Well, when I bought my new RC18T, the stock XPS ESC was messed up so I sent it in the Associated and asked for credit on the ESC,they one upped me and sent bunch of FT parts, Turnbuckles, wheel nuts, battery strap, and the blue dog bones. So I thought that was cool. But know I'm in the market for a new ESC, so I'm going to go brushless. Issue 127 of Xterme R/C has a great article on some of the mirco brushless systems. I leaning towards the tekin rage system. But I guess my real question is do I need to upgrade the spur gear (like get and aluminum one). I'm going with 6800kv motor for now.