Trying out 1/10th scale shocks

Faced with a ridiculously long wait for Kyosho ultra-soft springs to come into stock at US retailers, and knowing that the shocks on this vehicle don't have to handle a lot of load to begin with (since much of the weight of the vehicle is on the axles themselves), I decided to try out some Traxxas Big Bore aluminum shocks I had hanging around. This would allow me to run Losi springs without wrestling with the ends as I had to on the Kyosho shocks. Plus, I was more familiar with the Big Bores as far as setup was concerned.

By simply moving the upper shock mounts to the end holes, I got the shocks to fit like they were meant to be there in the first place. I ran 40wt oil with RPM purple (heavy) dual-rate pistons all around. On the front I used Losi gray 1.6lb/in 2.75" springs and on the rear I used yellow 2.0lb/in 2.75" springs. Yes, those are unbelievably light springs to run on such a huge truck. Yes, they were more than strong enough to do the job (I started with much heavier units and experimented until I arrived at this setup). This really underscores how unique solid-axle trucks are in terms of setup. The truck now also sat lower than ever, which made me quite happy.

On the track, the truck had more traction than ever, with far less hopping down the straightaways. It especially handled the bumpy sections of the track nicely. It jumped better, but didn't absorb the landings as well as before, due to the reduced downtravel of these shorter shocks. I also learned the hard way that you need space your lower mounting points out from the tabs on the axle tube (using, for instance, shock limiters between the eyelet and the tab). This is even true with the stock shocks. If you don't, the eyelets will bind when the truck articulates. With the lighter-weight Big Bores, I actually bent a shaft as a result of this.

Though with this setup the truck handled much better than stock, I would recommend creating new upper mounting points, either farther down or farther towards the ends of the truck, if you use 1/10th scale shocks. The extra downtravel will allow you to better absorb landings as you take advantage of the handling improvements of the lighter units.

Since I did this experiment, however, I found some more readily-available springs for the stock Kyosho shocks. It looks like I'll be reclaiming the Big Bores for other projects.