Vanquish VRD Carbon Kit
Vanquish VRD Carbon kit with Zuul body.
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Dollar for dollar, the Vanquish Products VRD carbon kit is arguably the best rock crawler kit on the market today.
Its parts quality, design elements, and versatility is what sets this kit apart from the competition. In this short review, we will touch on a few of the interesting features found in this kit as well as covering our own VRD set up. At the time of this writing, we have three of the VRD kits in the fleet; one as a complete truck (covered in this review) and two more used as the base for RC Speedy moon buggy builds. While this review will go into depth on some features, it is not an all-encompassing overview of the VRD. The Vanquish website, linked below, has additional information that’s well worth looking over. |
Also, let it be known that we are not on Vanquish Product’s friends list, we have zero affiliation or connections with the company, and we are not financially compensated for any of our opinion or content. There is zero bias here. That said, in our opinion, Vanquish are the kings of the 1.9” game though and though, and this recent offering by the company further cements their place as the current industry leader. Now let’s get into the details.
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The VRD 1/10th scale rock crawler kit comes with a lightweight VFD transmission, excellent carbon rails, six-degree angled skid, high-clearance rear links, and their highly coveted F10 portal axles with front portal weights.
The transmission and portals gear combination provides a stout 37% overdrive to the front wheels. Slap some lightweight electronics and a thin lexan body on this kit and you’re good to go for a competition. They even offer an RTR version of this truck called the Stance, perfect for those who just want a comp truck that’s plug-n-play. Yet, VRD also makes for one heck of a trail truck, and that’s exactly the path we opted to take with this project. |
The F10 portal axles are perfect for this rocky terrain.
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Hobbywing Fusion Pro 2300kV powering the VRD.
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Like most Vanquish Products RC kits, other than electronics, they need virtually no aftermarket upgrades to improve performance.
Most people who purchase Vanquish kits focus on the scale details or maybe just a few minor tuning adjustments, but for the most part when you see a Vanquish crawler / trail truck out and about, from a design and OEM aspect, they tend to pretty close to their stock configuration. There are two main reasons behind this: good engineering and high-quality materials. Their plastics are considered by many ( including us ) to be the best in the industry, and their latest VRD series of crawlers showcase excellent weight distribution and nifty tensioning of the carbon rails. Also worth mentioning is their fantastic VRD transmission, and we will talk about that a bit more later. |
If there is a critique I have about their trucks, it’s that their shocks tend to be a bit tricky to set up without leaking. It’s not all the time, but enough that it’s not uncommon to read about. Recently Vanquish upgraded some elements to their shocks, so hopefully this issue has been resolved.
Unique Chassis Detail
The VRD kit has a unique feature in that the 3mm carbon rails are placed under tension once assembled. This is achieved by having a wider skid than the front and rear bumpers, forcing the rails to curve around the wider skid plate. Once assembled, the rails curve inward at both the front and rear of the chassis with a difference of approximately 8mm. The skid plate width is approximately 78mm and the bumper widths are 70mm; all measured from the inside of the rails.
Another thing to note is that the rear chassis brace is molded with this angle so that there is no sharp force pushing on one point along the rail. There is also a matching progression to the widths of the chassis supports.
The VRD kit has a unique feature in that the 3mm carbon rails are placed under tension once assembled. This is achieved by having a wider skid than the front and rear bumpers, forcing the rails to curve around the wider skid plate. Once assembled, the rails curve inward at both the front and rear of the chassis with a difference of approximately 8mm. The skid plate width is approximately 78mm and the bumper widths are 70mm; all measured from the inside of the rails.
Another thing to note is that the rear chassis brace is molded with this angle so that there is no sharp force pushing on one point along the rail. There is also a matching progression to the widths of the chassis supports.
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The center skid plate is the widest point on the VRD.
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The point here is that this design is intentional, and it’s the molding of the rear chassis brace that gives this away. In all of the engineering work we do at our day jobs, including the designing of molds, there are few things as painstaking or detailed oriented as mold making.
They are expensive and time consuming design, so you do your best to get it right the first time around. Intensive modeling and prototyping are done to ensure you have covered the bases before you start with the actual mold making. This may have your wondering why Vanquish went through the trouble of tensioning the chassis rails when most other companies choose to use straight rails, but there is a reason for such an effort. |
Molded chassis brace with the curve is quite interesting.
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The VRD is easy to control on these tricky sections.
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If we remember back to physics classes in Engineering undergrad, the curved rails are basically a form of a parabolic (beam) rail. By curving the rail, you’ve moved the neutral point away from the centerline of the rail. This makes it harder to bend once curved in that you are overcoming a longer radius in relation to the width of the rail.
