Transmitters should be FM and of good quality. We strongly recommend a system with built in failsafes like the Sensor, Futaba PCM/HRS, and the Spektrum radios.

All of the Name brand FM systems work great, and the new synthesized stuff means no more crystals.

The throttle servo is probably the most important part next to the transmitter and receiver, Spend the money here. Most run-away's or glitches can be traced to a throttle servo failure.

We have found that you should use a coreless motor servo for the throttle, all of the 3 pole motors just can not live up to the stress no matter what the package rating says. The KO, Futaba, Airtronics, JR and even the top of the Hitec's all seem to hold up and do the job equally well.

The Hitec 5735 is the king of the steering servos, fairly priced, easily available, great repair and warrantee service.

The new KO also seems like it will do the job well, just a bit slower.

And as always the Multiplex is a great steering servo, spendy and a bit slower but very very reliable.

Make or have your local hobby shop build you a nice 5 cell sub c pack.

Get a quality charger, you can charge these packs in as little as 30 minutes at 4 amps.

We have also had good success with the small packs used in 1/10th and 1/8th scale cars, they are 1800 - 2200 MAH and seem to have no problem with the AMP requirements of the servos, are commercially available through most hobby stores prebuilt.

Make sure you securely mount the battery, tape will not do in a hard collision, we recommend zip ties, and more than one in case one fails.

Also double check your solder joints, sometimes they can come lose or break and you will have glitch that is actually a nightmare waiting to happen.

For break in. mix 50:1 minimum, Zenoah recommends 25:1, FG recommends 40:1, we run 50:1 Amsoil.

General motor break in. Start the motor let idle until warm, shut down, allow motor to completely cool down. repeat 3 or 4 times. This allows all parts to work together properly.

Now you may start the motor and drive the car casually for a tank of fuel, I know this is very painful. you may do short bursts of acceleration just do not hold it wide open.

The second tank you may proceed as in race type of competition actions, just do not lean the needles yet.

After the second tank is run you may lean the needles.

The motors do not reach full power until they have a few tanks run through them, I usually feel the motors start to come alive after the third tank.

You are the number one important part of having fun, and safely operating your large scale car.

Remember to always check the area you are going to run in, Make sure there are no children or animals that could be injured.

We should concentrate on is limiting the chance of  loosing control of the car. This can work out very expensive if the car decides to hit a wall, and even more expensive or even fatal if the object it hits is a human being. These are not toys, they can become lethal weapons in a matter if seconds. A car weighs in at around the 20 pound mark and will travel at around 50mph or more, so always keep this in mind if you run your car on a street or in a parking lot.

And remember a failsafe is very good preventive measure.

CAUTION on fail safes, I saw Three fail safes fail in the wrong direction on 1/5th cars this weekend. All of these were the electronically set fail safes. I strongly urge that if you have one of these you remove it now.

So be safe, aware, and have fun.