The folks over at Team Corally are attempting to take over the bashing world. Recently, Corally announced a line-up of new hardcore bashers. We’ve had a couple weeks to bang on their all new Kronos XP 6S Monster Truck to see how it stacks up to the competition. How does it handle? Is it crazy fast? How easily does it break? All those answers, and much more, read below…
From: Team Corally
Direct Link: Kronos RTR Monster Truck
Unboxing Pictures: BSRC Unboxes the Kronos
Review By: Cubby
Pics By: Tim Mohr
Specs:
RTR or Kit: RTR
Age: 14+
2wd or 4wd: 4wd
Shaft or Belt: Shaft
Electric or Gas: Electric
Waterproof: Yes
Scale: 1/8
Length: 590mm
Width: 455mm
Wheelbase: 384mm
Weight: 4700 grams
Motor: 2050kV 2-6S 4-pole non-sensored brushless
Speed Controller: Waterproof 7.2 – 22.2 V brushless, programmable
Low Voltage Cut-off: Yes
Radio: S2R 2.4GHz
Differential: Three gear style
Slipper Clutch: No
Driveshafts: Metal bones
Shocks: Metal bodies and caps, oil filled, threaded pre-load
Servo Saver: In steering rack
Screws: Metric, hex
Spur/Pinion Pitch: Mod 1
Bearings: Yes
Tires: Team Corally knobbies
Battery: Not included
Part Number: #COR00170
Bashing Specs:
Wheelie on demand: Dead stop yes, at speed no
Backflip off ramps: Oh heck ya
Stability Control: No
Sound Module: No
Self-Righting: No
FPV: No
Top Speed (measured by BSRC on 6S): 47 mph (See below, it’s FAST)
Street Price: $529
Primary Competition: Oh, just a few trucks like the Traxxas E-Revo 2.0, the ARRMA Kraton, ARRMA Outcast, Losi LST 3XL-E, etc.
What’s Needed To Complete: You will need to grab somewhere from 4 to 6S worth of LiPo batteries, some AAs for the transmitter, and a battery charger.
Build Quality: After passing the mighty Kronos around the room, we only found one thing. The stock servo saver was on the loose side. Other than that, the shocks were perfect, the gear mesh was on-point, etc.
Test Drivers: To beat the heck out of the Kronos we enlisted Iron Mikeee, Robbie G., THE RC Kid, T-$$$, and yours truly.
Test Venues: Our local weather has been horrible. Our local outdoor tracks are basically swamps or snow covered this time of year, and a truck like the Kronos just might blow a hole in the wall at one of our local indoor tracks. With that said, we did all of our testing at local community parks. Terrain ranged from sand, to mud, to more mud, to even more mud.
Set-up Notes: We tested the Kronos box stock with the exception of tightening up the servo saver slightly. We powered the beast with 6S worth of MaxAmps LiPos and ran MaxAmps AAs in the transmitter. Charging duties were handled by a Hitec X1 Pro.
Turning: Is the Kronos the best turning 1/8 monster truck? No, is isn’t. However, it does turn fairly well. The stock servo has decent speed, but lacks for torque. So while the Kronos turns fairly well stock, we know it can turn a lot better. That said, it mostly corners in a neutral way. It can traction roll on higher bite surfaces like grass, but it sits low enough to the ground that it rarely traction rolled on pavement.
Jumping: With “Holy Crap!” power (on 6S) and solid suspension, the Kronos loves airtime. The overall chassis design seems to work well to keep the truck straight when taking off from ramps, while small to medium landings are soaked up quite well by its suspension. No, the suspension is not tuned for landing roof jumps, but for all the normal sized stuff, it worked without complaint. We found the Kronos to be very easy to backflip, while its center diff makes mid-air throttle/brake corrections a breeze. Great jumping truck.
Bumps/Whoops: The front suspension on the Kronos seemed tuned to handle just about anything, no matter how gnarly. The rear had a bit too much damping, both compression and on the rebound side. Now, that helped the truck when hitting bumps WFO above 40 mph, but caused a bit of kick from the rear when hitting gnarly bumps at lower speeds. Not bad in the rough, and with a change of oil in the rear shocks, it would be even better.
On-Road: Who in the heck ever drives a monster truck on-road? Well, a LOT of people actually. True on-road cars can only be driven on-road. Most off-road cars can also be a lot of fun on-road. Therefore, a lot of people buy off-roaders so they can drive on both. The Kronos is crazy fun to drive on-road. Its insane power system simply makes it that way. And it isn’t a bad handling truck to drive on-road either. Its wide stance and grippy tires actually make it a very fast on-road rig.
Grass: Yup, the Kronos was an absolute beast in grass. Locking up the center diff would have made it even more so, but even stock, the truck loves to leave long burn outs in the grass. Also of note, the stock tires work exceptionally well on grass.