Think of it like trying to bend a recurve bow perpendicular to the intended plane of movement compared to a perfectly straight piece of wood of the same dimensions. On the VRD, each rail is curved in the opposite direction as the other, thus no matter which way the chassis twists or flexes, the one of the rails is resisting the applied forces. This design of curved and mirrored rails results in a stiffer chassis without adding extra the weight of thicker rails or increasing the cost with a more complex rail design. Now when the truck is crawling through extremely uneven terrain or as in this photo where it's hanging a wheel in free-air, the truck's suspension is the controlling factor and not being upset by chassis flex. The result is a smoother, more predictable level of performance from the truck. |
Remember, chassis rails are sprung weight and minimizing that weight as much as possible on a crawler is essential. This is much better than if Vanquish opted to leave the rails straight and making the rail thick enough to match the rigidity of a curved rail. Thicker rails are heavier, thereby adding sprung weight to the crawler. No bueno. This stuff gets nerdy quick, so by all means surf around on google for the detailed engineering discussions on this topic, it’s rather interesting.
What strikes me odd is that this unique and rather technical feature of the VRD carbon kit is not highlighted on their website. Either it's something they don't consider important or they don't want to go down the rabbit's hole to explain the rationale (chances are my explanation has it's own errors and missing info). But the design is there, and it's intentional, and it's strange they don't mention it. I point this out in that my explanation as to how and why the chassis rails are tensioned is just my opinion; they have yet to answer any questions I've emailed them on this or really any topic.
What strikes me odd is that this unique and rather technical feature of the VRD carbon kit is not highlighted on their website. Either it's something they don't consider important or they don't want to go down the rabbit's hole to explain the rationale (chances are my explanation has it's own errors and missing info). But the design is there, and it's intentional, and it's strange they don't mention it. I point this out in that my explanation as to how and why the chassis rails are tensioned is just my opinion; they have yet to answer any questions I've emailed them on this or really any topic.
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Body Selection
Knowing that we didn’t want to use a competition-styled body, something needed to be sorted that looked more scale and also matched the longer wheels base. Hunting around, we pulled an extra Element Ecto body from the rack, and to our surprise, the lines of the body matched up well with the VRD. Remembering that Element just recently released the Zull, which is just a slightly different version of the Ecto ( vintage FJ vs Power Wagon ), we looked that body over and decided to give it a whirl. |
Zuul body is a perfect match for the VRD.
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With the body in hand, everything lined up, other than the need to trim the bottom of the body to lower it as much as possible to achieve a nice, tucked look. The shock towers needed clearance windows as did the servo, but I think that looks nifty on these builds.
To finish off the body, we put a few bends in the aluminum sliders to give us a bit more clearance and protect the body until we can properly design a new set of sliders.
To finish off the body, we put a few bends in the aluminum sliders to give us a bit more clearance and protect the body until we can properly design a new set of sliders.
Squeezing the VRD through a tight spot on the trail.
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Steering Setup
Vanquish offers a few servo mounting options for the VRD, with the kit focusing on running a servo-on-axle setup. We wanted to have a bit more traditional feel to the VRD rather than going all-out as a comp truck, so we changed this to a chassis mounted servo. The VRD didn’t come with the panhard kit at the time, but now Vanquish has a parts kit on their website. Ours is the same setup, and we used a NSDRC RS 800 V2 servo to handle the steering. |
Electronics
Under the hood is the Hobbywing Fusion Pro 2300 (540 spec) motor running a 12-tooth pinion gear. We like the clean lines of Hobbywing’s 2 in 1 system, and I hope to see this design become more popular with crawlers. There’s little need to haul around a large ESC if you just crawling along the rocks.
Under the hood is the Hobbywing Fusion Pro 2300 (540 spec) motor running a 12-tooth pinion gear. We like the clean lines of Hobbywing’s 2 in 1 system, and I hope to see this design become more popular with crawlers. There’s little need to haul around a large ESC if you just crawling along the rocks.
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Building the Kit
Like most Vanquish kits, this truck went together with ease. One thing we do is change out all the OEM bearings with Avid bearings (they are a bit nicer), and get the gears properly greased. The kit comes with overdrive portal gears ( 16% ) as well as overdrive gears in the transfer case ( 21% ). This is a pretty aggressive overdrive for anything but a comp crawler, so we opted to use the same portal gear ratio in both the front and rear axles, leaving the 21% overdrive in the transfer case. This will make the truck a bit more sedate when out on the trail, while still having plenty of overdrive. As for the shocks, this set when together without any problems or leaks. We adjusted the ride height to run pretty low, but the truck is sprung rather than running a droop setup like our other crawlers. Again, this leans into the trail truck feel more rather than driving like a comp truck. |
Cruising along the trail at Badrock Ridge.
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The VRD is fantastic on this terrain.
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Performance
Out on the trail, the VRD is well composed and highly predictable. It drives like a trail truck, yet it knocks off surprisingly steep and technical lines with little difficulty. If we didn’t already have a few dedicated comp trucks in the fleet, it would be hard not to build another VRD into a full-blown comp truck. Set up as a trail truck, you’re holding back some of its potential. It’s hard to say that the unique design elements like the tensioned chassis rails make an appreciable difference, but after driving it for nearly a year, we can’t spot any areas which need improvement. We have yet to drive a more "dialed" trail truck. I feel the portals axles are a “must have” element to this truck in that it rides best when slung low on the suspension, and the portal axles keep the skid from catching on the terrain. YT Video Link: Highline Trail |
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Specs
Ready to Run Weight: 2894 grams
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Ready to Run Weight
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