Originally Posted by nismomike

I just got my DEX and went through, gathered basic info, necessary mods, tuning tips and such. Yes it comes with Durango Fat Shocks (12mm big bore) and plastic preload collars. It comes with light blue 45 and 65mm springs. The basic mods/upgrades recommended to me were:
1. Boil the ballcup part tree the same way you boil eggs, then use a 1/8 drill bit and drill into the cup .200 or so. Then put black grease on the turnbuckles and thread them all the way in and out a few times.
2. Ackerman upgrade. Upgrade to an aluminum ackerman.
3. I decided to do the Capt. america mod as well. That involves mounting the ackerman under the bell cranks instead of on top of them. You will have to put 2mm of washers under the bellcranks to raise it up enough to clear everything lock to lock. Then you can just add 5mm of washers to the aluminum ackerman instead of a big pile on the steering knuckle. I got pointed in this direction by 4 top Durango drivers, but opinions vary.
3. Most of the DEX drivers will tell you to run 4-hole pistons. It calms the car down. You can plug a couple holes in the provided pistons, or get some blanks. Blanks dont come in the kit.
4. Plastic chassis! Everybody I spoke to told me based on the tracks in Az, to run the plastic DIMEC +8mm.
5. Watch the Team Durango ball diff build video and read the how to. It can mean the difference between amazing diff, or car wont even go.
6. Springs, get a few based on the average setup from your style track on Durangos website. I only had to get dark green, dark blue, and black F/R and I'm good to go anywhere in Az.
7. Front droop screws. Almost everyone shaves the droop tabs off of the front bulk head and takes the droop screws out of the front arms. They instead use 1-2mm of travel limiters in the front shocks.

Now I'm still getting my feet wet with this car, but these are recommendations based on 50+ emails and texts, phone calls to TDR drivers.