Posted by on Mar 6, 2019 in Tech | 1 comment

The scale R/C craze is alive and well! Redcat Racing recently released their new Gen8 Scout II RTR with a slew of new features, most notably portal axles. If you are not familiar with the term “portal axles” if refers to the solid axles as having extra gear reduction at all four corners. Basically each axle end has its own “gearbox” behind the wheel which provides more ground clearance, extra gear reduction, and less chassis roll from driveshaft torque. All three of these features can help significantly off-road. They also include a Scout II body and Super Swamper tires which adds a lot of realistic detail. Ready to take a closer look?

Redcat teamed up with International for this release, and they provide an officially licensed scale Scout II Lexan body in bright orange. Definitely an eye catcher!

 

Redcat provides plastic fender flares for the body, which help provide rigidity to the Lexan.

 

Out front sits a scale plastic front bumper with chrome coated D-rings to help pull your friends out on the trail. The front grill is also plastic and the headlights have holes to install LED lights too.

 

Folding side view mirrors are a nice touch. We have lost count of how many rigid mirrors we have torn off on the trail. This should help fix that problem.

 

Out back you get a matching rear bumper and D-rings. The rear tail lights also have provisions to install LED lights as well. Notice the chrome Redcat logo in the scale receiver hitch too. Nice touch!

 

A body off shot shows the inner fender wells which make a huge difference for scale appearance with Lexan bodies. Notice the lack of body posts? The body is held on with Velcro, rather than the standard posts. Redcat does provide body post mounts in the shock towers as well, for those that prefer to go that route.

 

Out front sits the motor, transmission, and steering servo. All that weight out front helps on steep climbs.

 

Here we can see the receiver box and transfer case hiding under the battery mount.

 

Opposite the receiver is the electronic speed control (ESC). Also notice the brace over the motor between the shock towers. This helps keep shock tower flex to a minimum.

 

Plastic beadlock wheels and scale Super Swamper tires are included and work quite well for an RTR set-up.

 

Chassis mounted steering, with metal servo horn, and metal links keep you pointed in the right direction on the trail. Notice the metal differential cover too.

 

Here you can see the extra ground clearance provided by the portal axles. Notice the axle tubes are above the center of the wheels.

 

Check out the video from out first trail run here:

 

That wraps up our Redcat Gen8 Scout II RTR overview. All in all we are very impressed with this scale off-road vehicle. It has everything you need, and nothing you don’t for a capable scale trail rig. The shocks have a great feel, the locked diffs and portal axles make short work of chunky terrain, and the tires worked great right out of the box. Great combo of features and capability! As always, thanks for checking out the RPP Hobby blog!