Vorsprung durch Technik – Durango DEX410

Rear
The rear of the car consists of only a minimum of parts. The main part is the combined bulkhead/wing mount onto the carbon shock tower with a U-shaped carbon brace attached. The carbon brace locates the rear battery saddle-pack and also strengthens the rear of the car by connection the rear bulkhead with the alloy side plates. Another feature that was brought over from the prototype Durango is the rear kick-up of the chassis plate. This kick-up makes for more ground clearance while landing jumps and is protected by a finned plastic skid plate. The fins are meant to stabilize the rear of the car while landing as they tend to dig into the ground. Sounds a bit weird but it actually works as we found out in the later test. The plastic plate is interchangeable with an optional brass weight in case you like to run the lighter LiPo packs! The brass weight comes with additional side weights that attach to the carbon U-brace. Again, very trick!

Like the front wishbones the sturdy rear wishbones are located by nicely machined suspension brackets. Three RR (rear rear) braces are included in the kit but with the included ‘-2’ RF (rear front) ‘low roll centre brace only the #2 and #4 braces are usable as the #2 brace makes for zero and the #4 braces makes for –3 degree anti-squat in the rear. This might sound complicated but the manual shows exactly what parts give what adjustment. For the initial test we stuck with the suggested #4 brace (hence: 3 degree anti-squat).

The rear wishbones offer a nice feature: droop screws. These help to adjust the droop of the wishbones and although maximum droop is used most of the time (in bumpy or low grip conditions) reducing the droop for carpet racing on high-bite surfaces can result in a better handling car. We would have liked to see all of those neat features explained in a set-up help as part of the manual but unfortunately the current manual is a bit short on information on those things. You will have to refer to your own experience or one of the many general set-up explanations on the internet unless Team Durango comes up with a DEX410 dedicated set-up manual.

Just like the front differential case the rear one is located by only four screws. These locate two alloy braces that keep the case in place detaching the plastic outdrive tubes for the inner rubber boots is a bit fiddly at first but once you’ve done it two or three times you will get used to it very quickly. Rubber boots can also be found on the outer joints near the wheel axles to prevent dust harming the small pins of the joints. Speaking of the pins: these are smaller in diameter compared to MIP CVD universals but seem to hold up well. The wheel axles are of the common ‘Losi’ style again making swapping wheels with your buddies very easy. Unfortunately the locating pins are too short (see our ‘Tips’ section at the end of the review!).

The long rear dampers (just like the front ones) are located by quick change damper screws. These trick parts attach directly to the shock tower. To change the angle of the shocks you only need to unscrew the rear nut, pull the screws including the dampers out of the shock tower and locate them in the new location. Simple as that. Also simple is the adjustment of the upper links as the ball cups offer holes to stick a 2.5 mm hex driver in to easily change the settings of the suspension. No need to juggle around with a Tamiya wrench and those nasty ball studs like seen on many other cars. The rear sway bar is part of the kit and comes in 1.3 mm and 1.5 mm guises just like the front ones.

Finish
We equipped our review car with a Team Orion 6.5T Vortex motor, CS Electronic Rocket Competition speedo and a set of Speed Passions Speed Power 4200mAh 30C saddle-pack LiPo batteries. We also opted to set the suspension according to Gerd Strenges German Nationals set-up with dark green springs up front and grey springs in the rear in combination with 2 hole pistons and 22.5wt oil in the front and 3 hole pistons and 22.5wt oil in the rear.

Categories - Cars, Durango, Products