Performance Chassis

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

Hey Everyone!!

I am thinking of switching out the stock frame rails on my performance build TRX-4M to something that is more forward biased focused.

Does anyone have any personal experience they can share?

There are so many options out there!

Here's one I was looking at.

Then there is this one from Injora

My goal is to take the OEM parts and build my son a truck based off of all the take offs I have from previous builds. I have bodies, electronics, even some unused hop ups or things I just tried.
The only thing I am really missing is a frame.

Feel free to chime in and post links. I would love some personal experience on what you tried.

Thanks in advance!

Update November 12 2025;

I ended up ordering the Injora chassis.
I haven't tried anything from Meus so I don't have experience to go by. However, after trying my first Injora product recently I was pretty impressed so I'll check out the CF chassis.

Update November 16th 2025

I decided to try a new electronics layout in preparation for the new chassis to arrive.
I had a different ESC along with a BEC; it was a lot. I tried to trim some stuff out, swap out the ESC and change out the radio gear so I could install a temperature sensor.

I can't help but laugh at the things that are obvious mismatches; tiny ESC with large RX. Tiny ESC with large capacity battery connector, etc.

Either way I am looking forward to hitting the rocks tomorrow!

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

I ended up ordering the Injora carbon fiber LCG chassis. Surprised it didn't come with instructions or a link to where you can find them.
Nothing I could find on their website. I used photos from their page.

It is quite nice! It stiffens the truck up quite a bit!

Here's what the scale says

There is no battery in it which I think would have made those numbers worse.
I don't think I have figures of beforehand, but I was expecting to have a higher front percentage.

I'm going to take it crawling tomorrow and try it out.

Update December 21 2025

I ran the truck in a comp last weekend, unfortunately it didn't do very well. Due to the fact almost nothing is stock I ran in unlimited. That class was crazy. The course was reminiscent of a 1/10th setup. Also, the trucks were wild; some looked like they were ten inches wide.

I made it threw the first few gates but then took a DNF. I could not get through this sidehill section in the middle.

All that said I learned a ton! #1, ditch the hard body. #2, loose the bumpers that go with it.

I found a lexan body at my LHS that looked like it would work.

Hopefully these changes bring improvements.

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

I ended up going all the way with this thing. Only OEM parts left are the transmission case and the battery box/tie down.

As I mentioned chassis change wasn't enough.

Next thing that happened I was hitting the steering tie bar first, on everything, with the bumper removed.

I had ordered a set of Treal portals back in mid to early 2025, they came in fairly recently.
I've built those and got them under the truck.
Next requirement was reworking the suspension, changing fluids, shock angle and preload.
That's not dialed in yet but we'll get there.

Just in my hands and on the bench the bottom is really slippery and it seems to want to break over really easy now.

However, the 1.0's looked really weird.

Thankfully I had these 1.3's on hand to toss on and take a peak

Much better looking now imo

I'm going to try and get it out tomorrow evening @ Mile High C.C. We'll see if it hurts the rig being higher on the 1.3's. I'll also bring a few sets of 1.0's to test out on it too.

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

Finally got a chance to run this guy last night.
It needs waayyyy more tuning!

The suspension, specifically the rear has too much spring. You can see in the final picture it looks like a monster truck, which is how it drove.

I didn't even think about removing all the sprung weight and what it would do to performance.

Now It behaves like a pendulum with the rear tires being the pivot.

I need to remove a bunch of spring from it.

I am using Traxxas shocks.

Anyone have some suggestions for me?

Thanks in advance

 

[xjtorc]

Love that body!

Just by looking and hearing what you're saying about its performance, the springs are too stiff and the shocks are too long.

To improve it with what you have, try laying down the rear shocks toward center like you have the fronts. It should help. With a super lightweight build like that, I would run a full droop setup (if you only care about crawling performance).

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

Love that body!

Just by looking and hearing what you're saying about its performance, the springs are too stiff and the shocks are too long.

To improve it with what you have, try laying down the rear shocks toward center like you have the fronts. It should help. With a super lightweight build like that, I would run a full droop setup (if you only care about crawling performance).

Thanks!

It's an ECX Smash body that I hacked up. I snagged it at my LHS for like 19 bones. I like LGRP but to get their SUV body shipped here alone is just to much for me to justify atm.

