RC Car Action - June 2017

RPM R/C PRODUCTS FRONT BULKHEAD
FOR TRAXXAS 2WD VEHICLES

More strength, less weight for Slash, Rustler, Stampede, and Bandit

RPM R/C Products’ legendarily tough parts are must-haves for countless drivers who like to push their cars and trucks deep into the durability red zone. ;ose drivers are frequently Traxxas guys with Slashes, Stampedes, Rustlers, and Bandits, and a river of molten plastic runs through RPM to keep their machines well equipped with bustproof gear. You can replace just about every part with an RPM part if you want to, but one key Traxxas part went without an RPM version for quite a long time: the front bulkhead.

;at has been remedied, and as with most other RPM parts, you can even get the bulkhead in colors. It installs just like the stock bulkhead but o;ers a few advantages. RPM made sure the base is perfectly flat (the stock part isn’t, says RPM), and excess material has been pared away to save a few grams. All but half a gram gets added right back on when you install the included dust plate to keep debris out of the underside openings, or as RPM suggests, you can use the open bottom of the bulkhead as a place to add weight to tune weight distribution.

I expect 99. 9 percent of RPM bulkhead buyers
will simply install the dust plate as I did—not too
many guys are worried about adding or sub-
tracting a few grams before a BMX-track thrash
session or hitting a skateboard ramp in the
driveway. ;e RPM bulkhead
installs like stock, then you
just forget about it. You might
remember it when your car
or truck endures a gnarly
wreck, and it occurs to you the bulkhead
took a big shot but didn’t break. But otherwise
you’ll probably never think twice about it—and
that’s exactly what you want in a bulkhead. I’m
running the RPM bulkhead with stock Traxxas
hingepins and RPM’s o;set-compensating
front arms (#70552) in a Slash VXL, and I’ve
clipped more than a few rocks, roots, and curbs,
with no damage to report. RPM does guaran-
tee the bulkhead (and all its molded products)
against breakage in normal use, which is only
good for business if the stu; doesn’t break. Ask
around—it doesn’t. Of course, you do pay a pre-
mium for quality, and the RPM bulkhead costs
twice as much as the Traxxas stocker. But we’re
only talking about a $6 part here, so spending
$12 to go RPM is hardly a wallet buster. As soon
as the RPM version spares you one broken
bulkhead, it will have paid for itself.