How's your pinion and spur holding up? I was just changing the diff fluid in my center diff during the build of my RC8, and I had just assumed the extra Kyosho plastic spurs from my EL8 would fit, but it's not the same dimensions.
I haven't finished searching to see if there's a compatible plastic spur yet.
Just use a hardened pinion gear from the RC-Monster store and you can run the steel spur no problem. The plastic spur is no longer needed since Mike came out with the extra hardedned pinion gears. Many folks have already been using them for a long time and they are holding up very well.