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Tamiya’s Konghead 6X6 puts the fun in F1
Tamiya’s Konghead 6X6 puts the fun in F1
Tamiya is known worldwide for its wild RC rides. Some are designed with track-worthiness in mind, and some are just flights of fancy, the result of too much caffeine and maybe not enough sleep. The Konghead and its brother The King Yellow may be the latter. With 6-wheel drive, optional 4-wheel steering, and monster truck tires, Tamiya’s 6-wheelers are designed to romp in the dirt with the best of them. But what happens when you take a 6X6 offload beast and leave it overnight in a room with a historic Formula 1 car? This vehicle you see on the pages in front of you. I wanted to see if Tamiya’s off-road monster toy could be transformed into a lean, mean, asphalt-eating machine, so I put some parts together and created this monster track truck.
Body Rock
Since the truck has six wheels, the first vehicle I thought of was Tyrrell Racing’s 1976–78 P34 Formula 1 car. The Tamiya version of this iconic race car was first introduced in 1977. I was able to find the exact paint for this project by looking through the Tamiya Tyrrell P34 manual online. I was also able to source the original decal sheets as well. But paint and decals alone aren’t going to transform a truck to an F1 racer. Off to my 3D printer I went and fabbed up a rear wing, front wing, and air intake fashioned after three different iterations of the race car. The wing is from 1977, the front is from its 1976 debut, and the intake and paint scheme is from the 1977–78 race season. As an added touch, I laid down the exhaust stacks for a more streamlined appearance.
SINCE THE KONGHEAD HAS SIX WHEELS, THE FIRST VEHICLE I THOUGHT OF WAS TYRRELL RACING’S 1976–78 P34 FORMULA 1 CAR.
Road Rubber
This first thing I needed to do after assembling the chassis was to replace the off-road rubber with something a little more street-able. I decided on Pro-line 2.2 Prime stadium truck slicks for the four rear wheels and Inversions for the front skinnies. The combo created just the right stance to give the Konghead a mean road look. The four rear wheels are from Kyosho’s Scorpion
1/10 2WD buggy. I felt the black five-spoke design lends itself well to the look. To complete the rolling stock, I enlisted my trusty 3D printer once again and designed some five-spoke Cragarstyle wheels for the front end. The original P34 race car has four small tires in front and two big ones in back; maybe this is the way it should have been done instead!
Powerplant and Electronics
I wanted way more power than the stock 540 silver can could provide for this build. You can’t have a race car with the engine of a Yugo, so I went to Castle Creations to fill the motor space with some real brushless power. I didn’t want to burn up the all-plastic-gear transmission right away, so I went with the milder Mamba X SCT Pro system with the 3800Kv motor. I may swap in a hotter motor at a later date if the transmission holds up, but in the meantime, this setup is wicked fun. The battery slot on the G6-01 chassis is just the right size for some 7.4V 2S Lipo power, so to fill that slot, I dropped in a Maxamps 150C 6500mah Dualcore Lipo battery. The steering servo is the Protek 100T because I wanted something with torque that wasn’t going to cost more than the truck itself!