What first upgrade?

[NTA_Shawn]

I have the K5 Ascender sitting in my shopping cart at RPP with battery, charger and lipo bag. I know out of the box the Ascender is pretty solid, but like us all, I can't leave well enough alone and already want to upgrade a rig I don't even own yet!
My question is: What do you think my first upgrade should be? I am looking to keep it under $75. Would it be a metal servo horn, tires, rims, different electronics, shocks etc...? I am looking for best bang for my buck and/or what is one thing that needs to be upgraded fairly quickly on it.
Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.

[Comet71]

I'm upgrading rims and tires!

[Sammy J.]

I would go with Ascender aluminum shocks. The stock shocks on mine were lousy. The new shocks work the way they should.


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[pete959]

I did wheels first then bumpers and sliders

LIFE IS GOOD

[Sammy J.]

Another thing that I stumbled into was baking off the plastic rims and replacing them with an extra set of gmade SR-02 steel beadlock wheels I had sitting around. These wheels are pretty heavy and they improved the crawling ability and stability of my truck considerably. As I recall they are about $40.00 for 4 of them and will mount up to the stock tires pretty nicely.


They also look pretty "period correct" for what I remember Blazers running back in the day.


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[Sammy J.]

Hopefully Natedog will chime in here. He's probably forgotten more about upgrades than I've ever known!


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[Levesque87]

I just acquired one as well, my first upgrade was the wraith front sway bar to help fight the twisting

[Itali83]

Of your list probably wheels to help with low down weight. I still run stock shocks and they are fine for me. I don't know any better though. The best mod I've done so far is the wraith front sway bar mod on the rear axle. Made a HUGE difference in climbing and side hilling.

The stock servo horn though plastic, is plenty stout and takes some serious abuse so don't do that until you upgrade servos. Read through Natedog's build and please read through mine and hopefully that'll help you out.

My baby blazer

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by Sammy J.

Another thing that I stumbled into was baking off the plastic rims and replacing them with an extra set of gmade SR-02 steel beadlock wheels I had sitting around. These wheels are pretty heavy and they improved the crawling ability and stability of my truck considerably. As I recall they are about $40.00 for 4 of them and will mount up to the stock tires pretty nicely.


They also look pretty "period correct" for what I remember Blazers running back in the day.


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This wheels look great and add just enough weight down low. While your at it add Crawler Innovations Deuces Wild foams.

Originally Posted by Sammy J.

Hopefully Natedog will chime in here. He's probably forgotten more about upgrades than I've ever known!

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Thanks.

Originally Posted by Levesque87

I just acquired one as well, my first upgrade was the wraith front sway bar to help fight the twisting

Great first mod and cheap.

Originally Posted by Itali83

Of your list probably wheels to help with low down weight. I still run stock shocks and they are fine for me. I don't know any better though. The best mod I've done so far is the wraith front sway bar mod on the rear axle. Made a HUGE difference in climbing and side hilling.

The stock servo horn though plastic, is plenty stout and takes some serious abuse so don't do that until you upgrade servos. Read through Natedog's build and please read through mine and hopefully that'll help you out.

My baby blazer

X2 thanks both threads have good info. I was going to say steering servo but mine is still going lol. Baking tires off, new foams and metal beadlocks like SSD is good!

[Bluerock108]

Wheels, then shocks

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[northernerbill]

Scale and function, so I'd go with smaller PitBull or RC4WD tyres dependant on your taste and maybe some GCM mag wheels or GearHead mag wheels (cheaper).