BaldyMan

Loving the lime green and dark blue colour scheme. I've got a FTX Vantage that is a bit scuffed and I might spray a body up something similar. Be a bit different to the black and silver stock body shell and will go nice with the blue aluminium bits and bobs

This. There's no point turning up to your local club with a 4wd buggy when they're all running pan cars. Make sure you know what the club already runs with

Am I right in thinking you mean the Maverick Phantom XB? That's the little black and green brushed buggy. They also do the Phantom XT which is the black and green stadium truck. I've owned 2 Maverick Quantum trucks. The brushed Quantum MT and the brushless Quantum+ Flux XT. I've killed both of those and found any kind of head on collision will kill your front diff. I found them to be frustrating trucks as they're absolutely not good for racing as they handle poorly and theyre mediocre bashers due to being a little brittle in places. Certainly not suitable for running on 3S no matter what the packaging claims. The motor and ESC can handle 3S but everything else can't. I'm assuming you're talking about buggies though so if you're looking at racing a 4wd buggy at a budget then the 3 main options are the FTX Vantage 2.0, the Maverick Phantom XB and the Absima AB3.4. The Maverick Strada XB strikes me as little more than a toy but that's totally going on "looks". If it were me and I was considering whether to enter into buggy racing I'd be looking at the Associated RB10 but you're talking £300 plus batteries and charger. If you're sticking to a budget then get the FTX Vantage 2.0. It just seems to have the best part support and parts are so cheap it's not really an issue to replace and upgrade things. "Proper" race buggies aren't cheap.

Most of my purchases have been from Modelsport unless there's something not in stock. I've used King's Lynn models to order an RC buggy that was out of stock and surprisingly was cheaper than Modelsport but that's not a local store or anything, I'm completely the other side of the country being NW based. I just like Modelsport's website, it's by far the easiest to navigate around especially if you want spares and upgrades. I got 2 decent lipo batteries from eBay that came as a pair and I've been happy with those and I've just ordered a new drive shaft on eBay as well, mostly because of the free delivery. Even if the price is inflated on eBay it's still often cheaper than paying delivery charges of £4 for a £3 item. I'm completely cutting back on Amazon unless absolutely necessary, far too much money gets frittered away on Amazon.

If you want a jack of all trades then would you consider a short course truck like the Traxxas Slash or the Arrma Senton? Associated do the SC10 Pro4 for comparison. Outcast is still a bit of a big truck so if you are comparing Arrma to Traxxas then the equivalent of the Traxxas Rustler would be the Arrma Vorteks. I'm not aware of an Associated truggy. If you want to stick with Traxxas trucks then how about the Hoss? If you've invested in a lot of Traxxas chargers, batteries etc then I'd want to stick with what I already have.

Get the wing for the Absima AB3.4 buggy. It'll need a bit of bodging to fit.

Installed a steel pinion and an acetal spur gear to the Vantage and the awful grinding noise has subsided. Looks like it's very easy for grit to get into the pinion on these and it just chews up the stock brass and plastic parts. Hopefully the better components last longer and I'll just avoid running it in too much gravel. Was just about to put it all back together and take it for a run when I noticed the drive shaft is mangled so that's been out on order and I've been running it in 2WD for now. It just wants to donut constantly.

I believe the Zorro bumper does fit, it's whether it looks a bit daft. The Carnage one did look a bit daft, I'm just going to improve my driving and I'll probably just buy another truck for general bashing.

They do. They have 32DP and 48DP spur gears available and they have the recess for the gaskets too. Obviously you need a 48DP pinion to match the spur. The brass pinion looks chewed up already but the spur gear still looks fine. I'll probably change them as a pair next month because wifey dear is whining about the spends again. Modelsport.co.uk sell a hardened steel 32DP spur and pinion set but that's out of stock. A lot of people seem to be going with the hardened acetal plastic spur over steel.

