Basecamp options to swap to portals?

[air8]

Basically I want to turn a Basecamp into the Jeep JLU builder kit that is now discontinued.

The long of it. Earlier this year Horizon had a flash sale, and the Jeep JLU builder kit was on sale for like $250 I think. I used a different body but the truck is fantastic overall for a trail truck.
Fast forward to a week ago and I purchased the Basecamp builder kit for my daughter who is out of college and thought it would be fun to build her first crawler.
I went crazy with the option parts for her when ordering the kit...NOT realizing it was straight axle. Because I thought this was the same as the JEEP JLU kit minus the body and all the body accessories.

So she opens the kit at my house....where all the work benches and tools are....and when she starts assembling the axles, I realize then that this is a straight axle kit.

WHAT!?!? I wanted her to have the same 10.3 as what I built earlier this year but with her own body and wheels/tires.

Now looking into the AR45-Portal route....
1. Why is there not an option to purchase the ARR5-P axle assemblies?
2. Why doesn't Axial offer a portal kit option?
3. Will the SCX10 Pro axles fit with the Basecamp chassis and parts?
4.Could I rob the axles from my Vanquish Phoenix? I already see the axles from my VRD Carbon's are center pumpkin so they won't work.

Anyway this all happened when we opened the Basecamp kit last night and started on it. And I couldn't believe I just blazed past the fact the Basecamp was straight axle.
All the reviews and videos I watched when the 10.3 was released ALL talked about the portals, portals, portals. So here a few years later I order a 2nd 10.3 and it shows up straight axle.
Doh!!!!

 

[air8]

Transmission and center skid plate are different, I just learned.
The scale transmission from the discontinued JLU kit is geared for portals.

 

[svt923]

Transmission and center skid plate are different, I just learned.
The scale transmission from the discontinued JLU kit is geared for portals.

The Base Camp transmission is better. The transmission from the 10.3 JLU kit is enormous, clunky, and heavy, the simpler transmission from the Base Camp is an upgrade.

The whole "geared for portals" thing just means less gear reduction in the transmission. You can run a larger pinion in the Base Camp transmission to offset the difference in internal gearing or run a higher KV motor with the extra gear reduction (the best option).

As for axles, you can get complete AR45P axle sets off ebay for about $150. You can also roll the dice on some of the Chinese brand aluminum axles for even less than that. The Vanquish portal axles will absolutely work in place of the Axial portals, you may have to tweak the link lengths proper fit though.

 

[PileDriver]

I wouldn't worry about the trans being geared for straight axle, vanquish vs4-10 portals and straight axle versions trans are the same.
Something else to look at is shock length, usually the portal version rigs run shorter shocks. I have a set of vanquish 80mm shocks I'm not gonna use they are brand new from a portal kit.