Deciding to upgrade the TRX-4M Defender in several phases, the first batch of upgrade leaned towards tweaking the cosmetics, which ended up tuning up the suspension. 53mm shocks in red, stainless clearance links, and negative offset aluminum wheels. The red showing inside the wheel arch when the shocks stretch is a cool-to-see.

Though I did order steel drive shafts, a change of mind made that upgrade pending. Instead of upgrading the drive train and steering part by part, I decided to build up the front and rear trans-axle unit completely with gears and bearings and brass parts before fitting them in. Mixing plastic parts with metal parts doesn't sound good balance-wise. Also to be honest, repeating the tear down and build up again and again for each part upgrade would at some point become more bothersome than fun. So, now waiting on the second batch or parts below so I can do a complete trans-axle build.
The build up should be fun.