Kyosho's Magnetic Mayhem monster truck motors are a treat.
These bad boys were originally designed for the single battery pack RC
vehicle (6-8 cells) but are so tough that they can hold up to the dual-pack
(12 cells) 14.4 Volts fed into them by the E-Maxx EVX speed controller.
They could be considered 550 size motors like the original E-Maxx Titans
because of their 10mm longer (longer than common 540 motors) armature for added torque.
At 22-turns, single wind, these puppies put out the power. A pair
of these in the E-Maxx will be plenty strong enough to compare raw power to
the original Titans, but where they really shine is in the added top-speed.
GPS tests revealed that a pair of Magnetic Mayhem motors on 12 cells (29.8
MPH) is actually a tad faster in the top-end than a pair of Traxxas Titans
on 14 cells (29.6 MPH)!
The Mag's are a direct replacement for the original motors, utilizing the
same gearing you'd use with the Titans, however, if any additional weight or
larger tires are added to the truck, it's absolutely necessary to increase
the gear ratio, which is lowering the gearing (either reducing the number of
teeth on the pinion gears or increasing the teeth of the spur gear).
This added speed does come with a price, however. Running 6-cell
motors on 12-cells, regardless of how resilient they are, really pushes the
motors
to their limits. High voltage batteries and more than 12 cells may damage the motors, and
gearing too high or running too hard may actually cause the EVX speed
controller to fail. Before you run these motors in the E-Maxx, you
must be comfortable with the possibility of a motor or speed control
failure.
The Mags also require maintenance, as in, replacing the brushes and
cutting the comm periodically. You may get around a dozen hard runs
before performance begins to suffer without maintenance. Many hobby
shops that do this kind of work may not have equipment capable of taking
care of this for you, so check with them first.
Also, you must be sure to correctly solder the included 3 capacitors to
the motor before running it.
On a happy note, the motors are only around $20-$30 each, which makes a
fairly inexpensive hop-up that actually improves your truck's performance.
More advanced users may decide to mod the motors by replacing their
bushings with bearings for better performance still.
All things considered, after running the Mags I will likely not go back
to the Titans any time soon.