How to make a Traxxas Telluride trail truck for minimal cost

[fyrstormer]

I'm working on a Telluride trail-truck build, just for something different (I already have a Wraith and a Summit). It's not done yet, but I've reached a point where its basic performance on rough, loose terrain meets my expectations, so I thought I'd post a thread specifically about how to make a basic Telluride trail-truck for minimal cost.

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- Get more aggressive tires. I went with Pro-Line Badlands SC tires, premounted on ProTrac-offset rims. Tires with tall, widely-spaced tread blocks and a rounded profile will be a huge help when climbing over stuff, especially in wet conditions. You may be able to find cheaper short-course tires with those same general characteristics, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time shopping and I didn't have any other short-course wheels or tires I could use, so I went the easy route. Cost: $60

- Install the lower-ratio diff gears from the brushed Stampede 4x4. The brushed Stampede 4x4 uses diff gears with a 12/47 ratio instead of the Telluride's stock 13/37 ratio, which is a 27% reduction -- it provides much-needed relief for the motor, and better torque for climbing. The part numbers are TRA6778 for the front and TRA6779 for the rear. Cost: $24

- Lock the front diff. You can get a pre-made locker insert, but I've found that the best way is to fill the front diff with JB Weld epoxy, close-up the diff, and rotate the diff outdrives 90° before the epoxy sets. This minimizes vibrations caused by the not-really-constant-velocity-joints when the front wheels are turning around a corner. Cost: $5

- Put thicker oil in the rear diff. I used OFNA Diff-Lock Putty, which seems to be ~500,000wt diff oil with an additive that makes it super-sticky. You may want to use Hudy 1,000,000wt oil, silly putty, or silicone earplugs for even firmer response. Don't lock the rear diff though, it screws-up the handling because there's no overdrive gear available for the front diff, so you need the rear diff to be able to slip *a little* while the front axle climbs over the edges of rocks, or just while it's turning corners. Cost: $8

- Install a 32-pitch 9-tooth pinion gear. I went with a Robinson Racing pinion, but Traxxas also makes a 32p 9t pinion. They cost about the same either way, but the Traxxas pinion appears to be sintered-steel instead of machined hardened steel, so it may be a little kinder to the plastic spur gear. Cost: $6

- Install the slipper clutch from the Stampede 4x4. The stock slipper clutch not only uses 48-pitch spur gears, but it also uses woefully undersized slipper pads originally intended for the 1/16-scale Mini E-Revo. The Stampede 4x4's slipper assembly is much more robust and a direct drop-in replacement. The part number is TRA6878. Cost: $15

- Install the 56-tooth spur gear from the Jato. This part is an "unofficial fit" for the Telluride. It clears the main chassis fine, though you may want to bevel the edges of the top-center brace to make it easier to install and remove the spur/slipper assembly. The lower spur gear cover, part of the rear drivetrain assembly, will need some grinding where the spur gear contacts the plastic, but it's not a huge job. Don't go bigger than 56-tooth, though; the lower spur cover isn't thick enough to accommodate all the extra grinding you'd have to do to make a 58-tooth spur fit. The part number is TRA3957. Cost: $5

- Install a metal center driveshaft. I went with the aluminum center driveshaft from the Stampede 4x4 VXL, part number TRA6755 (which requires a spline adaptor for the front diff input - TRA6888X - so make sure to get that too), but the Tekno Big Bone center driveshaft is also an option. This will keep the front axle from stick-slipping when climbing, due to flex in the center driveshaft. Cost: $12

- Soften the suspension. The shocks are filled with 30wt oil and use 2-hole pistons, but the resulting response is a bit too firm for trailing at more than a couple MPH. Switching to the 3-hole pistons that came with the vehicle, and refilling the shocks with 20wt oil, gives better performance for trailing. Cost: $5

- Mount the front shocks further inboard. Several people who've modded their Tellurides have installed longer shocks on the front, but this isn't necessary. The front suspension can be tweaked to have the same clearance as the rear suspension by drilling an extra hole on each front A-arm, further inboard from the existing 3 holes. The holes are spaced 7mm center-to-center, so just drill a fourth hole 7mm inboard from the innermost existing hole. As a bonus, this will move the lower shock eyelets far enough inboard that they will clear the front tires better, even if you use wheels with the ProTrac offset like I did. You'll need a 3/32" drill bit to drill the holes. Cost: $3

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Total cost: $143. This seems like a lot of money for modding a $300 vehicle, and you'd be forgiven for scoffing at it. However, my cost estimate assumes you don't have *any* of the necessary parts, and the largest single upgrade (the wheels and tires) is pretty much standard practice for any crawler-type vehicle, so for a more accurate comparison, you can add $60 to the cost of (for example) an SCX10 as well.

