Hi Stephen
Glad to see that your chosen the 22 as your first off road buggy
Having come from a TC background myself I feel the 22 fits my driving style well, so hope you get on well with the car too.
With regards to spares, I haven’t broken anything major on the car to be honest. On big jump landings I have pulled the ball stud out of the rear hub and rear camber block but I wouldn’t buy spare plastic parts of those, spend your money on the ali versions and I feel it makes that end of the car near bullet proof. I’ve seen people snap the front shock tower on occasion so might be worth having a spare in the box just incase, but having said that I feel the car is one of the most robust cars on the market. But if you have the money having spares of items such as arms, steering knuckles etc… is always good. Some cheaper hop ups that make a big difference is the low friction O-rings from TLR, they really do help to reduce the sticktion when building up shocks.
Moving onto tuning products, springs are a must have obviously as is the HRC rear toe blocks (make sure you get the HRC shim pack as well). You might want to look into getting the 5degree caster blocks, as it seems to have become the standard. The rear brass weight is handy to have when traction is low to get better stability in wet/greasy conditions.
With regards to the other weight options, I have heard good things about the cream weight but personally never tried it. I have got the RudeBits side weights and feel they are a good addition.
If you are going to do the camber link mod you will want to look at getting the 55mm turnbuckles, as the ones you get in the kit are a little too short for this and I fear that if you were to build this mod with them they might come out of the ball cup if that makes sense).
As for other things to look out for, I would say make sure you run the diff in properly and buid it with plenty of grease. A good upgrade here is the Tungsten Carbide diff balls or ceramics… but I can’t stress enough the importance of running the diff in on the bench. Another little thing you can do with the standard pistons is to round off the piston edge. Personally I think this makes a big difference to the small bump handling ☺
HTH