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You know, I have noticed that sometimes on the Duratrax shocks, the anodizing or aluminum seems to be not as durable. I've seen lengthwise cracking or streaks in the anodizing.

Just to throw a wrench into things... I just got a set of duratrax golds in short length from a pile of rampage. They are silky smooth! Very nice looking and functioning shocks. Dont know what they will go on, but Im pleasantly surprised.

rccars4sal wrote:Just to throw a wrench into things... I just got a set of duratrax golds in short length from a pile of rampage. They are silky smooth! Very nice looking and functioning shocks. Dont know what they will go on, but Im pleasantly surprised.

Do they leak, though? Therein lies the problem with the "Duraleaks" shocks. If not, you're fortunate!

Well, they are oily and dirty, so have leaked some. However, they seem as dirty as the rest of the car, and judging by the layers of fuz and dust, id say they have sat at least a few years, and are still smooth. Pretty sure back in the day I took apart some duraleaks and replaced a plastic spacer with an additional o ring and it made them better. I tried to campaign a ghetto modded lazer alfa for short time ultill common sense set in.

One thing I just noticed, and it may not be on all of em, we will need to check, but my duratrax have a beveled edge at the bottom, and the golds have a sharp edge

Yes, I can confirm that, Jeff. The Duratrax shocks have that tiny beveled edge--less than a millimeter, very hard to see unless you have one in your hand. You'd never see it in an eBay picture, unfortunately.

I also found, if you look very closely at the Duratrax shocks--just below the beveled edge (or above, in my picture below)--you'll see striations encircling the bottoms of the shock bodies; the Golds are smooth there, as they are elsewhere.
My picture also should indicate the distinct glossy finish that I haven't seen with Kyosho Golds, which have a more satiny finish. Even the shock body I polished myself and had re-anodized lacks this high glossy sheen.
And lastly, the Duratrax shocks have a longer taper at the bottom of the shock bodies, than the Golds. 3 Golds have a tapered section from just over 7mm to 8mm max, whereas the Duraleaks have at least a 9mm tapered section.

Those striations being machine marks. Looks like the duratrax shocks are turned with a faster feed rate, creating a rougher surface finish. All kinds of little differences popping up.

Again hard to see in an auction but the area at the bottom of the shock has a different length where it tapers too, probably due to the one less oring

I took this pic 5 years ago with a crappy camera. The Kyosho one is on top. Once you have them apart and side by side, you can see a ton of differences. Also, the gold color is nearly the same on these examples. I think the best way to identify them, short of disassembling, is that tiny bevel that gomachv has discovered. But yeah, on a standard epay auction pic, you may or may not be able to discern the bevel and identify them properly.