livinlife

I would just like to weigh in on my thoughts about the Caldera. First off this truck is an amazing bang for your buck. I have beat on it for several months and I love it. I run sky Lipo's 4400 40C 2s. There are a few things that need attention right out of the box.
Obviosly the servo is junk. Don't even bother getting redcat to send you a new one because it isn't worth the time it takes to install it. It won't last.
The first thing I did was to remove the screw used to set the clearence for the pinion and spur on the motor. It was a cheap phillip screw. I replaced it with a 3mm hex head bolt. Then I set the clearence.
The one thing I really dislike about this truck is the way the shock towers mount to the top of the differential cover. They flex alot and it is easy to bend the screws that bolt them on. I replaced those screws with a larger screw I had laying around the shop. #6 pan head phillips screw. This required the shock tower to be drilled. Prior to that I bent both factory screws in a crash. The second issue I ran into was that the shocks will let the suspension over travel and cause you to bend axles. Happened on my truck and my brothers. To solve this we took small rubber o rings and put them on the rod of each shock. This limited the up travel of the suspension on all four corners. Now if you push the truck down until the chassis hits the ground, you can only lift the tire of the ground about 3mm before the shocks bottom out on the oring.
The spring retainer caps for the stock shocks are also brittle and breake easy. The retainer cap for Traxxas Erevo and Jato shocks are exactly the same and make a good replacement.
The last thing I did was buy an assortment of 3mm bolts and lock nuts. When I have a screw that keeps coming out I just replace it with a bolt and lock nut. In some cases this will require some drilling.
I am currently running Erevo shocks with Jato springs and pistons. I really like these shocks and I picked them up off of ebay cheap. They are shorter so I had to make some adapter plates, but you could just put on a longer rod end. I also like running the Volcano body. I have attached images of the body and the shocks.