When I originally bought this plane, I wanted to use an AXi 2826 but found the firewall wouldn't take the AXi's "X" mount. I bought the recommended Rimfire motor but since I was also going to use a Castle ESC and separate BEC, I changed the connectors on the motor to Sermos. I don't solder well, I have a crimper for the Sermos. Anyway, the motor would only turn a half-turn then nothing. I called Tower and they said to send it back. Same thing with the new one. This time they told me to keep the motor and they sent a new one. Same thing with the third. This time they told me I had burned out the first one and being tired of the hassle, I got my money back. I still didn't want to destroy the firewall and found the Electrifly motor mount, the medium one, fit. It didn't fit the AXi at the front, though, but a bit of work with a Dremel and a carbide bit solved that. Now this may sound that the Rimfire motors are no good. I found out something interesting later. A guy on RCU was looking for a Rimfire that he could rewind as an experiment. It was the size that Tower told me to keep. We made a deal and I sent it to him including the connectors I had cut off. About a week later, he emailed me and told me that he had soldered on the connectors and that he decided to try the motor. It worked perfectly. He determined that the Rimfire uses magnet wire for the turns and continues on to the connector. Magnet wire has a coating and since I was crimping, there was almost no contact. Soldering burns off the coating. Anyway, I still have a great flying plane that will do about 10 minutes on a 4cell A123pack. I've always had Sticks since I got into R/C about 40 years ago. I haven't had a bad flying one. The best was a Little Stik I bought at a club auction with an Enya motor. Couldn't make the Enya run right so replaced it with a Magnum .25. Flew it for ten years and sold it at the club auction. It showed up the next year, minus the motor and was sold again. I think it's still flying.