[brainanator]

I shredded the stock gear in the tranny in a month, then got the hardened option, and slapped a little axle grease on the gears and called it good. Opened it up the other day (6 months later) since I was changing the spur to plastic. I half-expected to find slightly pointed gears (at least showing some wear, like my pinion was....) but they still looked brand new. Wiped them off a little, put some gorilla snawt on them. Will look again in another 6 months or so.
And with offset wheels with the stock rear link is a bad idea. I'd snap those like twigs with offset, but with no offset I haven' had a problem. I will get the rear link eliminator system when funds allow though, as it is obviously better.
Pretty good thread with lots of good ideas though!

But it does sound like you must be running it really hard to get those temps out of a 1520....with my stock setup I couldn't get the motor to break 130F even on the hottest day. Same story with the plastic spur and a slightly larger pinion to compensate for the larger spur. (21T pinion, 47T spur I think). I basically results in a net loss of half a tooth on the pinion side in gearing, but still plenty fast. I also use brakes frequently and everything is fine there.