Bear with me, your about to read a novel.
Well it's been a while since I have gotten on here but I have been really busy with my (real) trail rig, took it wheeling last saturday. Got my daily driver almost buttoned up maintenance wise, and don't plan on doing anything else to the trail rig. I have been crewing for a friend of mine in the W.E. rock competitions (world extreme rockcrawling comps) Basically I run around for tools, parts, food and drink, and help fix the buggy when needed. I was also jewed into being photographer/videographer. I know a lot more about wheeling than I used to and have had an amazing time at the competitions. One name you may notice if your into the offroad racing scene is Shannon Campbell. He is at every event competing, and it's awesome to see the top dog of the off road world wheel his machines. That being said I have been playing around with this junker of an rc hummer a few times, and it no longer satisfies my rc wheeling "needs".
I have been keeping watch out for some kind of crawler on craigslist, have saved some money to fix up my daily driver and trail rig and may have some left over cash to spend on some kind of crawler. My goal is to find something under $200, that's just way too much to spend for a used rc. After being amongst the pro rockcrawling scene, I have plans for the future rc. I know the venom creeper has remote locking differential capability, so I want that over anything else. I want dig capability and rear steer as well. After research it seems like I would have to find a remote with channels out the wazoo to have all the capabilities I want. What I'm thinking:
I probably won't find a creeper for a decent price with remote locking diffs.
-thats out
The axial has a rear steer kit and I believe I can get a transmission with dig capability -toss up
With rear steer I would be able to crab walk on rocks/ With dig I would have an amazing turn radius. I'm curious to know if dig uses up a channel on the remote, if not, I could do both rear steer and dig. If it does use up a channel I'm undecided. I'm trying to figure out which one I want to spend my money on when I get something.
I will also explore the bent lower links, I may try and play with the stock ones first.
All in all it's looking like my best bet is to try and find an axial no?
Whatcha think??