area52

Team Durango's DESC410R 1/10 scale 4WD Short Course Truck bases on the 2009 World Championship winning DEX410 1/10 scale 4WD buggy and is Team Durango's 3rd kit after the DEX410/410R and DNX408 1/8 scale Nitro Buggy. This is the first part of our new series called the "Build Blog". We keep you up-to-date during the build and track test to shorten time until our full-blown review. Enjoy.

The DESC410R (that's for Durango, Short Course, 4WD, 1/10 scale, Racer – just in case you ever wondered) comes in kit form with unpainted body, wheels but without tyres or electronics. The pile of parts looks a but unspectacular but isn't that always the case?

The small dimension horizontal layout manual makes placing it on the work bench easy. The SC wheel is for size reference only ...

These are the parts of the "Slipperential", a mixture of a slipper clutch and a differential. From stock, the differential is locked with the X-shaped insert but making the unit work like a differential is only a matter of some cheap pins and gears.

The completed slipperential with ready for completion. The white stuff on the inner parts of the outdrives is Castrol White Paste - a sealant for rubber and silicone seals. More information about it in a bit.

Team Durango put two different types of main gears into the DESC410R's box. One 48dp "standard size" main gear for 540-size motors and a Module 1 (same as found in 1/8 scale buggies) when the going get's tough with even more powerful 550-size motors.

Here you can see the completed slipperential and also the two adjustment nuts for the slipper tension.TD also supplies a suitable slipper wrench for easy adjustment.

Ok, back to the white stuff. We used Castrol White Paste inside and outside of the outdrive side for additional sealing as sometimes gear differentials tend to leak. Castrol White Paste is available at automotive stores or simply ask your full-scale car mechanic.

The parts of the front (and rear) differential layed out. The gear differentials are adjustable using different weigth silicone oils.

The DESC410R comes with large bottles of 2,000 and 7,000 CST silicone differential oil. As you can see we also used some of the White Paste on the crosspins and the inner gears.

The front, rear and centre differential, err … slipperential prepared and ready for installation.

We advise to use a small amount of Tamiya Anti-Wear grease on the differential couplings to make them working even smoother.

Team Durango use the new-design universal driveshafts with 2.0mm pin. This is a vast improvement over the 1.6mm pins used on the first generation 1/10 scale 410 kits as they are a lot less prone to break or become loose.

Nevertheless TD supplies plastic rings to secure the pins in the unlikely event of them getting loose. Unfortunately these rings are a pit of a pain to slip on the shafts. We broke one but the second one slipped on ok with the help of a set of pliers and gentle pressure.

These plastic caps are normally used with TD's drive shaft rubber boots (optional parts) but as they help keep dirt away from the outer differential bearings we used them anyway.

The massive chassis plate of the DESC410R is nearly 400mm long. Made from aluminium and black anodised it makes for a tough base of the SC truck.

These chassis rails are pretty trick! They are held in place using hexagonal inserts and are backed using an upper counter part resulting a sandwich chassis that has the right amount of torsional flex without lacking overall strength.

This is the centre slipperential and motor mount. The motor holder is machined from aluminum and black anodised. The counter part and the brace you can see on the left hand side are made from composite plastic.

This is the new rear skidplate/bumper, a much stonger looking part compared to the one found on the DEX410 buggy. Three massive rails replace the countless thinner ones as found on the original design. The part itself prevents the chassis from becoming excessively scratched during landings after jumps.

The front bulkhead and bumper in place as is the black anodised aluminium shock tower.

TD supplies plastic and aluminium front-front suspesion holder and we can only encourage to use the stonger aluminium part (as it is stated in the manual).

Make sure you clean the circled part of the bulkhead from any flash as otherwise you might find it difficult to fit the suspension holder in plus the screw holes of the holder and chassis wouldn't line up correctly.

Now the suspension holder is in place.

A lot of shims are used on the rear wishbones. These are used to adjust the wheelbase from long to short and inbetween.

Three different plastic RR (rear-rear) suspension holders are supplied with the kit. We used the 4° piece as advised in the manual but you can also choose 2° and 0° parts to free-up the rear of the truck for added agility in corners and more straight-line speed.

This is the battery holder brace slash differential lockator that also acts as a pivot point for the brace. The two lockating holes allow you to perfectly adjust the brace height to normal height (23.something millimetres) or high (25.1mm) LiPo battery packs.

The foremost part of the battery holder features three holes for the locating clip.