from the HPI Blitz, as new Gambler front-arms are not available at the moment. Modified shock mounting position slightly.

These arms are 5mm narrower than the stock parts. I got back 2 millimeters with wider hex-mounts from my scratchbox.

I also use orange Losi springs now, which are a little stiffer than the original springs.

Did I mention that the Gambler has the coolest mudflaps by far..? ;-)

Video from the weekend's racing.

 

Video by Pascal Huntjens