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As I couldn't find any Thunder Ti 148s that didn't cost an arm and a leg with shipping, I went with Ti 5.6 Venture (Prods, gold hanger graphic isn't really that noticeable) and since I am not really skating anything bu flatland in the driveway, any 53/52mm truck will do. They were delivered this morning and with a bit tweaking this is what I ended up with:
- Swapped gold (bleh) for silver forged plates from my kids board (she is riding 5.6 V-lites)
- ACE regs bottom, low tops dual duro bushings (new ones)
- Acer Racing Ti Kingpin and Axle nuts
- Riptide cups (new ones with the pinhole) they're the indy ones but fit perfect
- Muir skate machined washers (they have a metal insert that act like bones plastic washers/insert)
Talk about Caronabordem
Wow! You win the tech truck award. I can't help but notice though, 1" hardware and yet you have special Ti nuts?
They're actually 7/8" Thunder bolts with Shorty's nuts - I never actually checked to see if the Shorty's bolts were
shorter than regular brands. Will dismantle a bolt and check. EDIT: They're the same size as all the bolts I have kicking around...forged plate and low profile bolts is all.
Wow, are those kingpins/axle nuts and the machined washers worth it over the normal bones flat top and normal kingpin/axle nuts? Any differences besides the aesthetics? I always end up getting green riptides but the light blue ones look super sick, wonder if they feel different... And as always tempted to try the ace bushing combo, but reluctant to buy two sets of bushings for it.
Probably not
Riptide says they are molded for each truck, specifically, perhaps they are right but I've never noticed a difference, besides, it's plastic/urethane, it will squash out and deform anyway. There is a noticeable difference between the ACE and Indy ones tho, you can see it just looking at them (the ACE have a taller 'lip').
When I jumped on the Venture 2020 bandwagon, the only way I could get them to feel right was with Bones Softs and the Ace combo...the conicals felt tippy to me and the ACEs more how I think Venture (since they come with barrels stock) are supposed to feel. Personally ANY trucks that runs barrels feels better with ACEs dual duro combo. YMMV.
The Ti nuts for axle and pins are lower profile, I was able to get in an extra washer on the axles (inside); they're not that much lower, 1-2 mm maybe...they are, however much lighter if that matters.
The washers do give the bushings a bit more snap, I rode them without prior. I like flat washers as it is as they won't bind on the top bushing (venture stock washer do this) and a flat bottom, if you ride loose, let's the bottom bushing fully deform.
Probably not worth it at all but I'm bored