RCCrawler Forums

IronArcher

So, being a newb, I’ve made it a part time job to watch videos and read reviews on prospective RC cars for rock crawling.
A lot of the questions I am coming up with are based on the wrong answers to many questions that seemed obvious.

Here is a good 3 way example based on RTR cars I have been very interested in:
Element Sendera, Ecto, and Gatekeeper.

The main differences are
Sendera has “conventional” 4link rear suspension, and a medium (in this group) weight body
Ecto has swingarm/sway bar rear suspension and light body
Gatekeeper has the same swingarm/sway bar rear suspension, and a VERY heavy body (3x the weight of the Ecto).

Conventional wisdom would suggest that the gatekeeper wouldn’t do as well crawling as the Ecto. Much higher center of gravity and all. But in head to head tests, at least on stock, or mostly stock trucks, the Gatekeeper wins.
Conventional wisdom also suggests that a traditional 4 link setup is “better” for rocks than a swingarm, yet the same driver driving the trail truck and Sendera found the Ecto performed much better.
There was a theory, that the sway bar on the swingarm hurt articulation and trail performance. This was both right and wrong, and removing the sway bar made the truck far less capable, even though the suspension did indeed flex more. This was particularly noticeable in climbs and side hills.

The current prevailing theory is that the Ecto could be made to be the dominant of the 3 by adding a lot of weight to the wheels and axles, and individuals doing this report/show very good performance.

But I haven’t found any comparing an Ecto with lots of brass to a gatekeeper with lots of brass.
One would think this has an obvious answer, yet, those same “obvious answers” have been very wrong time and again.

Your thoughts?