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I know there has been some controversy over this truck. I have watched quite a few youtube videos on it and decided to shop around. My interest was piqued further when I found I could buy it in kit form without all the cheap crappy rtr electrics. When I found this one for $199 and free shipping, I could not pass it up. It arrived today, a little over 2 weeks after purchase. I was sort of expecting the usual chinese package----clear plastic bag with no instructions---you know the type. I could not have been more wrong. This kit is as nice and well packaged as any I've seen, to my recollection. Everything is well organized and labeled in english----real english, not that half assed badly translated stuff that might as well be chinese. We'll see if that trend continues as I go through the instruction manual. I must have stared at it all for about 10 minutes in shock. I couldn't believe this was 200 bucks. Enjoy the first pics here and I'll try to take as many as I can while I assemble this bad boy.

Not yet. I have a few things planned for this truck. Different tires being the first thing. At this price, I can afford to build a nice scaler and drive it like a rental

Dang, that looks pretty nice! I wish I'd held of on splurging on my new project. I've already spent $400 +

So far, so good. I would just like to point out the lack of phillips head screws on the chassis. All nice hex head button screws and the nuts are all nylocks where it's appropriate so not much need for threadlocker so far. Details like this make for a nice build. The shocks came covered in oil but none on the inside. Hopefully that doesn't mean these are leakers. The caps were loose so I'm not concerned yet. As the build progresses, I'm really gaining some confidence in the quality of this truck. We'll see how it goes as I move forward. Decided to use a different oil than what was provided in the kit. The kit provided oil looked fine, but didn't give a viscosity weight and I wanted to know what I'm starting with for a reference for later tuning.

Looks great so far! Black and silver, what's not to like.

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By 1 am, I reached this far, and was able to drive it around the living room before going to bed. I was hoping you would check out this thread TamiyaDan. You were the main guy to convince me to check out this truck. I figured if a true-blue Tamiya fan such as yourself was saying to buy one, there must be something to it, and you were not wrong!
I have never even held in my hands the original or rere bruiser, so I can't compare them to this truck, but I definitely have some opinions here. This build is not for beginners. The manual is not assembly instructions, and while they are nice clear diagrams for the most part, there is a lot assumed and vague. I referred to the tamiya bruiser manual and found pretty much the same.I will say however that every last fastener so far has been there with no shortages or pieces missing. Everything was labeled and tagged correctly but nowhere as neatly organized as the last kit I built which was my B6. From what I found online, the bruiser was not much better.
The steering is a problem for me. The servo placement with the long rod, the sloppy pivot, the behind the axle tie rod----it's all got to go. The front of the frame has a perfect mounting spot for a servo and when I have some time, I will be fabbing up some aluminum mounts to solve this problem. I used a high torque metal gear servo and no servo saver, so it steers with no problem, but it's not scale and it looks like a sloppy mess.
My next complaint would be the shocks. The suspension on these trucks is so stiff, that the shocks are just sort of "along for the ride" anyway, but these seem to really suck. I really liked the scale appearance of them, but they might be the worst shock I've ever felt. Very scratchy/grindy and with no real dampening effect. Not sure how this compares with the Tamiya shocks.
Tamiyadan, I was thinking of removing the skidplate too. It just looks a little more scale without it. Also the "traction bars" that attach from the frame to the rear axle. They don't seem to have any purpose and they rattle a little, so they're also going to be removed.
The plastic is something I would like to mention. The black plastic seems to be abs, but not as hard and brittle feeling as my Blackfoot parts, for instance. The white parts feel more like nylon than abs. Not sure how to tell for sure, but the parts felt nice anyway.
Last thing to note was that my transmitter, a spektrum DX3S, does not have a 3 position auxilliary switch. I set mine up to toggle between 2 hi and 4wd. I didn't see myself ever using 2 lo so this wasn't an issue for me, but someone looking to go the kit route instead of the rtr version, needs to consider this in their choice of transmitters.
Well, I won't be able to get back to the build until this afternoon, so until then, let me know what you all think.

Yeah, back in the 80's everyone was installing traction bars as a bolt on "fix it" to help cure the axle wrap effect of high horsepower cars and trucks with leaf spring rear end setups. I don't remember any made out of c-channel though. These are coming off.
As to the axles, I think I'm going to leave them as is for now. They feel like they're filled with heavy grease and it gives it a very smooth limited slip effect. They should work fine for anything but rock crawling and the suspension does not articulate nearly enough to be an effective crawler---at least not yet .
I will say that this truck is super smooth and quiet to drive around. No loud gear mesh whine or anything. I plan on installing a full light and sound kit eventually so a quiet runner made me very happy.