Ok so i picked up this gtb and 5.5 combo last week. Got it today and dropped in my slash and was wonderng where to put the gearing at as not to burn up another battery? Im asuming its a gearing issue, at least i hope.
My 5000mah 8.4cell popped a cell and wrinkled the casing. Ideas?

Definitely a damaged cell. Did you install your own connecters? Did the leads short? I don't think your new equipment has anything to do with your battery issues. How old is the battery, how many cycles, case condition, etc? New battery time I think.

Is your 5.5 a 550 or 540 can?(550 I hope).

ehh the 540 velociti. motor is warm, gtb isnt warm much at all. battery was very hot lol
edit: 2wd slash...

That's a hot motor for Slash, but if you have good ESC and motor Temps then more power to you. About the only thing that will cause a LiPo battery to heat up is if you damage it. That being said, if you are running a a cheaper battery with a low C rating, like 20C or 25C, with a motor that hot you run the risk of enhancing any internal deficiencies in the battery. A good ESC and hot motor will require a lot of current and a low battery has a high internal resistance... High current plus high resistance equals heat. Usually the battery will just limit the current to the ESC slowing the car down, but sometimes the ESC draw is just too much. That is why Novak recommends at least a 30C(I believe) battery for there higher end ESCs like the Havok and Kinetic. I think the GTB could probably fall in that category.

definitely don't use that battery again and make sure to buy or use a good quality high-C battery. Pro-Tek from A-main hobbies has some good quality high-C batteries that don't break the bank.

I was using Nimh, but I ran these 2 5000mah batteries on a e-revo i had with a novak HV esc and 6.5kv setup and the batteries never took a sweat. This setup runs like hot on the battery only. Im going to be trying a 2s 3300 lipo to see if that helps but it kinda scares me at this point.

With NiMH, heat is common. You don't want them to get too hot to handle, though. 150-degrees max. You may have to shorten your run times to 5 mins or less to keep the temps lower. Still sounds like a bad cell, just not as scary as if it were a LiPo. If you are going to switch to a LiPo then all the better, just be sure its 30C or better. Sounds like you might be hitting the max useability of the NiMH technology.

On the E-revo you run two batteries so they both only see 1/2 the demand. Now you are asking one battery to do the same work.

Thats also a symptom of being over geared.....try gearing down a little if you're going to stay with NiMh.

Are you just bashing or do you race? If you are bashing then you probably spend quite a bit of time at full throttle, am I right? The fact that your speedo and motor do not show significant heat leads me to think that gearing is not the problem. What is you spur/pinion combo?

stock. I did gear down the pinion a bit but didnht help much on next pack, but i also used a lower mah pack and ran it less time.

It may simply be the amps this motor is demanding - your NiMh packs are having trouble supplying.


BTW, think you're right on the gearing, cool motor, hot esc and hot batt is overgeared.....

Stock Final Drive ratio is 12.58:1 which is plenty low for a 5.5T. You might try adjusting your current limiter on your ESC. They come stock set to "off" which means full poop... if you set it to 90 to 80% or so you might see a bit lower battery temps.

You might even try going a little higher in gearing(increase pinion/reduce spur) to see if you can get more heat into your motor and ESC. That might actually reduce the demand on your battery because you'll reduce the overall motor RPM. Sometimes you see this with brushless set-ups. They have a sweet spot. Without knowing where you run and how, it's hard to make a recommendation.

That motor is NOT designed, intended, or practical for any SCT. Your battery is the weak link in the system, if you're not having esc or motor heat issues. At the same time I would bet money that if upgraded to a quality 2s lipo you would see an increase in performance. However you would also instantly see a huge jump in motor temps and will be struggling to keep the motor temps in check if your for any length of time.