Super Hornet upgrades

[Why me? 24]

My brother has just dug his old Super Hornet out to come and have a play. It’s all stock, and is slow as a slow thing. I’ve got a spare 21 turn motor and esc that I’ve just pulled from my car, can the hornet gearbox cope with it or will it grenade itself after a few minutes?

[SupraChrgd82 1425]

21t is reasonable.  Anything in the 'teens is getting into dangerous territory.  Hornets and Hoppers don't fare well in high speed crashes.

[Why me? 24]

Cheers, I was reluctant to let him have it if it was going to tear itself to bits.

[TurnipJF 9181]

The gearbox is plenty tough enough to handle decent power.

The question is what happens to the rest of the car when it collides with an immovable object after having been propelled to uncontrollable speeds by the aforementioned decent power...

[Why me? 24]

I don’t think he’s too concerned about that, the area we mainly use them is a big open park without many obstacles. I understand the potential fragility of the car though.

[Juls1 1660]

The weak part in most Tamiya gearboxes is the aluminium pinion, which wears quickly and then starts cutting the rest of the gearbox up. 
 

that said if the pinion is kept fresh or replaced with steel then the hornet gearbox is pretty much bulletproof assuming you don’t put huge heavy monster tyres with loads of grip on it, I can’t imagine you’d ever break the gears themselves.
 

the limit will be more how fast you can go without constantly cartwheeling it which for a hopper chassis usually isn’t all that fast.