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Ahhh. It's winter time again here in the frigid state of Wisconsin and often times that means limited monster truck time. Either it's too cold or the snow is too deep or BOTH! The new snow skis from FullForce RC have no trouble with deep snow but they won't warm it up outside. However they may help you forget how cold it really is. We have to admit, we never imagined these skis would work so well. They make a frosty, snowy day the perfect day for RC trucking...or should we say, RC skiing.

Yet again FullForce RC has proven that they are not sitting around on their bumps. They are out developing and locating some of the sweetest goodies for your RC truck. Their latest work...snow skis for the Traxxas Maxx trucks (T-Maxx, S-Maxx and E-Maxx), Savage, MGT and REVO.

The snow skis arrived in a nice package that kept everything in it's place and undamaged. Upon opening the package, we found the necessary hardware residing nicely in it's own zip-lock bag, a set of simple instructions, axle carrier adaptors, triangle braces and of course, the skis.

The first thing we started playing with was the skis themselves. They are made from plastic and are strong yet quite flexible. It looks like they will take some pretty solid impacts with no ill effects. The quality of the components was as we expected from FFRC. nothing less than very good. Nice machine work on the axle carrier adaptors (machined 6061 aluminum)!

Ok - time to check out the instructions and get busy. We opted to use our 2WD T-Maxx for this job as you obviously do not need a 4wd truck for this hop-up. In fact, if you are going to install these on your 4wd truck, you will have to unhook the front drive shafts as the axle carrier adaptors integrate into the axle nuts. One of the first things stated in the instructions is "waterproof your truck before you run your truck in the snow you idiot!"... actually, FFRC stated it a bit nicer than that. But that's what they should have said! Do not for any reason think you can run your truck in the snow without performing waterproofing procedures on it first. We are not going to get into the whole procedure of waterproofing because there are a ton of other articles all over the RC web that already tell you how to do this. Let's just say for a small investment of $2 in balloons, some RTV silicone and a couple of zip ties, you are pretty much ready to go.

Installation is simple and the instructions keep it simple. No diagrams or anything like that but hey, if you can't figure this out on your own, it's time for a new hobby. The wheel nuts hold the carrier adaptors to the axle carriers. There is a recess for the axle nut as well as two protrusions that rest against the pillow ball caps (see picture to the right). We found our adaptors were a little too loose for our liking after tightening things down so we disassembled and added some thin washers to the inside of the axle shaft, in turn allowing us to tighten the adaptors farther into the axle carriers. They were never fully tight against the axle carriers however after an hour of snow bashing, everything was still in place and working properly. The overall design is smart as it utilizes the trucks suspension up front. So you could play around with different camber, toe-in, springs, shock placement and shock oil (just like when the wheels are bolted to it) to change how the truck drives in the snow. I think I see RC snow races in my future!

Everything assembled well and with a 2wd truck, it is about a 10 minute install. Gotta love that! And even better, when you are done playing with the skis, just remove the wheel nuts and remove the ski assemblies. Easy on. Easy off. We like it!

Time to hit the slopes! We grabbed our Atomik Snow Camo body (thought it was appropriate), our winter coat and into the snow we went. Just a reminder: If you are running in cold temperatures, you will need to richen your needles up a bit. Cold air is more dense, that means your engine is getting lots of air. So you have to give it a little more fuel to keep it from running lean. This can be easily forgotten if you "live" by your temp gauge. Engine temps may be cooler in the winter but that does not necessarily mean that the engine is getting the proper amount lubrication.

And as we quickly learned, deep snow is not a problem for these skis. They do an excellent job of keeping the front of the truck on top and sliding along. Just make sure you have some paddle, or other aggressive tires on your truck to keep things moving along. The skis do an excellent job of steering the truck in the snow partly due to the "skegs" on the bottom of the skis. They are like little fins that help give the skis traction while turning. The snow we were running in was anywhere from 2" to 12" deep. It was a "dry" snow, nice and fluffy. Not the soggy wet stuff that is good for making snowballs. The truck has a super plush feel when bombing through the white stuff. The skis also made the truck feel super stable in the snow. It is difficult to get the truck to flip over! Part of that is the reduced speeds you typically run when in the fluffy powder. It is hard to get enough traction to get huge speeds. If the snow was "wet" and heavier, we would have experienced much faster ground speeds. We have no doubt that the skis would perform in heavy wet snow, as well as they do in the fluffy stuff.

Here are a couple of quick video clips showing the skis in action (sorry for the boring video...my camera man was out of town so I just set the camera up and let it roll. I will get some better video clips soon. They do however give you a good idea of how well they turn the truck in the snow. It is pretty impressive):

T-Maxx with skis (906kb)
T-Maxx with skis - part 2 (2.5MB)
T-Maxx with skis - part 3 (847kb)

So what's the verdict? We never imagined that skis on a nitro monster truck could be so much fun! WOW! These skis are a BLAST and HIGHLY recommended for anyone who has to live with the white stuff. Heck...if you are within an hour of some snow, it would be worth the drive if these skids were bolted on your sled. The work great, look cool, appear to be quite durable and did we already mention they are a ton of fun? They are well worth the $50.

Don't put your Traxxas Maxx, Savage, MGT or REVO away when the white stuff starts flying! Slap on the skis and tear it up!

Visit the FullForce RC web site... and hit the slopes!