I think it comes out about the same, with if anything electric being the more expensive. If you go to replacing a piston and sleve, why not talk about replacing the comm on a mod motor. Thats $40 right there, and a comm doesnt take half as long to wear out as a piston and sleve. And electric to get to the top levels of competition the entry cost is much greater. A charger, power suply, soldering iron, and atleast 3 $80+ packs just to name a few things. If you take a good ESC and mod motor, that comes to about the same as a nice engine. Both need a TX and RX so no diference there, a nitro needs an extra servo, so maybe cancel one of the batt packs off the list if you go all out on your throtle servo. Then you have a starter box, and glow ignitor, so maybe cancel out the other two packs for that junk, and electrics are still ahead by the power suply, a good charger, and a soldering iron which puts electrics around $200-300 ahead atleast.