[E-Revonut]

I would recomend going with a mamba Max(MM) over the sidewinder(SW), the sidewinder is good but the Mamba max will allow you to go further in the future, if money is really tight though the sidewinder will handle the job. Keep in mind though that the castle link doesn't come with the sidewinder, it's about an extra $20-25, without it you can't program the esc on the computer, only with your transmitter which can be a PITA. Rather than getting a combo would suggest buying the escand motor seperate. As I already mentioned, I would take the MM over the SW but the SW will handle a Rustler. For the motor I would go with a Medusa 36-50-3300. That setup will cost a little more but will outlast a MM or SW combo. Once you step up to a brushless setup you will find that your batteries will be useless! A 2400mah pack just can't put out the current the brushless is going to need. You will need almost double that to get ANY performance, it may not even move with them. My buddy tried a SW/4600kv cobo on some cheapo nickel packs and it wouldn't even move. I have run some decent NiMh packs in my vxl when I had it and also in my crt.5, speed is about half what it does on Lipo. You can get a quality lipo for $75ish that will give you about 25-30 minutes runtime, so that's really better than buying 2 nimh packs at $30 each that might give you 15 minutes each and have it go half as fast, at least it's better IMO. It took me a few months to jump on the Lipo bandwagon but I haven't looked back yet, except for the racing I do that requires a nimh pack!