[Shark413]

Well bad news regarding the track test. My local track has a big table top followed by a big double jump. Normally you land on the back side of the table top and then take the double jump. The truggy was running great for 4 or 5 laps, but then I gave it a little too much throttle and I pancaked my landing into the face of the double jump. The truggy started to make some bad sounds so I came in to take a look. What I found was that the hard landing and subsequent stress it put on the drivetrain had knocked two teeth off the plastic spur. So now I am looking at ways to prevent this from happening, obviously landing under full throttle is bad but it happens once in a while, what I want to do is make the drivetrain a little more durable. I figured I have two options, 1) use a hardened pinion and steel spur. This would be the easiest solution since I wouldn't have to modify anything, but the drawback is drivetrain stress will still be passed to the other parts, so instead of a spur stripping now a diff gear will break or something in the motor will give. Option 2) would be to add a clutch or slipper, right now I could get a Tekno clutch. This would provide some give (slip) and smooth out the power. The draw back is I would have to modify my current setup to make room for the clutch. A slipper differential would also be great but I have not seen one in production yet.

jhautz, sounds like you have a lot of experience with both items (clutch and steel gears) any suggestions?