So I had them laid down more but the rear felt like it was binding; like it didn't want to move at all. I moved them up two holes because I am using the forward one as a body mount.

I want to speak the same language, when you say full droop, you mean like a belly dragger?
So fully compressed, but able to extend?

I see a lot of 24's with like no springs at the comp events.

When I think of droop I think of limiting sag or suspension travel via limiting screws, etc. Or limiting "drop" with like straps or limiters.

 

[xjtorc]

So fully compressed, but able to extend?

When I think of droop I think of limiting sag or suspension travel via limiting screws, etc. Or limiting "drop" with like straps or limiters.

Yep, no springs and let them fully compress if they can. With the tiny scale shocks, sometimes it ends up being “partial droop” lol.

Having tuned other RCs for racing and some 1:1 suspension tuning experience, my brain thinks of droop the same way. I guess “full droop” is the proper term for the crawlers.

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

@xjtorc

Okay, we're on the same page. And yes, I too think the same for the same reasons. I'm picturing A Arm drop and trying to limit it.

Thanks for the advice. It goes against everything I have ever done, but I will take the springs off and check it out.

 

[HPIguy]

Yep, agree with the above. For all out crawling, I tend to be in the team droopy camp.

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

@HPIguy & @xjtorc

There we go boys

She looks tuff

Just playing around on the table and it is WAAYYY more planted! Let's go!!

Thanks for the advice

 

[xjtorc]

@HPIguy & @xjtorc

There we go boys

View attachment 265199

She looks tuff

View attachment 265200

Just playing around on the table and it is WAAYYY more planted! Let's go!!

Thanks for the advice

Definitely looks a lot better!

 

[HPIguy]

So much better!!

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

Soooo much better!!

It's no Redcat Ascent Apex 18 that walked the same lines. Like, walked them.

But it'll be able to at least compete now.

 

[majin]

this has been such an entertaining thread, @CreepyQuarryCrawler welcome to the droop, all my trucks are full droop, i even run my shocks upside down to lower that little bit of wieght down, i havent ran a comp before so can't speak on that aspect, but i dig tf out of your build and thread bro

 

[xjtorc]

Soooo much better!!

It's no Redcat Ascent Apex 18 that walked the same lines. Like, walked them.

But it'll be able to at least compete now.

Hell yeah!! Nothing better than a simple change making such a big difference!

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

this has been such an entertaining thread, @CreepyQuarryCrawler welcome to the droop, all my trucks are full droop, i even run my shocks upside down to lower that little bit of wieght down, i havent ran a comp before so can't speak on that aspect, but i dig tf out of your build and thread bro

Thanks man! It has been a journey and a half.
Learned a ton of stuff along the way!

Hell yeah!! Nothing better than a simple change making such a big difference!

No kidding!!

I gotta play with the oil weight now; needs to be heavier.

I held off doing it when I took the springs off just because its a bit of a pain to get them off the rear.

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

Brought this dude out last night too.
Tested out the new shock oil as well as shock orientation (180) hopefully this will help keep oil in a few of them. *GRRR*

Huge improvement!!
That's 32.5 WT shock oil, I could go up for sure. What you see is completion of gate one through three but technically I wouldn't have made it through the last one.

At my first ever comp I DNF'd on gate 2. It's just at the top of the vertical climb where I had to find some grip on this run.

The Bronco just kept flipping back.

That is also Injora 1.3 Cling On's. I've soaked them in simple green twice, could maybe go a third time. The Green Silicone inserts. They're mounted on plastic wheels.

 

[Doom!]

For this dude out as well. Tested out the new shock oil as well as orientation (180) hopefully this will help keep oil in a few of them.

Huge improvement!! That's 32.5, I could go up for sure. What you see is gate one through three but technically I wouldn't have made it through the last one. I DNF'd on gate 2 before.

Looks like a cool course, you handled it well until the oopsie.

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

Thanks Doom! Definitely room for improvement.

I'm starting to think I need to remove that sweet Treal brass center skid. I think it's to much center mass. The truck wants to turtle all the time. In the same area is also the battery.

 

[Doom!]

Fine tune it until your happy with it. Takes some experimenting some times. That's why I say all mods aren't beneficial. Every rig is different. At this scale a little goes a long way.