Monster Truck Madness – Tamiya Kong Head 6×6

Greetings all and Happy Thursday!

It only took 4 months of dragging my feet to get it done, but my Tamiya Konghead 6×6 G6-01 is now finished!

This truck isn’t exactly going to be a shelf Queen, as I intend to take it out to r/c monster truck events to play around with it….but it will indeed spend most of its life on display in my workshop, so don’t look for me to post in depth bash impressions per se. This isn’t the truck that I’ll be hucking off my roof!

What I can give you are some reasonable build and running impressions though, as I have wheeled the little dude around the house a good bit.

First off- as usual, nothing builds like a Tamiya. Opening a Tamiya kit box for the first time ALWAYS brings a wave of happiness crashing over me, because their mix of plastic and rubber smells the same no matter what you are building. Yankee Candle or someone needs a scented candle for “Tamiya Kit”- I know I’d burn it in my workshop! But yes, best in class instructions and the truck went together wonderfully.

I don’t really have any construction notes as it was a pretty simple build. The make-up of the truck with the entire chassis being a gearbox is pretty wild, but it went together easy.

So while the build was cake, it should also be noted that it was also very “Tamiya” in how the kit did not include oil shocks or bearings. This is disappointing, but to be expected because for the most part, this is how the company is with r/c kit offerings. Usually not a big deal, but you should note that a bearing kit for the truck is almost a 1/4 of the cost of the full kit- the reason being is that there are SO MANY gears. I sprang for a Fast Eddies kit. There is just no way I’d build a running truck with bushings- especially not with a gear count like this one has!

As for shocks, I grabbed a set of cheap eBay generic G6-01 machined units to try out. They are actually pretty nice! Def a big step up from the friction ones!

Many Tamiya kits come with ESC’s these days, but the Kong Head does not. I went with a Hobby Wing 1080 as its my favorite brushed ESC! Connected to that ESC is a Radon 17t motor. Yeah, it comes with a 27t silver can but I wanted something a little peppier.

The Kong Head includes a configuration for four wheel steer (the front and rear axles), but I opted for 2 wheel. A Hitec 635 is more than capable of telling it where to go, so that’s what she got. I finished it off with a Spektrum SR315 receiver.

For paint, I went with my “Rotten Apple” monster truck livery style. Duratrax Candy Lime backed by white and then black. The front bumper was rattle can Spaz Stix Mirror Chrome backed in white/black, and it turned out awesome. This was the first time I’ve used it for a chrome finish and I will now be using this on all my bodies where chrome is required.

I finished the body off by attaching the plastic accessories and Rotten Apple graphics (thanks JB Scale Graphics) and viola.

The truck turned out great!

On 2S, the truck has plenty of pep with a 17t motor. It also feels very smooth with the oil shocks and bearings. Pretty decent steering too- 4 wheel steer is not needed.

I’m happy with the Kong Head! I’ve been wanting to build one of these for several years now, and now I can check it off my list. The truck looks cool and is going to make for a fun light basher during monster truck event days. My only real knock against it is that for something like this, bearings and oil shocks really should be standard equipment. That could be said about many Tamiya kits though!

Look for detailed running impressions of the truck later this year after I get ample wheeling time in!

Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!