which brushless?
 

im in the middle of converting a thunder tiger eb4 s3 buggy, initially ill be running a brushed set-up, but ive sorted a summer job out which should pave the way for me to go brushless :)

so my question is, which esc and motor should i get to run on 12/14 cells? i dont really want to spend more than £170ish ($340)

For 340 bucks i would take something like this;

MM controller (135) (mamba-maxx)
Feigao 8 or 9XL (90)
Ubec (35)

If it's summer, Castle most likely offers a softwareupdate so you can use the Neu motors on the mm controllers as well. which make a nice combination IMO.