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Full Force R/CAluminum BumpersThe stock bumpers look nice when they're new, but after a couple runs they get scraped up, which exposes the black plastic underneath. With aluminum bumpers, like Full Force's, they will look nice even if you abuse them, and they give your truck more solid protection from all those obstacles that happen to pop up in front of you. The Bumpers Romean from Full Force R/C was cool enough to hook me up with a set of his bumpers to try out and review! The set consists of four identical round bumpers machined from 6061 T-6 aluminum, the standard for r/c parts. These bumpers are finished very nicely. They are polished brightly with knurled 'grip' textures towards the ends. It's obvious that he didn't skimp on quality, the ends are beveled and finshed just as well, and the screw holes are deburred to get rid of any rough edges. The knurled sections should do a great job of hiding any little scratches that might accumulate on the ends. Installation No mods or extra parts are needed to install these bumpers, just take off the old ones and put on the new ones with the stock screws. Unlike flat bumpers designs, you won't have to file down the bumper mount ends to fit flat, since these bumpers will fit the stock contours easily. It took a whole 3 minutes to install the set :) On the truck, the bumpers mounted perfectly straight and look like they can handle anything. Other drivers know better than to get in it's way with bumpers like these :) Performance I really wanted to test these bumpers to their limits, so of course I took the truck down to the Hobby-World track is San Jose. The store probably makes thousands in replacement parts from people breaking their r/c's at the track, and i'm one of them ;) I took the truck around for many laps, and the bumpers help up fine. Their durability was very evident; i'd done tons of cartwheels and rollovers, and the bumpers still looked like new with the exception of the dust and mud on them :) Jumping over a gap, I managed to nose the truck straight into the front of the landing ramp, and the lower front bumper ripped out of bumper mounts. The bumper was still in perfect shape, it was just that the screws/mounts couldn't take the same punishment and they had to give in. Holmwrecker, and Ovalqueen are two awesome t-maxxers with a website called Maxx Pit Stop, and they wrote and article on stregthening the bumper/mount connection by using long screws and nuts. You can see it on their site at Tech Help -> Bumper Screw Upgrade. I'm going to do this as soon as I can buy the hardware, which should cost about a buck. This mod will keep these extremely strong bumpers from ever ripping off the truck :) Overall Full Force's bumpers look great and are very durable, a must if you are going to be doing some rough off-road driving with your maxx (which everyone should :) Full Force has done an awesome job designing and making these bumpers, and I'm sure their quality and durability carries over with their other t-maxx upgrades. Full Force currently sells bumpers, center skidplates, roll bars, body mounts, and sway bars. If you're looking for some great upgrades at reasonable prices, be sure to check out Full Force R/C! |