BAJA BUSTER – A Fully Customized Traxxas Unlimited Desert Racer

RC vehicle customization comes in many different forms. In most cases, these customizations and modifications are intended to increase the performance potential of the vehicle. Upgraded motors, electronics and suspension parts are popular options that can up a car or truck’s speed and handling characteristics.

Another form of RC customization places attention on a vehicle’s looks for incredible scale realism. Custom paint jobs, licensed scale parts, creative crafting and 3D-printed accessories are often used to achieve this goal. Most of the vehicles that are modified for enhanced scale looks that we see fall into the crawler, big rig, military, drift and lowrider RC categories. These forms of RC tend to be less about speed and more about style.

BUILT TOUGH

There is another RC vehicle type we love seeing that routinely incorporates both forms of RC customization as outlined above. RC desert racing trucks are often upgraded for both performance and scale realism. With a highly realistic look right out of the box, we think that the Traxxas Unlimited Desert Racer (UDR) is a platform that easily invites both modification styles—performance with scale realism—into a single package. Thanks to Traxxas’ wide selection of bolt-on upgrades, it’s never been easier to push both envelopes with the UDR.
The UDR pretty much looks like a copy of a Baja 1000 desert racing truck direct from the factory and comes ready to perform. It’s as durable as a real-life Baja racer, too. As great as it looks and performs in its stock form, we believe that there are always a few more upgrades that you can add to an RC vehicle. In fact, the UDR that you see gracing these pages essentially utilizes every upgrade part that Traxxas makes for the platform. We also had it custom painted by none other than Matt Brase of MR Custom Paint, but more on that in a bit.
Traxxas engineers did a great job with the performance of this truck. It’s quick, powerful, nimble and reliable, everything you need on the desert dunes. UDR comes equipped with a Velineon 2200kV brushless motor and 6S capable VXL-6s ESC, so you know it’s fast. It feeds on either two 2S or two 3S batteries, giving it up to 6S power capabilities, which allows it to romp in the sand without any problems.

THE UPGRADES

As great as it is out of the box, we weren’t deterred from pushing the truck a bit further by installing an upgraded Traxxas High-Torque 400 servo. The Traxxas red servo combines 400 ounces of steering power with full metal gears, dual ball bearings, and an aluminum center section for added heat dissipation. The servo is fully waterproof, not just “water resistant,” and was easily dropped in for a perfect factory fit. With the electronics maxxed out, we dutifully went all-in on Traxxas’ selection of aluminum suspension and steering upgrade components.

FULL-METAL SUSPENSION

Looking to increase suspension performance, lifespan and looks all at the same time, we opted to upgrade the UDR’s suspension with Traxxas’ selection of aluminum suspension parts, which includes links, trailing arms, toe links and long-travel shocks and dampers. Traxxas also offers aluminum shock caps in your choice of Fox or King Shocks branding. We love scale details like this. We went the extra mile and also installed Traxxas’ optional gold-colored hardened-steel shafts in the shocks. These shafts have a super-tough titanium-nitride coating with a micro-polished finish for smoother performance and scratch resistance. They look mighty snazzy, too.

BLACK CHROME EVERYTHING

The stock cage that comes on the UDR looks great, but the gray color of the plastic doesn’t. We wanted a more realistic look, so we upgraded to the Traxxas optional black chrome cage pieces. These black chrome parts are as close to the look of a real cage as you’re going to get, which made it a no-brainer for this custom build. Before assembling the new cage, we took the time to paint some sections of the UDR to add some extra detail. A few panels received semi-gloss black to match what’s done on some full-size trucks, and we also painted the fuel cell to make it look more realistic.
We liked the black chrome look of the cage so much that we expanded our use of the factory black chrome coated parts to everything Traxxas made for the UDR, including the rear axle housing, suspension arms, upper arm mounts, front and rear bumpers, front skid plate, front shock mounts, and the sway bar arms as well. As you can tell, the look is amazing.

ALL LIT UP

Our UDR is an older model that didn’t include LED lights. The current model UDR comes with the UDR light set already installed. We didn’t want to be left out, so we went ahead and installed both the UDR light kit, which includes LED light bars that cover the front, rear and roof of the truck, as well as a Traxxas power amplifier that helps regulate the power from the battery to the lights. Jumping sand dunes at dusk with these lights on makes the UDR look so real.

