rasteel

Most impressive. I will have to try this when I have the time and funds! Props to the stop motion animation at the end of the bike video, I chuckled. I'm willing to be that took you as long as filming the rest put together. Thanks for sharing. Will be following this thread.

This is amazing. If this was an official model if would be a top seller. Lego is on the right track with Ideas model of producing sets, if they would extend that into the technic realm and produce some of these sets they would have hits of the same magnitude as the Ideas sets have been, as least at proportionally, technic vs. system in general. This might also bring new AFOLS into technic with sophisticated technic models geared to adult builders, combining system and technic ala this build. I cant wait to try and replicate your work.

For current sets I would have to agree with 42029 for your MOC idea, suspension and some great tires. You may also consider 9398. It has the suspension, and a larger set of tires. Best of all it comes with $85 in Remote components: 2 large motors, servo motor, V2 IR receiver, and battery. The Volvo loader is the only other remote set right now, and from what I've seen has had mediocre reviews. 9398 can still be found near msrp on ebay, but act soon if you do choose this set as it just retired last month and will become more scarce. Watch ebay for a good price on an 8070 as well, I have seen them go at msrp still on occasion, and its a really great set. I recently got back into lego in July, focusing on space (no starwars) and technic, and was lucky to grab most of the 420XX technic line at clearance prices as they were phased out. I am now glad I did because I am not thrilled with the technical complexity or style choices of most of the 2014 and 2015 technic sets (so far) and am hoping this is not a trend. 42029, and 42038 are great though.

So I went to the RC store today. The guy there was mostly unhelpful, he explained he only carries standard RC components and all his antenna's are female threading. He pointed me to some threaded rod but they didnt carry it in a small enough size, so I left. Next stop hardware store, they had threaded screws with similar threading but none in copper and I didnt bring the transmitter with me to verify threading. I googled copper vs zinc (plated) conductivity and found zinc to be a very poor alternative. The genuine antenna is copper threaded so there must be a reason, right? Anyway, I didn't like any of these options so I left them on the shelf. I did however pick up a 35 cent rubber thread saver to serve as my antenna tip. For now I am resigned to using my original antenna as all bricklink options for antennas are either over seas or in US stores that have prohibitive minimum purchases requirements. It doesn't sound pretty, but the addition of the tip pushed this into acceptable for me :) Built in 5 minutes to test the RC components. Its made of a wire and copper connecter which was broken off and bent to fit snuggly into the tranmitter's female threading. The wire was then wrapped in electrical tape with a paper clip for rigidity. After that I loosened all the screws on the transmitter and pinched the electrical tape between the two halves of the shell. Saga over for now. Onto MOCing 8376; which has horrible negative camber, oh and the wheelie model is dumb, but it is still the best set i have! Transmitter:

I am in the process of trying to construct a replacement rc antenna and I've got a question I can't seem to find the answer to on the web. Does anyone happen to know the thread size of the yellow tipped rc antenna? Thanks!

The 4x4x9 Bucket is less than a dollar on bricklink! Its the one from 8455 and other sets, would think it would be same in same scale. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2950

The used 8376 Hot Flame I got from ebay for $110.00 shipped arrived today. It was only missing box, instructions, slick wheels, and one antenna. I made a quick replacement antenna for testing in five minutes. All components work, nothing was fried! Tire tread showed little use. The auction was up for less than 3 hours, I have been checking 8376, 8366, 8475 for some time now for a price I found reasonable. Had to share with people who might care, my wife just rolled her eyes and said "you paid a hundred bucks for that?" I had to show her 8376 on Bricklink and Ebay to convince her of its value.