Tires: Oh ya, about those tires. They are fairly soft for RTR units, which gives them good grip over a wide range of surfaces. The stock inserts are a bit on the soft side, which lends to more grip on softer surfaces. Overall, we really liked them. They don’t have the super grip of a set of aftermarket tires like Badlands, but for RTR tires, we were impressed. Oh but wait, there’s more! Do you know how easy it is to rip a standard set of RTR tires? Or how easy it is for a standard set of RTR tires to come off the rim the first time you really pound the gas on 6S? Those are fairly common problems in the RTR world. Well, the stock tire/wheel combo on our test truck are still alive! We have not truly tortured them yet, but we have over-revved the truck quite hard on 6S, and they are all still alive!
Power: We’ve already mentioned just how potent the stock brushless system is, but here is the real scoop. The power system is super smooth from a dead stop. Just above that, the low end comes in with the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Just above that, the mid-range kicks in even harder than the low end. Above that, when the real power actually kicks in, the front end normally diffs out and the front tires go immediately to pizza cutters. The stock power system is legit, and obviously, quite overpowering when driven on 6S (and we didn’t drive it on anything less).
What about the gearing? We would say it may be a bit on the tall side for higher cell counts. It seemed like the Kronos never ran out of over-rev. For motor temps, we saw right around 140 F after a 5 minute run. 140 isn’t bad, but, that was in ambient temps of only 30 degrees F. For all you guys running in warmer temps, keep an eye on the motor temp when driving on higher cell counts, you may need to drop a couple teeth on the pinion.
Radio: The Kronos came with a fairly standard RTR radio. None of our test drivers complained about it, nor did any praise it. And no, we didn’t experience any sort of issue with it. Our only note here is to make sure the steering is set to max on the radio before driving it for the first time. Ours came set at only 50%, it will take 100% to get full lock-to-lock steering.
Broken Parts: Driving in cold temperatures is never a good thing for plastic. During our test period, the highest the temp ever got was 36 degrees F. With that said, we thought the Kronos held up really well. There are a number of trucks on the market that turn to glass when temps dip under 50, the Kronos is not like that. We were able to drive it “normally” without any breakage, which is actually very good considering the temps. After cranking up the stupidity factor, the first thing to go was the rear wing mount. After that, and bringing our test period to a conclusion, was a stripped front pillow ball. We drove the Kronos pretty hard to break it, especially for the temps at the time.
Misc Notes:
So, the Kronos only showed a top speed of 47 mph. Here is the scoop. It is geared much taller than that, and clearly has the power to go much faster. However, during our speed run passes, the truck diff’ed out and sent all its power to the front tires. Some people like trucks set-up like that (makes them easier to drive on loose surfaces), but we would definitely recommend heavier center diff oil for you speed run fanatics out there. We could see the potential to go MUCH faster than we could get with the stock setup. This truck hauls!
The stock battery tray works, but… Hardcore bashing demands a hardcore battery tray. Meaning? A tray with tall sides, plenty of support for the battery, as well as wide velcro straps, and straps in more than one direction. The stock tray in the Kronos is quite low (very little support for a pack) and has a “standard” sized footprint (many bashers run longer packs). It also has two thin velcro straps that were on the short side for taller packs. The stock tray worked for us during our review period, but it could have been beefier.
A lot of people in the bashing community have now gone to XT90 battery connectors. Guess what comes on the Kronos? Yup, XT90s. That will make a lot of bashers happy out there.
The Kronos uses a sturdy brace above the center diff to keep the body from getting crushed in. This is a great feature to have for you guys that really love to send-it.
Best Mod: We are gonna go with two things here. The first (and cheap) mod is to install heavier oil in the center diff. The second mod (not so cheap) would be to install a high torque Hitec servo.
Summary:
A = Outstanding/Best in Class, B = Above Average, C = Average, D = Below Average, F = Horrific
Time To Bash: B Charge up a LiPo, pop some batteries in the radio, then get ready for the ride of your life.
Workability: B The Kronos uses a fairly standard 1/8th truggy layout that we found to be open and easy to work on.
Car Show Rating: B While the Kronos has the hardcore basher look dialed, we would liked to have seen more realism.
Bash-A-Bility: B Our Kronos didn’t get any favors from Mother Nature. Temps never got above 40 F during our test period, yet the Kronos remained hard to break.
Fun Factor: A Crazy power, tall gearing, along with good traction, equals one heck of a wild (read- fun!) ride on any surface.
Handling: B The Kronos is a truck that handles well for backyard bashing and especially loves to jump.
Value: B At just over the 500 mark the Kronos brings a lot of performance to the plate straight out of the box.
Parts Availability: N/A As Team Corally and the Kronos are just now hitting the states, it is a bit too early to give a solid rating here. Right now it looks like some parts are in stock here in the states, but not all.
BigSquid Rating: B+ Overall, we found the Team Corally Kronos to indeed be a worthy backyard basher. It is exciting to drive on 6S and does a great job of surviving hard landings. Is it best in class? That would be impossible to say without a legit shootout, but it is very impressive. In fact, impressive enough that we feel it is right up there with the best in its class.
