First, A spark is normal when you plug your batts. in. Remember, you are using quite a bit of juice to power your truck! The high pitched noise is also normal...just make sure your gear mesh is correct. I would cushion the sides of the batts as well. Keep them as tight as possible w/as little movement as possible. Remember, you want some air to go over, around your batts. for cooling purposes. With that being said, you also want the batts. as snug as possible to keep the cells from shifting around.

I look forward to seeing some pics. and I hope that this helps!

Thanks to both of you. I think I will start by tightening the spur, I left it pretty loose because I don't want my diffs to blow up, lol. I will compensate by increasing punch control. I am gonna start at 70% and slowly decrease it until I am happy with performance.

About the batteries being snug with cushioning AND having air around them. THis might sound liek a stupid question, but can't the velcro straps damage the batteries if they are directly against the batts, and you land upside down (all the inertia of the batts pushes them against just 2 thin spots). That is why I kept all sides with plates, to spread the load of any impact. I am thinking maybe I should put cushioning on one side of the batts, but still keep the other side direct to the alum, as a heatsink. Does this sound like the right thing to do? If I put cushioning on both sides, should I remove the top plate, and just run with the velcro on top?

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The pics aren't very good, but I'm not a photographer, and my room is a mess, lol. I'll try to get better pics later. Only thing left is the roll cage. Haven't ordered it yet, but it's gonna be that nylon cage (imun80 or whatver its called). Need some funds before getting the rollcage. I ran it a little earlier with 6s lipo, 50% punch control medium power delivery (a setting for mamba monster), and a loose slipper (it slipped a LOT). I want my weak diffs to last a while, at least until I can afford the roll cage and CEN diffs. It was still popping some wheelies though. I think I can afford to tighten the slipper still, cuz the front didn't lift more than a few inches off the ground. Is it bad for the slipper to slip too much?

Had to make a custom skid plate to accomodate the kershaw gearbox which stocks out a tad from the bottom. Made the skid plate start at the rear bumper (giving a solid mount for a wheelie bar if I choose to get one) and basically extends the existing plastic skid in the rear up to the front, then bends down right in front of the gearbox, and attaches to the stock front skid mount. Note that the stock plastic skid in the rear is still there, but under the new skid.

For full size images, go here: Brushless Build

loose slipper will eventually ruin the spur gear & the diffs are strong enough to handle a nitro beating them so tighten up the slipper..Also the high pitched noise could be from the motor not the slipper

Def don't run the slipper too loose. It will heat up and ruin the pads quite quickly, and motors can also run hot too if driving a loose slipper. Its best to learn throttle control or lose some cells in the batts until you are comfortable with it. Maybe turn down the thr EPA, tho I'm not 100% that the esc will like that.

The diffs should be ok provided you treat them nicely. Don't launch the truck really hard, and don't slam on brakes at high speeds.

As far as lipos, I've never had a prob strapping them down. Def put foam around them. If they need "cooling" and heatsinks, you have too small of batteries. They shouldn't get warm at all.