To just update the geometry, you'll need the new arms, new towers, and new hubs. The new hinge pin holders are similar geometry-wise, but add a bunch more adjustment.

This will be the first Tekno (and short course) kit I've purchased. For those that ran V1.0, do you have any suggestions on upgrades I should consider immediately? I'm planning on getting the air guards right away and an alu servo horn. Does a body come with the kit? If not, what should I consider? Also I noticed in one of the pictures that the shock caps seem to be composite? Is that standard with Tekno? Of course since the body covers the entire kit there's little concern about cosmetic damage.

Just when I thought I wouldn't be buying another kit anytime soon.

Tower's pre-order is $565.99 but teknorc lists it for $399. That's a pretty big gap, anybody know what the real street price will be? Even with tower discounts it's still $100 over.

As far as immediate upgrades. Shock springs. The older version is known for nosing over after jumps due to bottoming out. You'll need stiffer springs for the rear for sure if they haven't already addressed this. Other than that its a really capable truck. I just got through converting mine to a superlite buggy. Found a conversion kit at nitrohouse, tekno discontinued it a while back but they had one left. 4wd sc seems to be dying off around my area some, and I also wanted to concentrate one ebuggy and nitro buggy.

Regarding must-haves for upgrades:
The original kit we said servo horn and wheel hexes. This kit appears to already have the wheel hexes.

For springs and jumping:
I always liked a stiff setup on the 410, but with the shocks further out on the arm and tower like they are with this kit, less spring and less oil weight is needed to get a similar damping effect, which is why you see them set to lower than with the original kit. While I wouldn't consider it a must have and I will run the stock setup before trying anything else, I would probably have 1 spring up/down, some different shock oils, and maybe a different piston to have on hand and try.

Regarding composites:
Most people like upgrading to steel or aluminum, but this adds weight along with durability. That being said, many other manufacturers also use composite cross pins (they're not really taking much in the way of force), and some even use composite gears. While time will tell if these hold up, I don't see a specific reason why they shouldn't.

That being said, I'll be building mine with metal cross pins in the diffs just because I like to "set it and forget it" (for up to a year long period of time) and still have the diffs look brand new inside when I pop it open to replace an outdrive. If you do semi-regular diff maintenance, I don't think the composite crosspin will be an issue.


Regarding Price:
Tower has always had pre-order or first displayed pricing incorrect, so I wouldn't even bother looking at the price yet. Expect it to be about the same as the prior kit was.

if the front and rear hubs are replaced then the arms will need to be replaced as well due to the new hub length ?

it also appears different rod ends are also used and all the link lengths are different than the original, are the new rod ends needed as well and how would this relate relate to the geometry of the 1st gen towers ?

i can see this being a problem as time goes on and various parts get upgraded and others don't and people saying their trucks are out of whack when they're build assumingly correct.

example.. i'm not willing to replace my carbon towers, but would like the new arms and hubs what are my new link lengths and what locations become the "box stock" starting points ?

I would think that cross pins see a large amount of force. Especially the thicker the fluid is. Under full acceleration all the force in the center diff is being put on the cross pins is it not? Correct me if I'm wrong but if those pins were to sheer off, the diff housing would spin but not the out drives. I just don't see the advantage of a composite cross pin, give me steel.

Will the shocks be the same length on the new truck as the old truck?

Very few things need to be replaced together, but your example is one of them.
The new shock towers have the mount points lower and further out. This matches the arms having the mount points further out. If you don't replace both, you won't have much droop available, the shock angle won't be similar, the piston speeds and forces won't be even close, etc...

But if you replace those 2, the rest should work but you will now have the new shock angles/distances/etc.

so basically the suspension setup is going to be softer?

Are they using the same 10 x 1.2 pistons in the kit or will it include something commonly used like 6 x 1.5s?

Many on the team haven't been running steel cross pins in a long time, but rather the aluminum TKR5149A. They still show no wear after a year of use.

If the pins were to completely sheer off, you would be correct if there was a vacuum inside the diff and the gears didn't sit in recesses. The thicker the diff oil, the less force will be on the pins themselves. However, with multiple points of contact, and teams like Durango doing this even in full 8th scale with the higher torque that comes with it, I don't think we're likely to see a problem. In practice if the crosspins sheer off, your diff would lock up rather than free spin. I'll still be using the Aluminum part I listed above though, for the reason I mentioned before, as I've been running in my original SCT410 and my EB48.2.

tower hobbies has the price right now. Got my back order in.

Though, if they do E-cash again before it ships, may re-order ...

A softer spring and oil on the new setup will feel like a stiffer spring and oil on the original geometry when doing bench testing (drops, pushing down on it, etc). This is because of the mount points being further out so the piston speed is increased for the same amount of arm travel.

As for pistons, I don't think anybody can really say "commonly used" for this new truck yet, since it is a very different setup, even though the shocks themselves are physically the same. For example, if you look at the manual, the stock shock oils are now 350/200 instead of 450/350. There will have to be a lot of people trying the new geometry and different setups on different tracks/surfaces before a common non-stock shock setup is widely used/known.

So, in a nutshell, regarding the new suspension geometry, how will the new truck drive compared to the old one? In other words, what does the change do to the handling?