where should I start?
 

Bought the HPI crawler king, took it to a valley near by. Had a blast (i'll get some videos later on) but i've noticed couple of issues that need to be taking care of:

1) the torque of the engine causes the crawler to lean to the left. not a big issue, but just annoying.

2) shock absorbers are ok. but not more, and I probably need to change them

3) I want more power. the crawler has a 55t engine. I don't know if that's enough, or is it just the reduction gears / something else; but I want more power. I want the crawler's wheels to dust everything in the near vicinity :P don't mind if they'll slip a bit.

so, where should I start? should I start with changing the chassis to a lower metallic one, or should I start with the suspension first? and what about the engine?

my budget is not big, so I want to start small at first. thanks for any input

Well, if you do plan on changing the suspension, then I would definitely start with your chassis of choice first. There is no reason to tune the suspension to one chassis, then get rid of it for another chassis.

chassis it is! thank you very much :)

Just keep in mind that you can change the chassis all you want and it's not going to change how much speed/power you have. a 55T is only going to put out a finite amount of "go", and the gearing you have now is what it is.
Probably worth deciding what you want to accomplish, in what order. Based on your OP, it sounded to me like you want it faster more than anything...faster means a different motor/gearing, not chassis or suspension

You might want to think about changing to a 35T motor, it all depends on the electronics you are running as well. Are you using lipo's? If so, check and see if your ESC can support a 3S battery with a high C rating.
You'll get more power with the 3S batts if your ESC can handle it but if not, a 35T motor is your best option.

I run a Bully MOA and use twin 35T motors on 3S and the punch is good, but it's not like a 2WD slash (non brushless) for speed.

The "lean" your seeing is torque twist...a good after market chassis and tuning will help but it will never really go away (unless you go MOA)

A 35T will give you a bunch of speed

thank you for you advice :)

yes, I want it to move faster, but still to be able to crawl on rocks and such - this doesn't bother me so far, as I can always control speed with the remote (probably going to change it to something better than the stock). Anyway, I wanted to start with suspension / chassis primarily because of the torque twist. I don't think it'll go away completely (not a fan of MOA), but I must reduce it, as it get pretty ridiculous when I press hard on the throttle - the front axle gets such a twist, the left wheel is in the air :lmao: add to that the high center of gravity, and the overall hight of the king crawler, and you get a pretty unstable vehicle. so, i want to a) lower the overall chassis and b) making it more stable. that's why I want to start first with chassis / suspension.

as far as engine goes, I'll deal with that when i have a good chassis + suspension combo. I got regular nimh batteries for the time being, i'll get to them when I start dealing with the electronics. I figure that once I have a good base for my crawler, than I can go nuts with power :P my ultimate objective is to have something tough, yet very fast. I want it to go "wild" when I take it out :P