RC Speedy / Vanquish vrd moon buggy
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RC Speedy Moon Buggy
Moon buggies represent a small but growing niche in the RC crawler market, and in 2024 we decided to add a 1/10 scale moon buggy to our fleet. After looking over some of the choices available, we decided to go with the RC Speedy R2VRD moon buggy chassis. RC Speed has a wide range of chassis designs for moon buggies, rock crawlers, and U4 platforms, all custom built from either stainless steel or Titanium. The welding is very good, and it’s hard to beat their sub $600 price point. The chassis are built to work with current Axial, Vanquish, and many other platforms, so usually all you need is the original crawler and then you can upgrade by installing the steel or titanium chassis, and use all the existing parts to complete the build. |
Since the new Vanquish VRD carbon kit was the hot ticket at the time, we opted to go with their R2VRD moon buggy chassis for this build. To save some weight, we chose the titanium option.
Three weeks after ordering, we had our chassis in hand and ready to complete.
Three weeks after ordering, we had our chassis in hand and ready to complete.
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Vanquish VRD Carbon Kit
Dollar for dollar, the Vanquish VRD carbon kit rock crawler is probably the best kit on the market today. We had one here fully built, so switching to the moon buggy chassis was relatively simple. We pulled the carbon chassis and removed the Vanquish shocks completely, swapping them out with a new set of Dlux Fab short Dravtech shocks. |
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Next was to convert the standard VFD transmission into the “stubby” version. This involves shorter motor mount supports and a few other bits and pieces.
The stubby is designed to work with short outrunner motors as well as providing enough room behind the axle for a servo-on axle mount, hanging it off the back between the rear of the axle housing and the front of the transmission. It’s a nice and tidy setup, and it shaves even more weight from the moon buggy. You scrap the panhard mount and switch to a 4-link front suspension setup. |
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Steering Setup
Initially we set this truck up as a front and rear steer build, but after a half-dozen or so outings in our terrain, the rear steering element was rarely used. It’s a neat feature, but the tradeoffs didn’t seem to be worth the weight or anti-squat penalty. We ended up going back to a standard rear axle and installed one of our in-house rear link riser mounts. Some day in the future we may revisit this setup, so the door is for sure not closed to a rear-steering setup. |
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Electronics
Powering the moon buggy is Holmes Hobbies 540 L Revolver outrunner motor paired with their Crawlmaster V3 ESC. It seems that this combination is becoming the standard setup for most of our new crawler builds. The Crawlmaster V3 runs nearly silent for the outrunner motors and is lighter in weight than just about any other ESC on the market today. The Revolver 540 L has more than enough power for this crawler, easily pulling tires from the wheel if you get it jammed up in a rock. The drag brake is perfect, and there really isn’t a single nit or shortcoming I can think of to complain about. |
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Performance
Out on the trail, we needed only to do just a slight bit of tuning with the shock placement, tilting them back to get a bit more of a progressive feel to the shock. It’s a departure from the 1:1 scale world, but we are performance nerds, so laid-back they were. At this point we have about 20 hours on the trail with this moon buggy (we actually have two of them now), and they are fantastic. Completely different in feel and performance from a carbon-chassis crawler. Moon buggies cannot handle the extremely steep lines that some of our carbon frame trucks can, but their open wheel and narrow body allow them into extremely tight spots and chunky terrain. I feel it requires more finesse and skill to get the most from a moon buggy when compared to a carbon crawler, but I personally enjoy the challenge. If you don’t have one of these in your collection, you might want to think about adding one some time down the road. |
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Not too shabby of performance from our RC Speedy crawler on this trail at Badrock Ridge. Dealing with the higher COG due to the Ti cage keeps things interesting, but you can still knock off some challenging trails with a moon buggy.
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Specs
RC Speedy R2VRD Ti moon buggy chassis
RC Speedy long aluminum body panels
Vanquish VRD Carbon Kit Parts Used
Other Parts
Electronics
RC Speedy R2VRD Ti moon buggy chassis
RC Speedy long aluminum body panels
Vanquish VRD Carbon Kit Parts Used
- Skid
- Links
- VFD transmission with Stubby conversion
- Behind the axle servo mount
- Overdrive portal gears
- Vanquish heavy brass knuckles up front
- Brass front and rear portal weight covers
Other Parts
- Dlux Fab Dravtech Shocks – Short
- In-house rear link riser
- Element shock mounting tabs
- Avid bearings
Electronics
- Holmes Hobbies Revolver 540 M / 1800 Kv outrunner motor
- Holmes Hobbies Crawlmaster V3 ESC
- NSDRC RS 650 Servo