I've completed my shock replacement project for the wallet-friendly Turnigy Trooper 4wd 1:10 SCT by HobbyKing. As I stated in my review earlier, this is a very good budget RC truck with only one flaw out of the box I could find: Bad Shocks. A quick Google search of Turnigy Trooper reveals this plagues many buyers of these new RC trucks (you'd think they would get the message!).
The shock on the left is Turnigy's stock shock after just one running, the caked on mud and dirt is a result of the leaked damper oil all over the outside (both rear ones looked the same) and the rear shocks provided no lift to the truck and the body actually sat on the rear tires during my out-of-the-box run. On the right is the new shock--ordered from a eBay hobby store front out of China (around $20 for all 4 and came with no mounting hardware FYI). These are brand new 85mm Aluminum-bodied with black metal coil over-springs and damper oil-filled shocks. I used new stainless steel hardware to mount the new shocks and had to remove the ball-pivot mount from the wheel support frames from the stock shocks, as the new ones used a screw-through pivot mount method.
I very happy with the final outcome. The new inexpensive shocks work nicely and a test drive afterwards showed a remarkable performance increase and now I am almost happy with my purchase of this budget RC truck (around $155, and is light years ahead in quality and performance of the ECX Torment 2wd 1:10 budget SCT I own). However, it is sad I received no help from HobbyKing.com (other than a $10 credit for a future purchase) and they have lost my business for good. I did however receive several nice messages on their forums by fellow Turnigy Trooper owners offering assistance. Of course my only remaining complaint is this truck has no rear mudflaps, which really bugs me! Interestingly enough the previous Turnigy Trooper did, I don't get it. Hmmm, maybe that's my next project on this truck...
