Avante vs Egress front gearbox durabiltiy

[Saito2]

I've seen the front gearcase on these cars fail in two ways in the past. The car takes a hard front knock and breaks the inner suspension arm pivot molded into the gearbox side or the car flips and the molded-in damper mounts shear off. I posit, in this case, would the Avante not be better than the Egress perhaps? The Avante had multi axis pivoting heim ends at the inner pivot point along with a crash-back system to take the stress off the arm mounts in the gearbox. The front shocks were laid down and the mounts were not subject to the extra leverage the Egress's add-on front tower would have imposed in a roll over situation. Any thoughts?

[Snappy1]

I have only ever broken front shock towers on my Egress re re, never the front gearbox.
 

[GTodd]

I've NEVER broken the Egress/Avante gearbox. Yes if you have an original runner you might want to replace that old gearbox with a modern fresh piece that isn't brittle. They are identical, no recycle signs etc unlike the gearbox cover. 

 

In my opinion the Avante would be more likely to brake if you hit it hard enough due to the shocks being directly atached and the metal rod ends. 

[mud4fun]

Yes @Saito2 I have broken numerous front gearboxes (10+) over the years on Vanquish, Avante2001 and Egress.

I have never lost a single rear gearbox. The only reason I ever need to buy rear gearbox sprues is because some idiot at Tamiya decided to mould two small front gearbox parts onto the rear gearbox sprue instead of the front gearbox sprue!

The primary reason the fronts break is as you say, rolls - the tall shock towers are very vulnerable in a roll and transmit crash forces into the gearbox shock tower mounts which shatter. This is far less of a problem on my Vanquish as that runs lay down shocks with low profile shock tower. The Avante2001 & Egress however were using after market taller Egress x-braces and the Avante2001 has broken two gearboxes in last two months, both due to rolls. It has now been returned to its original lower profile shock mounting and I have had no further issues.

I have never had a gearbox lower arm mount fail but I have actually suffered internal damage where the boss that surrounds the thin long shaft in the front gearbox has sheered after a hard landing. I have also lost a couple of front gearboxes due to crashes that impacted the steering, cracking the gearboxes around the screws that hold the steering cantilevers in place.

I guess everybody will have different experiences due to what type of running they do, how much and how fast - all my heavily used Avante class buggies run 13T 33K rpm motors with 8.4v and depending on pinion have top speeds in excess of 35mph, a flip at that speed tends to destroy the front shock tower mounts with ease.