I have spent the last 5 years beefing up the stock transmission in this truck trying to make it hold brushless power, I even went as far as to machine out the diff housing. Well I got sick of replacing parts over the years and decided to swap out a Traxxas full steel VXL transmission. It took a bit of work to get it to fit and work right but it is by far the best mod I have done to it.
Now.......
It uses traxxas driveshafts(had to modify the hubs).
Can handle all the power I wanna throw at it.
But best of all, it looks bone stock.
This truck is now 23 years old but runs like a bat out of hell. Using the same motor, speed control, transmission etc on my stampede I can get 74mph w/11.1v lipo on radar using a small brick to keep the front end down.
I went from the 8.4v 5000mah to my 5400mah 11.1v lipo and this truck is insane. I cut the shock tower and was able to mount the battery all the way up front at the lowest position. This chassis is lighter and has much better weight balance and center of gravity than my stampede,a rustler or bandit. On my bushnell radar its already gone over 70mph pedeling the throttle. My biggest problem with the stampede was keeping the front down. Instead of having to add weight to this or a bandit/rustler the battery is soo far forward that I wont have to add extra weight to keep the front end down at speeds over 60mph. I will be testing the max speed soon but I have no doubt it will do 80mph+ and probably closer to 85mph. Im not sure of anybody who has gotten one of these to do over 50mph yet but i'd sure like to see more of them out there.
Its most fun to drive it with the 8.4v and lower gearing but with the 11.1v mounted up front I can actually go full throttle through a grass field and it wont try to wheelie over at speeds of around 40mph which I could never do with the stampede.