Subtracting the cost of the tires, that puts the cost for modding the Telluride at $83. If you can score a lightly-used Telluride for about $220 like I did, you can mod your Telluride (minus the cost of tires, that is) for about $305 total, the same as the cost of the *least expensive* SCX10. As a bonus, the Telluride will go about 50% faster than the SCX10 (12mph vs. 8mph), and it will have plush independent suspension to handle rough terrain without getting knocked all over the place.

 

[BJoe]

I'm swapped over.to the silly putty after I found the 500k oil is still too...."open" for my liking.

I have been curious as to how well the 56t spur would fit if I were to go to the BL slipper, how much grinding is involved?

I'm sticking with the plastic center shaft for now, but if I do upgrade, I'm not even going to bother with stock BL Pede 4x parts, I'm going straight to that same Teckno set, it's a hell of a lot quieter!

If you can, trim back the edges of the flares where they fold down towards the tires, while it's not much, that's still 1.5-2 mm's of additional up travel before the tires start to rub. Also, if you do want to try the bedliner thing like I did, putting it on the inside as well as the outside on the rockers, bumpers, and flares gives it that little added heft and opacity that, to me, just make it look and feel......"right""thumbsup"

 

[fyrstormer]

I haven't noticed any noise from the 4Pede VXL center driveshaft. I put little foam-donut spacers at each end to keep it from rattling. I'm getting plenty of chatter from the MIP sliding-spline front axles though, because they're so rigid and they're connected to a spool.

I'm honestly not sure how much grinding was necessary to make the 56T spur fit. I was rushing, and I just sort of ground away in different places until I finally got it to stop making noise. If I'd wanted to do it right, I'd have marked all the likely rub-spots with silver Sharpie ink, assembled the rear end, and then rotated the spur gear a few times to see where the spur gear was actually rubbing. Maybe I'll do that next time.

Is there any meaningful difference between silly putty and "diff-lock" putty? I've never used either product in a differential so I have no experience with them. The 500,000wt is a little too loose, but it's not enough of a difference right now for me to bother taking apart the diff and cleaning it out just for a slight improvement. Maybe in a few months.

Trimming the flares sounds like a good idea, but it also sounds like more work than I feel like doing at this point, for just a couple mm of extra clearance. Also, I'd have to disassemble my shocks to change the travel-limiters I added to avoid rubbing the insides of the fenders.

Thanks for the suggestions on the bedliner stuff. I was in the auto parts store a couple days ago and I saw a can of adhesion promoter and bedliner right next to each other, and I took it as a sign and bought them. Now I just need some proper masking tape, not the cheap stuff that doesn't actually seal properly at the edges.

 

[fyrstormer]

I took the Telluride to my girlfriend's parents' farm this weekend, and today before we left I had the chance to take it for a run through the back woods. It romped around the front yard for a while, then the back yard, then about a mile and a half of wooded "trail" that really just consisted of a set of paint-marked trees through the middle of the woods. It did very well; I had to rescue it a couple times, but that's all. The battery still had some charge left when I got back to the house.

 

[BJoe]

Very nice too!

Not sure when I'll get the chance to try it, but I'm beginning to think it might be possible to swap the rear arms from side to side then use the upper shock mount spacers from a 4-Tec to mount the shocks to the backside of the rear tower to stretch the wheelbase to something closer to that of the G6 or Dingo SCX10 so those types of bodies can be used without accounting for the different wheelbase in mounting and trimming the body.

 

[fyrstormer]

Wouldn't a longer wheelbase just make it more likely to high-center when climbing over rocks?

 

[BJoe]

Yes, but it would also open us up to more bodies too.

 

[fyrstormer]

In that case, what about building a Slashuride? Put the shorter A-arms and lower-ratio 4Pede brushed diff gears on a 4Slash body. There have to be a bunch of optional bodies for the Slash.

