Hi Clay,
You're right on about how free the tranny is on the LOSI. It really is super smooth. It helps in pretty much every aspect of driving. Acceleration, top end, corner speed, braking and run time. The difference was very apparent to me when I swtched from my original GT8 car. Faster and runs longer. The
Carbon fiber chassis is from Robert of Matrix Concepts, the shock towers are from Losi. They indeed help reduce the weight of these monsters, but surely aren't a requirement to be fast. Tony is ballistic as well as my cousin Eric with his conversion. I believe Tony runs a tekno rc conversion and my cuz has my exact setup w/o the C/F. Both are REALLY fast guys!
FYI - SNR, Steve D and Omar all run Castle 1/10scale ESC's to power their 2650kv buggy/truggy sized motors. It works well for them.
The Ten T Buggy would make an awesome conversion as well. Aside from the other things you mentioned, you might even be able to run a 3s pack vs 4s, reducing the weight/cost even more.
I saw a posting on REDRC of a
conversion for the Traxxas 4X4 Slash made by STRC. It looks great!!! It uses the smaller ESC and 550sized motor as you mentioned and looking at the pics, it also has a 3s battery. I bet it's also the most cost effective way to get into GT8. Tires would probably last even longer as well. I believe Raman saw it in action at West Coast and he said it was good to go. I bet this would be even lighter than the Ten T. HMMMMMMMM, I have a Slash 4X4 PE sitting on the shelf.
Hope to see you in Corona!
Jai