Need advice on motors, gearboxes, and ESCs

[JamesCH95]

I'm sure that I'm a little late to this party... but having a bit of experience with this sort of project I figured I'd throw my $0.02 in.

Have you considered retro-fitting a large-scale RC to suit your needs? It will give you experience with retro-fitting and reverse-engineering (very important if you're going to try this on a real vehicle) and has automotive style suspension and drivetrain, ackerman steering, and boat-loads of part and aftermarket support. You'll be focused on a quick retro-fit and modification and then your autonomous/control code, rather than building something from whole cloth.

After much design and deliberation that's the path I chose for my project.

You might consider something like this, ideally one that's sold without an engine.

http://www.hobbytron.com/RedcatRacin...andrail.htm l