Help needed on building high performance SCX10 II

[lszomb]

Hi all,

I need to have some help. Before that, let me spend some time on explaining what do I need.

Background:
I bought a cheap 90047 from marketplace a while ago for my kid. I always like to fully rebuild it before hand it over to my boy which is the way I play with it.

Looks like the previous owner enjoyed playing with water and mud. As a result:

• I discovered a dead transmission box with all bearings rusted and stuck to axles and those striped transmission case.
• Bearings on front and rare drive shafts also dead due to water damage.
• Chassis are rusted.
• The tires are wobble when there are running.
• ESC and motor have been replaced by previous owner I guess also due to water damage.
• Slipper pad stuck to clutch pad and I damaged the pad when separating them.
• Front bumper has been replaced by aftermarket one. But it does not fit at all.
• Plastic parts are badly scratched.
• Battery case has been burned due to lipo short circuit
• The bolts have been "upgraded" to stainless steel ones. But I felt the plastic parts were very cheap as I cannot tight any of bolts.
• Damaged plastic ball pivots.

Overall, I felt not very happy even though I did not paid a lot for it. I felt other RC brands have much better quality than Axial. I have to hammer off all those bearings and replaced transmission case and slipper pad. I also did a lot of other fixes as repaint the chassis and etc. But, here are what I feel happy about after rebuilding it:

• The hardware survived including all gears and shafts.
• The plastic parts are okay after switch back to 12.9 bolts.
• It is a quite stable and capable crawler.
• My boy likes it.

Since then, I start to look for a scale truck (I already have SCT, buggy and comp crawler) for myself and I can play together with my boy. The first thing I can think about is a 90046 kit. I also consider a trx-4. But able to share parts between two trucks and how versatile scx10 II is are the main reasons for me to bias toward it.

What I'd like to hear about:
Overall, I want to build a class 2 scale crawler with good performance. However, I cannot find any guide around performance tuning for SCX10 II. I know there are a lot of aftermarket metal AR44 axles and other parts are available. Very seldom I can find any feedback / comments on their performances. I do not want to blindly add a lot of weight to my axles or turnbuckle. What would be a good way to test out? I knew I can buy all OPs and try them out but that is definitely not the best solution.

For example, I have got a set of Trx-4 shocks as I found many good reviews and thought it is worthy to give it a try. Is there any other parts people find out they are helpful in improving the performance?

Thanks!