It hasn't worked out. The Carnage bumper fixes to the front plate but needs a rear suspension mount fitting at the front because of the central support arm on the bumper. Without that the bumper just bends back and snaps as I have discovered. I'm putting the Vantage bumper back on and will just have to be more careful. Also the blue anodized plate got scratched instantly. I was expecting it to last a bit longer. All I did was bump it up from grass to my brick patio. It's like less than an inch higher and that's enough to scratch it. If I wreck the shocks again I'll swap them out for big bores on the front. Probably my next upgrade will be the pinion and spur gears. I just don't know whether I should get the 32DP or the 48DP

New aluminium front plate and Carnage bumper fitted to the Vantage. Hopefully this will protect the front end more as I've smashed the plastic bottom plate and bent a shock rod recently.

Mine got a new aluminium front plate and Carnage bumper as I've already bent a shock rod.

Links?

I broke it. New aluminium front plate and Carnage bumper ordered until I learn to drive better. Bit disappointed to have the whole part snap, it wasn't a particular hard crash into a gate post

Thanks, I think I'm gonna order one in then. That's if can source one. Otherwise I'll probably have to test fit the FTX Comet wing or some HSP generic wing from eBay

Might have bent the axles like I did with my Quantum. Have you had a few heavy landings from big jumps?

Yep, I've got paint flaking off my Vantage after about 3 days of owning it. Will pick up some tape tomorrow

I've noticed the wing is brittle, mine has already started to have paint flake off after about 3 battery packs of run time. Are there any recommendations for hard plastic wings? I reckon the dual fans look smart on the Vantage, it's a nice clean cut and looks like they're meant to be there.

I was really close to picking up the RB10 but I plumped for the cheaper FTX Vantage because it's 4wd and I'm sure I'll break it plenty times.

I've half a mind to do something myself. Problem is that the locations near me where I could do it are often frequented by yobs and its quite often people get mugged in broad daylight in our parks. Maybe if I do early Sunday morning at this naff "park" near me. The grass is short and there's a bit of a hard dirt path too. There's nobody ever on it in the day apart form of occasional dog walkers. It's at night when the yobs come to drink and take drugs because I regularly have to clean up the play area if I bring my lad.

Start them young I say.

These guys love the DR8. They also got these 3D printed "mud" flaps for the rear suspension lower arms that stop grass from getting wrapped round the dog bones https://youtu.be/qcANGXiELy0

Originally I bought a Maverick Quantum+ Flux XT because I thought it split the difference between a racing buggy and a monster truck. That was a bad decision because in the end I realised it was too big to toss in a backpack and I really like cutting laps in my garden or local parks. The truck wasn't really agile enough to get consist laps out of it and I replaced it with a 1/10 scale buggy. Now the buggy is really good in short grass, road and dirt. I'm much happier with it but it's definitely not really for bashing and now I'm wondering if I should have got a short course truck like the Senton. I'll probably get a Se ton for Christmas once my wife has stopped seething about the expense.

So did OP make a purchase? Are you looking for something to just bash around with or are you thinking of doing a spot of racing? Even a bit of grass roots racing? For 4wd buggies my suggestions would be Corally Radix or Hobao Hyper VS For short course truck I can't look past the Arrma Senton due to better pricing than the Traxxas Slash. For monster trucks you're spoiled for choice with Traxxas Maxx models and the Associated Rival MT probably being the picks of the bunch. Then you've got this newer class of monster truck that's lower slung and better at high speeds like the Arrma Kraton and Traxxas E Revo. Worth noting on brands is who owns them. For example Arrma and Losi are owned by Horizon Hobbies and generally Arrma products are seen more for "bashing" and Losi are more for "racing". That's certainly not a hard and fast rule. Oh and rock racers are now a thing too. So they're like those spongey rock crawlers except they go really fast and might be a good first purchase.

Where's this? The nearest to me is Southport and that's a good 20 miles away