My favorite thread over on RCC is the "What newest cheap servo hotness" thread:
What the newest cheap servo hotness? - RCCrawler

It's packed full of great information on affordable servos, and is an extremely valuable resource to the crawling community.

Now that I'm looking for a servo for an Associated T4 basher that I'm fixing up for my cousin, I realized that I could benefit from a similar type of thread for racers & bashers, and figured that others could as well.

Please post up your experiences with cheap & high value servos, and be clear about what vehicle(s) you're running it in so that everybody can gauge whether it would be appropriate for their vehicle as well. Also make sure to provide info about how the servo is wired, whether it's running directly from the receiver or if you're using an external BEC.

Unlike with crawlers, where torque is king, servos for lighter, faster vehicles need a combination of adequate torque and quickness, so it'll be interesting to see what most guys are using.

I'll start with a couple that I'm using:
EXI D226F: I run this servo in an ECX Circuit stadium truck that runs JConcepts Chopper monster truck tires. The servo is a hair on the slow side, but has plenty of torque to move those tires on any surface. I run it directly from the ESC via the receiver. The servo is about $15 at hobbypartz.com.

Trackstar TS-900: I have this servo in a Durango DEX210R stadium truck. I have very little run time on it because I never finished the vehicle, but in the time I tested it out, I was quite happy with the servo's speed, and it had more than enough power to turn the 2.2 stadium truck tires. This servo has gone up in price a bit since I bought it, and at it's current $40 price tag, probably isn't the stellar bargain that I felt it was when I bought it a few years ago. This servo was powered directly from the ESC power, and could have benefitted tremendously from a higher voltage BEC.

I am running the Trackstar TS-D99X in my touring car and F1. Both run direct from the rx. After 6 months of racing they are still going strong. The specs are marginally better than the Savox 1251MG but I suspect they are inflated and its marginally worse. They are low profile servos and are about USD22 which is less than half of the savox. So far so good

EXI and Solar are halfway decent for 1/10 2WD offroad as well as 1/10 on-road, but I found both brands were over stating their stats... in particular Solar was necessary to run on HV in order to get decent speed and torque.

For a while Turnigy was rebranding servos from PowerHD under the 1258 and 1251 line which mirrored Savox equivalent and those Turnigy servos were my long time favorite, however PowerHD has since discontinued those servos and have migrated toward more expensive brushless versions. Note that Turnigy is not an OEM, they are are distributor who rebrands servos from many different OEM's, some are hit and miss.

As far as budget brushless servos go, I did some testing with JX brand and they were very impressive in my 1/8 off-road cars, however the gears would tend to wear after about a year of use... unfortunately they are hard to find replacement gear sets making it difficult to recommend the brand.

A good middle of the road option for me has been SRT servos, you can get $200+ value servos for about half the price, plus they offer replacement gear sets though I haven't worn any gears yet in the past 9+ months I've been testing SRT.

For the most part you get what you pay for and I've learned that PowerHD and SRT have been my overall favorite brands for budget servos

Thanks for the feedback, Bill. Those SRTs may be worth looking into, but honestly, once I approach the $100 price point, I'm almost always going to be looking to Promodeler. I run the 470 in my Bomber and the servo has far exceeded my expectations in every way. The build quality alone is without a doubt the best I've ever seen. They have some very high torque, very fast servos that look like they'd be fantastic in a 1/8 vehicle.

A few months ago I have ordered these:
HJ HDKJ D3020 Full Metal 20KG Torque 180° Rotating Brushless Motor Kit - Free Shipping - DealExtreme

Specification：
Cable legth: 32cm
Operating torque: 20Kg.cm at 6.0V
22Kg.cm at 7.4V
Operating speed: 0.07sec/60°at6v
0.06sec/60°at7.4v
Idle running current: <300mA
Plug, output gear, radio control system are compatible with Futaba JR HITEC

They are with the specs and technology (brushless) a huge bang for a buck but have 1 design fault. Off power the servo has a lot of resistance when you try to rotate it by hand, it is not the gearing nor the motor but an electronic thing that the voltage made by the motor is powering the FET controler giving a load on the motor. A return spring for the throttle will not work. so not advisable but as steer servo they are perfect.
They are also very quiet and smooth.

What are some decent budget servos for a 1/8th scale nitro buggy? I think they need to be over 20kg torque, and probably under .15sec but this will be my first 8th nitro buggy so I don't really know, any advice appreciated

The needed power today is a bit overrated. More than 10 years ago we were running 10kg servo's w/o any issues.

My advise for 1/8 racing is at leat 10kg and 0.1sec@60degrees
OK, for a Truggy I can imagine you need some extra force on the steer but I have seen people driving with 12kg servo's

Saw these has anyone tried them

https://m.ebay.com/itm/JX-Ecoboost-C....c100935.m2460

I run only Trackstar servos in all of my vehicles. FANTASTIC servos all around, not even factoring in the cheap price.

TS-900 in my crawler. Fast, but strong enough for the toughest obstacles and large 1.9 and 2.2 tires. Running it directly powered by 2S Lipo. It doesnt specifically say it is HV ready, but customer support (Alturn USA is the manufacturer) says they are perfectly fine on 2S.

TS-920 in both my ShortCourse Truck and 1/8 E-buggy. Holding up just fine and have been absolutely PUNISHED. Running at 6v in Short Course Truck, and 7v in 1/8 buggy. Ridiculously fast.