Serpent SRX8 Truggy-E RTR

The kind of vehicle the maker sells it as. It sets what the car is built to do and which cars it is fair to compare it with.

• A truggy is a 1/8 buggy with wider arms and truck tires: more stable and more forgiving on rough ground.

All four wheels are driven. That gives more grip under power, especially on loose ground.

• The cost is more parts to maintain.

A brushless motor has no brushes to wear, so it makes more power and runs more efficiently than a brushed one.

• It needs a brushless ESC.

Ready to run: built at the factory with the electronics installed.

• Some come without a battery or charger; the maker's box contents say which.

The maker's nominal size compared with a full-size vehicle. It works more as a class label than a measurement.

• A 1/10 monster truck is far bigger than a 1/10 touring car, so compare length and weight for real size.

The maker's product number for this exact version.

• A V2, a new color, or a kit instead of an RTR usually has a different number, and parts can differ between them.
• Check it against your box or receipt before ordering parts.

The small gear on the motor shaft. Fewer teeth gear the car shorter: quicker acceleration, lower top speed and a cooler motor. More teeth do the opposite.

• It depends on the motor you fit, so the maker does not list one.

The large gear the pinion drives. A bigger spur with the same pinion gears the car shorter.

• Pinion and spur must have the same pitch, or tooth size, to mesh.

Every reduction after the spur, multiplied together: transmission, differentials and axle gears.

• It is fixed by the design; the gearing you change is the pinion and spur.

How many times the motor turns for one turn of the wheels. A higher number is shorter gearing: more acceleration and pulling power, less top speed.

The outside diameter of the mounted tire, tread to tread. A taller tire covers more ground each turn, which gears the car taller.

• At high speed tires can balloon and grow, so the real gearing gets taller as the car goes faster.

RPM per volt with no load on the motor. Higher KV spins faster on the same pack; lower KV on more cells can reach the same RPM with less current.

• On 6S (22.2 V nominal) this motor spins about 44,400 rpm with no load.
• Under load the real RPM is lower.

The highest LiPo cell count the maker rates the electronics for. Each cell is 3.7 V nominal and 4.2 V fully charged.

• 6S is 22.2 V nominal and 25.2 V off the charger.
• Running more cells than this risks the ESC and motor.
• Many cars also run on fewer cells, only slower.

The motor fitted at the factory, as the maker names it.

The electronic speed control. It feeds power from the battery to the motor as you work the throttle, and usually powers the receiver and servo too.

• An amp figure in its name is normally the maker's continuous rating.
• Set its low-voltage cutoff for LiPo, so a pack is not run flat.

It needs a motor KV, which this vehicle does not have on record, so no theoretical top speed is worked out.