CrawlerIgniteAirsoft

Hi everyone, well first i must say hello to all of you here, long time members and moderators.
I have never joined an RC club or been part of an RC forum until now.

I'm in my 30's now, but years ago i owned a Kyosho Burns 4WD nitro powered buggy which was great fun until i eventually sold it and just moved on.

I've recently had the off-road RC bug again, but for electric crawlers this time...but also for robotics.

I love the TRAXXIS range of off road cars, but they are way out of my budget for now...but for something to get me back into RC cars and to have fun with, i recently bought myself a new little Ignite Airsoft Justice Dealer RC.

I'd like to upgrade it into a crawler for something to do, and to help me learn the basic of RC cars. I'd like to widen the track and throw larger wheels on there to increase ride height, and softer grippier wheels suitable for crawling. But i would also like to install a stronger motor and esc...and then eventually in the long run, have it run fully autonomous.

I'm not after crazy power, but enough to be able to crawl a steep hill and get through grass and over obstacles.

I'd like to just walk into a hobby shop and express my desires, but i'd come across sounding like an idiot and taking up too much of their time, so if anyone could help me in regards to how i would go about widening the track on something so cheap as this, that would be great, but also what motor/esc combo would work. The turret will stay for i have plans for that also. I've seen that i can remove connecting arms to the suspension that allow the suspension to flop more and also using softer springs, so that was good to see, but widening the track and installing larger wheels i would love to do first.

Thanks for your time to read this, and thank you for any help.

Oh i will eventually buy myself a decent RC crawler to get into, if anyone could recommend a decent one that can be modified later, etc would be great, my budget is $300-$400.