Savage as a trail truck?
 

I bought a Savage a year or so ago with the intention of building a big 5th scale truck out of it but that idea kinda fell apart. A lot of people I know are getting into Summits, SCX10s, Wraiths, etc. and taking them up in the mountains and beating them around but everything I've got just gets stuck. Rather than buy and build one of those I thought I'd make use of what I've got and build my Savage to work. I don't intend to do rock crawling and such, just running trails.

Here's what I've got to work with:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/DSC02862.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/DSC02863.jpg

I got it off eBay and the auction was less than specific, but it looks like an old Savage 25. What are some good options for converting to electric? I'm on a bit of a budget and would like to keep it fairly short (less prone to high-centering) so the FLM tranny forward conversion isn't really an option. FLM's mount looks really nice and would keep the CoG nice and low, but I may end up putting a brushed setup in it for the time being and I doubt the Dewalt motor would fit. Brushed motors are pretty much heresy on this site, I know, but those big Dewalt 14.4v motor is cheap and powerful and will not have low speed cogging issues like a cheaper brushless setup.

Any thoughts?

If it was me ,
Put a heavy oil in the difs front and back.
find and put a summit transmission in the savage for your extra low gearing
Just mount the batteries outside with some flux battery boxes
Should be a great truck for what you looking for from there.

Could even run the summit motor and esc as well.

I've got some 60k oil, would that be enough or should I get something thicker?
I'd rather keep the Savage transmission, Summit trannies are spendy and I should be able to get enough reduction out of the stock one. I'm not rock crawling but if I go brushed I'll probably only be aiming for about 15-20 MPH.
The Flux battery boxes are definitely an option, but I may also look into some other boxes/trays for it.
The problem with the Summit electronics is that unless I can find a steal on eBay I might as well spend $30 on a DeWalt motor (which is better anyway) and then either pick up a cheap EVX2, run a Sidewinder SV2 in High Power Brushed, or find some other option.

I pulled the tranny and it turns out the previous owner put the 3 speed conversion in it. At this point should I put it all back together and sell it as a complete tranny and buy a Flux transmission or, if I stay brushed, leave the transmission in there? It would be cool to have 1st gear for the really low speed stuff then be able to punch the throttle and have some speed potential as well.

The problem I found when I ran the 3 speed was adjusting it.
It was a real pain to do.
I not sure if they redesigned it though.
Had to remove entire trans to just adjust the shift point on 3rd.

Yeah I was talking to a buddy of mine at the LHS last night and he said the Savage as a whole would be more trouble than it's worth and that I'd be better off selling it and putting the money into an SCX10 anyway :oops: