Im rather new to the world of crawling but I realy want a crawler im not sure on the design for it but i do know i want a tuber and i have the tools to build almost any thing, im going to build the whole thing aluminum and i can build gear box drives and any thing else. I DONT HAVE A BUDGET!!(it just might take a while to get some parts). and it must be comp legal. i like shaft driven ones also being able to build axles for them at work is very handy. I was intersted in ideas for a super light weight crawler and if any one could help with ideas on height, length, weight ,width and frame shape. Plz correct me if im wrong but if its light i could have a hgher ground clearence if i move the heavy items like batterys over the front wheels. also i can get my hands on worm gears for this so i can have a super low Gear Ratio.

tech, yes, but you want your cg to be around 2.5 to 3. inches off ground...

Ive been looking on the net and have ideas for a gear-reduction box with a couple of worm gears to make a extremely low gear ratio like 200/1 would this be very good a crawler or should i just go for a brushless set up? or both. also if i made a couple of battery sadle packs and mounted them over the wheels or as low as possable to the axle lowering the C,G and keeping all the weight on the wheels would that help the wheels grip more on slick rocks (this is a theory plz corect me if im wrong its the only way i will learn and it will help me build a better first crawler) what is good for a skid plate on a crawler i have a large peice of enginering lylon plastic that is very slick would this work? any ideas will help thanks

there are drawbacks to a light crawler. Like you mentioned, the more weight the more traction. Most people's rigs are around 5 pounds, i am not sure about mine, but running weights in the tires and the battery over the front axle help out a bunch. Getting the wieght on the front is critical. Not having a budget is nice, i dont n\know too much about gear reduction units myself, but i do know that the gd-600 is a proven design to get a good gear reduction. Running a brushless is always nice. The thing that is a problem with high gc is that the tranny is mounted in the chassis, and that is also one of the heaviest items on a crawler, the higher that is the more of a risk to flip over. I have found that about 2 3/4 clearance is quite adequate. A better cog is better than gc. But you have to find that happy medium, which i believe to be around 2 3/4 in most cases!