PAINTED PARTS

Traxxas did a great job of including some scale accessories like a radiator, fire extinguishers, batteries and more to enhance the scale look of the truck. They’re all simply molded in a single color, so we removed all the pieces and started painting them to add some extra detail. Parts like the radiator, fire extinguishers, oil bottle containers and jack received a few coats of spray paint and then a little detail work with a brush. The radiator received a little extra attention with some screening on the interior side to make it look even more scale.

A WHOLE NEW LOOK

For a completely custom look, we spoke to none other than Matt Brase of MR Custom Painting to see what he could do with our UDR. Starting with a Pro-Line clear body, he went with an eye-catching red, white and black paint job that features some well-worn patina. It looks great and matches the colors used on the rest of the truck. We love the detail of the painted sponsor logos and tasteful use of patina. It’s not overbearing and makes this UDR look well-used and vintage.
Like the scale parts on the outside of the truck, the included interior is a single-color piece, and some stickers add to the look, but Matt wanted to take it to the next level. He masked off the driver figures and gave them a few coats of paint with some detailing on the helmets and gloves. A set of realistic-looking Traxxas window nets and real inner aluminum panels round out the truck’s major body components.

THE SWAP

Wheels and tires are very important to the look of a scale build. Generic wheels and tires just won’t do. That’s why Traxxas offers licensed Method Race Wheels 101 Beadlock wheels with black and red beadlocks that are mounted with BFGoodrich Baja KR3 tires. If you’re looking for more detail, you’ll notice that we painted the rear beadlocks in blue and matched them with color-coordinated aluminum lock nuts for a bit of extra style. Before bolting them up, we added further detail by painting the lettering on the sidewalls of the tires.
Although the stock wheel hexes have a great scale look thanks to the faux brake disk that’s molded into them, we swapped them out in favor of the durability of Traxxas’ steel wheel hubs instead. The bed of the truck holds a pair of sand paddle tires for those times when the dunes get too deep. These wheels and tires are also available from Traxxas as optional parts.

TRAXXAS UPGRADE PARTS

DR LED light set – P/N: 8485
High-Torque 400 Red servo – P/N: 2255
Power amplifier – P/N: 6590
Clear UDR interior – P/N: 8512
Tube chassis side section – P/N: 8430X
Tube chassis center section – P/N: 8431X
Tube chassis center section rear – P/N: 8432X
Tube chassis center support – P/N: 8433X
TiN-coated shock shafts 81mm – P/N: 8464T
TiN-coated shock shafts 69mm – P/N: 8454T
Upper arms – P/N: 8531X
Lower right arm – P/N: 8532X
Lower left arm – P/N: 8533X
Upper arm mounts – P/N: 8534X
Front bumper – P/N: 8535X
Rear bumper – P/N: 8536X
Front skid plate – P/N: 8537X
Rear shock mounts – P/N: 8538X
Rear axle housing – P/N: 8540X
Rear differential – P/N: 8576
Steel wheel hubs – P/N: 8568
Aluminum trailing arms – P/N: 8544
TUBES toe links – P/N: 8547
139mm GTR shocks – P/N: 8460
160mm GTR dampers – P/N: 8461
Suspension link – P/N: 8542
Sway bar arms, front – P/N: 8596X
Sway bar arms, rear – P/N: 8597X
Method Race Wheels 101 Beadlocks,
BF Goodrich Baja KR3s – P/N: 8474
Wheels and paddle tires – P/N: 8475
Window nets – P/N: 8517
Aluminum lock nuts – P/N: 8447
Aluminm panels – P/N: 8434

CUSTOM PAINTED BODY

Pro-Line 1/7 1967 Ford F-100
Clear Body: UDR
P/N: PRO354717
MR Custom Painting

FINAL WORD

As you can probably tell, we put a lot of time and effort into this build and are pleased with the end result. It looks like it could take on the Baja 1000 and looks as good as it performs, checking all the boxes in terms of speed, agility, sand dune capability and scale realism. If you’re looking to create a realistic RC vehicle that can really move, we highly suggest looking into a project desert racer Traxxas UDR of your own.

Sources:
Traxxas traxxas.com
MR Custom Painting
Instagram: @mrcustompainting
Facebook: shorturl.at/btAJO

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Text by Jerry Tsai and RCCA Staff
Images by Jerry Tsai