Vanquish VS 410 Pro
Vanquish VS 410 Pro working its way along a difficult trail.
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For the main workhorse of 1.9” crawler tire testing, we selected the Vanquish VS 410 Pro truck kit for its excellent layout and overall quality.
I feel the VS 410 Pro with its straight-axle configuration and C-channel chassis represents the top-tier of performance in the scaler / crawler market, and I consider it to be the benchmark of quality for truck of this nature. I also feel that this kind of truck is the essence of what a trail truck is all about. Vanquish also offers this truck in a portal axle configuration, known as the VS 410 Ultra. The VS 410 series of trucks are only sold in the kit form, allowing you to choose the electronics best suited for your needs. |
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Compared to other trucks on the market, the VS 410 Pro is a bit more than double the price of other kit trucks.
That said, once you have built or purchased a few different crawlers, it becomes obvious where your extra money went for the Vanquish. |
The VS 410 Pro headed up Miller's Crease.
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VS 410 Pro out on the trail in Boise, ID.
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The fit and finish of the parts is superb, and the low center of gravity / weight forward design of the VFD transmission really makes the truck shine on steep climbs.
While sold as an all-around trail truck, our modifications have been geared around greatly enhancing the technical crawling performance while minimizing the “scale” aspect to the truck. To that point we do not run any kind of interior, but we did retain a few of the smaller scale details, such as door handles which round out the truck’s appearance. |
The Bronco body supplied in the kit is excellent quality and it deserves these small finishing touches. Rather than copying over the specs from the Vanquish website, here is a link to the truck with further information: VS 410 Pro Link.
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Before we jump into the technical aspects of the truck, it’s worth noting that we have been driving this truck for nearly two years at the time of this writing, and it as gone though a number of changes.
At one point we had shaved as much weight off as possible, changed bodies, and crafted new lightweight bumpers and sliders. The result was a truck with a tremendous steep and technical climbing capability; it was shocking as to how steep of a line this truck could pull. The down side is that it no longer “felt” like a trail truck, and in many ways lost its identity. |
VS 410 Pro creeping down Kong trail.
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Testing out the JConcepts Rupture tires.
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Mulling this over, I decided to restore the VS 410 back to resemble the OEM configuration with just a handful of changes incorporated to enhance trail performance.
The truck I review and discuss in this piece is that version of the VS 410 Pro. At times you will see a photo of it in a older configuration, sometimes even with an Axial Deadbolt body and shaved bumpers, but don’t be confused; it’s still the same VS 410 Pro. |
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With the body set aside, you will see that we removed some of the scale features on the chassis, such as the plastic fuel tank, and mounted the battery up next to the servo.
We kept the bumpers and sliders, but removed the large battery tray and part of the transmission cover. The servo remained mounted on the chassis. |
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A look under the hood.
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Suspension
The factory suspension setup from Vanquish is pretty solid, but I wanted to lay the shocks down a bit in the front and rear to develop a slightly softer and more progressive feel. To accomplish this, I need to change shock towers with one offering multiple mounting positions, and the IERC aluminum shock towers fit the bill. I had also been fighting a slow oil leak in two of the factory shocks, and as much as I readjusted them, I just couldn’t get it sorted out. This led me to change out the shocks to a set of Dlux Fab Dravtech shocks. The Dravtech shocks were mounted upside down, keeping the piston submerged in the oil as the shock cycles and slightly lowering the center of gravity on the shock. On the outside I’m running the soft springs and on the inside is TLR 25 wt. silicone oil. Recently Vanquish has released a new truck called the Phoenix, and it appears to have updated shocks with the kit. This change seems to have addressed any leakage problems, and I would have to assume these shocks will also replace the older style on the Pro and Ultra at some point in the future. |
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Electronics
The VS 410 Pro has plenty of room to run just about any kind of electronics you could want in a crawler / trail truck. After trying out a few different ESC’s, motors, and servos, I ended up with a Brood RC Creep 40T brushed motor paired to a Castle RC Copperhead 10 ESC. Steering the front tires is a Holmes Hobbies SHV LP 500 direct power servo. I like the feel of a brushed motor in this truck, and it gives just the right amount of torque for slow crawling. |
Headed up the trail in Fruita, Colorado.
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Taking on a substantial sidehill out on the trail.
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Setup Details
With most of our crawlers, the goal is to move the weight forward on the chassis and as low as possible. With the VS 410 Pro, the changes were straight-forward. The first step was installing SSD RC brass knuckles on the front axle. From there we switched out the stainless-steel links for a set of titanium high-clearance links from In The Works RC. These two changes helped lower and move forward the CG of the truck. As mentioned before, the new shock towers were installed along with the Dlux Fab shocks, and aluminum standoffs were added to support the chassis and shock towers. |
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On The Trail
While other trucks we have crawl quite well, even slightly surpassing the VS 410 on some steep technical climbs, nothing quite has the “truck” feel that the VS 410 offers. I believe this is due to the general layout of the truck utilizing a robust steel chassis, high-quality components, and the VFD transmission. The truck drives smoothly and precisely, hitting exact lines on the trail and effortlessly scaling steep rocks. |
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On side-hills, the truck has a predictable lean without suddenly breaking free into a tumble.
It’s these characteristics pf stability, control, and technical performance which make it ideally suited for 1.9” crawler tire testing. At this time we have no other changes planned for the Pro, but if some some reason we come back and rework part of the truck, we will update this section of the website. s. |
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Current Setup
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