 

[BJoe]

I've thought about that at some point, but I'd Just buy a Brushed 4x4 Pede, Slash chassis, Slash 4x4 driveshaft kit from Teckno, and Proline TruScale Ram body for Short Course Trucks, an E-Maxx 21t motor and 9t pinion, and normal Slash 4x4 offset Proline Beadlocks with another set of M3 compound Trenchers, then swap the needed parts around to get a LWB, Wide Track, 4 Wheel Independant trail rig...........too bad nobody makes a scale Slash sized Humvee, Range Rover, or Grand Cherokee body then.

 

[fyrstormer]

You've clearly put a lot more thought into it than I have. For now I'm content with the shorter chassis, even if it limits which body covers fit. A shorter chassis is harder to high-center and it narrows the turning radius, both of which are useful when climbing over stuff.

I took the Telluride on an adventure today. Recording video with a cellphone is a huge pain and I officially give up on recording video until I can get a GoPro or something comparable, but I got some nice photos.

None of the photos were staged; the vehicle drove into position for all of them, though I admit some of them took a lot of finagling to get into position.

 

[fyrstormer]

A guy at my LHS gave me a scrap of extra-thick Lexan to make an electronics tray. Instead of going to sleep at a reasonable hour, I decided I could use the time better by cutting the Lexan to size, sanding the edges flat, rounding the corners, cutting a cable pass-thru port, and giving it a spraypaint job.

 

[BJoe]

Wow, looks like you had a good time there, and yes, I put a whole lot of thought into a Slash 4x4 based scaler. I even have a friend who is building one on 2.8" Trenchers (he made a few mistakes that resulted in a near 3 Mile Island withing the body!) With the Traxxas sound module thing.

 

[wyd]

Excellent thread. Just what I needed to get started. Won't be too expensive to do since I work at a Hobby Shop so pretty cheap trail truck even with upgrades you mentioned. Plus I race for Castle Creations and have many Sidewinder ESC speedos I can use for the brushed motor setup.

 

[wyd]

Would it be better just to order a Stampede 4x4 for the same rice since I already need differet tires anyways and probably wouldn't run the stock body. Unless the suspension is wider it seems cheaper to convert the Stampede over to a trail truck?

 

[fyrstormer]

Excellent thread. Just what I needed to get started. Won't be too expensive to do since I work at a Hobby Shop so pretty cheap trail truck even with upgrades you mentioned. Plus I race for Castle Creations and have many Sidewinder ESC speedos I can use for the brushed motor setup.

To add one more item to the list, which is optional but definitely beneficial: Swap the Titan 12T 550 for a Dynamite 15T 550. The part number is DYNS1215. When you get the motor, remove the flux ring; you won't need it.

Going from a 12T motor to a 15T motor only drops the top speed (with all of my mods) by about 1-1.5mph, but the armature wiring is 25% longer in the 15T motor, and that helps keep the ESC and motor at safe temperatures, especially if you install a JConcepts tray-cover which will keep dirt out but also restrict airflow.

Would it be better just to order a Stampede 4x4 for the same rice since I already need differet tires anyways and probably wouldn't run the stock body. Unless the suspension is wider it seems cheaper to convert the Stampede over to a trail truck?

Amazon lists the brushed 4Pede for $360, which is about $60 more than the cost of a Telluride. So I'm not sure it would actually be cheaper. The only mods I listed that the brushed 4Pede already has are the lower-geared diffs and the better slipper-clutch, and those two mods don't cost $60. On the brushed 4Pede you'd still need to replace the center driveshaft and the pinion and spur gear, and you'd also need to replace the A-arms and axles unless you're okay with having a significantly wider track width. Also, I'm not sure the 4Pede's springs are soft enough for trail-running; the videos I've seen of the 4Pede show it bouncing along on rough terrain like an excited puppy, whereas the Telluride's springs are quite soft and give lots of compliance over bumps, even at its top speed.

Of course, if you already own a brushed 4Pede and you want to do a Telluride (or partial-Telluride) conversion on it, buying the parts you'd need to do the conversion would be way less expensive than buying a separate Telluride.

 

[BJoe]

Depends on what you're going for, if I was going to use one of the scale Slash bodies, I would start with a Pede and stretch that to work.

If you were keeping the shorter WB, but wanted the extra width and to run Pede bodies, the Pede would be the best choice.

If you want it to be closer in size to a Dingo or G6 and to run SUV bodies, a Telluride with Pede diff is better. I also think it might be possible to swap the rear arms from side to side and mount the shocks to the back of the rear tower to put the WB closer to that of the Dingo.