if you can´t turn than change your bushings or bushing tension, but please don´t use the stiff battery pack under a flexy deck. you will break the connections and in the worst case burn down your whole board.
Back to the original question the reason people deck swap the raptor is they prefer a different type of deck. I imagine that a lot of other deck would be lighter than the raptor 2 deck because they don’t have the big metal handles in the side. And as for bushings go to the bushing set up help thread
Or swap the back baseplate for a lower angle one because as far as I know the stock ones for the raptor both are the same angle
But honestly a combination of bushings and split angles is probably best and if after that you just don’t like the deck feel or shape of the raptor then look for a new deck
Swapping decks made all the difference in the world and being comfortable while riding on the r2 and not feeling sketchy/awkward or like I couldn’t get planted and feel secure on it. Highly recommend.
Shorter answer to all of your questions though, is “yes”. Easier to turn. Lighter. Waaaaay more comfortable in more ways than one. Easier on the feet. Looks way cooler I think personally.
The biggest thing when choosing a deck to use/swap out with the original one is just to make sure you get one that has a wide enough wheelbase to fit everything, especially if you plan to use the whole e-tray/enclosure that comes with it like I did. That can be a challenge because not all decks, or many decks, don’t have a wheel base wide enough so do your measurements two or three times to be sure you don’t end up with too little of space.
I wish that Enertion @onloop@CarlCollins would make a stencil that came with it like Jason said they were going to do in old videos so that it would make deck swap easy because that is another not hard, but not easy, part of the job is making sure you get all the holes properly drilled on the deck since it mounts opposite of how most of us normally secure our enclosures to the board.
Let me know if you have any other questions and be sure to post some pictures once you do the swap because I’m interested to see what deck you end up choosing and how it works out.
I changed the deck to Landyachtz Evo in Raptor 2.0.
For me, Raptor2’s normal deck felt high and unstable.
I do not use kicktails.
Landyachtz Evo is fast and stable, so I can enjoy the power of Raptor2 with confidence.
Then I was keen on DIY ESK8.
Raptor 2.1 has great motors and ESCs, which will be good teaching materials in the future.
I learned a lot from Raptor2.
I do not measure the weight, but I think it is not so different from Raptor2’s deck.
The height is obviously lower and the wheelbase is longer.
Straight running stability is considerably improved.
The front bushing is Venom 80A, rear is 83A.
Both are double barrel bushings.
It is a stable setting at 53km/h with a 97mm wheel.
However, the turning radius is large. I can not do a small turn.
Usage is limited. How to play focusing on speed.
Evo deck feels very hard but bends slightly when shocked.