After months of (very occasional) searching, I discovered that GPM makes steel driveshafts for the Ascender that actually fit the same as the stock plastic driveshafts -- no adaptor necessary. Normally I wouldn't trust cheap steel parts, but I had a couple good experiences with GPM steel driveshafts on other vehicles, so I decided to give these a try. They fit well and feel good; time will tell if they're strong enough, but the build quality is reassuring.





I also added some shims to the upper links, which you can see in the second photo if you look closely. I never liked how the Ascender's axles seemed to be tilted the wrong way, so I added 2x 0.6mm shims to each upper link, one at each end, to make the upper links slightly longer.