My Traxxas 1/16 Grave Digger if a blast to drive.  It has plush suspension and the 550 sized brushed motor produces enough power to easily pull the front wheels off the ground.  Even so, I just can’t leave well enough alone and decided after just a few weeks to take the performance to the next level.

Since the 1/16 with a 2wd drivetrain I decided to upgrade it to 4wd like the 1/16 Slash and 1/16ERevo. 

The parts I needed to complete this upgrade are:

7078 Differential Assembly

7079 Ring and Pinion Gear

7056 Center Driveshafts (for the front shaft)

7057 Differential/Transmission Yolks

7051 Driveshaft Assembly (2 for the left and right side)

2820 2-Cell, 2200mAh LiPo battery

7184 Wheelie bar assembly

In addition to upgrading from 2wd to 4wd I just had to upgrade the power system to a brushless Velineon ESC and motor!

The first step is removing the center bottom skid plate.  Doing this allows the transmission to easily be removed.  With the motor removed it was easy to sway the stock 12-turn 550 brushed motor for the 540 sized brushless Velineon.  Since the new Velineon esc is considerably larger than the stock esc I used my rotary tool to grind the chassis smooth and flat where the stock unit attached to the chassis.  I then attached VXL-3S Velineon esc to the chassis with some thick double sided tape.

Pictured above – The bottom center skid plate of the Grave Digger.  All 10 screws need to be removed to take out the transmission and gain access to the center driveshaft.

Pictured above – The Grave Digger center transmission with the Velineon motor installed.

Pictured above, the chassis with one side smoothed out where the stock esc used to mount.

Next I disassembled the front end to install the differential/pinion gear, yolks, front driveshaft and the left and right driveshaft. This takes a bit of time because of the complexity of the suspension.  In fact, I had to take a look at my fully built Mini ERevo to make sure I was reassembling the 1/16 Grave Digger correctly (I was!). NOTE- the parts listed above do not include the bearings needed to complete the 4wd conversion.  Luckily, Chris at R/C Madness in Enfield, CT had the bearings I needed allowing me to quickly complete the conversion.

Pictured above – The front housing freshly removed waiting for the new front differential.

Pictured above – Another view of the front housing freshly removed waiting for the new front differential.

Pictured above – The center transmission re-installed with the front and rear driveshafts connected.

Pictured above – The front end nearly fully reassembled with the new front driveshafts installed.

Pictured above – Another view of front end nearly fully reassembled with the new front driveshafts installed.

Lastly, I installed a wheelie bar on the 1/16 Grave Digger.  It is designed for the Mini ERevo so I had to improvise just a bit when mounting it to green rear bumper area.

Keep checking back as I’ll be posting some videos of this awesomely over powered 1/16 Grave Digger in action.