well i am going to look at it this way i personally have never used a max amps lipo (wouldnt mind trying one though) however i will comment on my opinion the casue being the velineon itself, i had a vxl pede that smoked the motor and a phase on teh esc in only 2 weeks running matched Ni-Mh packs adn on stock factory gearing, the batts got extremely hot with the velineon. i have been through 3 velineon systems and i wont use another one. every one has caused batts to run hot motors to be glitchy, and just not give the performance i expected and traxxas support was the worste basically being told that the traxxas warranty requires 20.00 for warranty replacement (i call BS on that) and even being hung up on by traxxas customer service and support. i would personally try seeing if the pack puffs on another system, also if teh pack is not hard cased i would like to know have you ever flipped the truck? wrecked it? run into a curb?, etc? lipos that are not hardcased will be more inclined to damage from just being in a rollover than a hardcased one IMHO.

now ijust need to find myslef of 2s/3s lipos i can get donated to me