the updated traxxas max is here and it's bigger more aggressive and ready to bash so today we review the truck see how fast it goes and then get a little muddy so how good is the new max 2.0 let me show you now it's no secret the traxxas max is a high performance 4x4 electric monster truck that comes waterproof brushless 4s lipo compatible and with a 60 mile an hour speed rating on top of that the drive train in the truck is spec for 6s power the electronics aren't compatible for that but the drivetrain can
handle it and we've done it once in a video and the results were pretty extreme now with the max it's a serious truck intended for serious rc enthusiasts and it just got even better now on the surface the new emphasis for the truck is that it comes with the wide max kit included as standard equipment which used to be a 50 upgrade before now most of you are already familiar with this wide max kit and what it offers so we're not going to spend too much time on that but just for a head-to-head comparison here's
the new max on the left and the old max on the right and the new truck is about one and a half inches wider or about 10 percent wider giving it a little bit more stable stance and better cornering performance now compared to some other trucks in this category here's the new max with the 4s blx creighton on the right which you can't even buy anymore but the max is about a half an inch wider you can't really tell because the kraton tires have a bigger offset but pop those tires off and sure enough the
max is about a quarter inch wider per side now here's the new max with the 3s blx big rock which is not really in the same category but just for a size comparison here is the max on the left and the big rock on the right the max is quite a bit wider okay so the wide max is wide you can take an old max buy the wide max kit put it on your max and now you've got a wide max right technically you do but this wide max is not the same as this wide
max now of all the updates on the new max truck perhaps the most significant is not the use of the wide max kit but instead it's the use of a new longer chassis that the max comes included with stretching the truck out almost an inch longer than the old which effectively increases the wheelbase by about seven percent now there are pros and cons to a longer chassis like that they're better for straight line stability they're a little bit more forgiving and really rough terrain and they help keep the front tires down when you're popping lots
of wheelies which can clash with really aggressive driving styles so for any heavy footed drivers who like to drive as strapped as possible this upgrade is a really excellent addition to the new max and it would have been cool to see it used in the naming convention like maybe the longmax or how about the max xl now there are a few implications with having a longer chassis like you need a longer body to fit and the new traxxas max has a longer body the body is identical to the original and it retains the skid plates
the clipless body fastening and that structural tubing but the tubing is now longer because of these length differences in the bodies the old max body and the new max body are not cross compatible now some other long chassis upgrades include a new longer center drive shaft that's still aluminum it's just a little longer traxxas is identifying these updated longer parts by saying that they fit the max with extended chassis other new parts include a new bigger and longer battery box to be compatible with a wider range of batteries including the traxxas flagship 6700 milliamp hour
4 cell this battery was originally designed for the big x-max and now it can be shared between both trucks last but not least is one more important update and it's the new tires that come as standard equipment on the max and they're the 2.8 inch sledgehammer tires now these moto s tires have an open block tread and they work really well in loose conditions and they hooked up really well on the street as well the tires are tsm rated like before but they're not directional but they are bigger tire venting is done on the wheel
not the rubber so you'll need to cover that up if you're driving in wet conditions to keep that water out the wheels use a 17 millimeter hex with that axle hole insert and just about any other 17 millimeter size tires and wheels will fit like these belted on-road tires from sweep racing called the road crushers here are the 3.8 inch proline badlands and they're just slightly taller than the traxxas sledgehammers but they fit and lastly here's one of my favorite tire combos for the max and they're the udr tires and wheels but they look a
little small compared to the sledgehammers now these new sledgehammer tires are pretty tall they're taller than the original max tires and a taller tire acts like gearing up on the transmission especially when the tire starts ballooning so to compensate for this the new max comes with new gearing where traxxas has dropped the pinion gear by one tooth so now it includes a 23 tooth over a 24 tooth and speed runs don't seem to be affected now we set out to test the top speed with our gps speed meter and a fully charged 4s lipo battery
[Applause] after a few passes with tsm turned down we realized a 52 mile an hour top speed on the out of the box gearing in order to reach that very top 60 mile an hour speed both the pinion and the spur gear need to be changed on the max which we're not gonna do because it's only good for speed runs and you'd have to change it right back afterwards to bash without overheating the truck now after that speed run we finally got our first chance to bash the truck and bash we did [Music] it's been
raining a lot recently so all this grass is wet but that water roosting off the tires looks so cool the truck is fine it's just wet moving on oh [Applause] [Applause] these back flips are super easy once you get the timing down moving on [Music] [Music] so look at this beautiful shot recorded just before we broke the max see somebody thought it'd be a good idea to drive in this ditch but it wasn't did you see oh we broke it did we yeah you still recording yeah look at that busted an upper arm oh and
the lower arm gnarly now when we rip through this little ditch the tire kind of caught up on this fence and i'm sure it yanked it right off it's my fault not the truck's fault so here's the damage we took the shock off so you could see easier but on the lower suspension arm on the left side it cracked right there nowhere else though and then for the upper arm it did fully crack kind of in half here it's separated in the center and then of course he broke uh the top top suspension pin is
nice and smooth it's not bent this metal brace is not bent the lower hinge pin down here is not bent everything still moves nice and smooth and the driveshaft also is in good shape now i also want to note that outside when we were driving in that parking lot it was about 46 degrees fahrenheit so it was pretty cold and parts tend to break more in that weather it took maybe 15 minutes or so to replace those suspension arms and we were back in business we even added the belted road crusher tires from sweep for
a little parking lot bashing out front now all in all the updated max is one of the best most durable and most refined 4s bashers you can get it is an amazing truck now admittingly i have a personal bias towards longer chassis i always like the longer chassis vehicles especially when there's an option between a short and a longer that's just my personal preference and it doesn't represent everybody but still if we just set aside the chassis for a moment you take into account the new max includes the wide max kit it includes much better
tires and it includes a bigger battery box for more lipo freedom and it does all this while costing only 20 dollars more than the original max so i've gotta ask what's not to like guys you can go check out the new traxxas max by following our links down below and if you want more rc check out these videos or you can just stay here and watch me do this i'm out [Music]
