well..... i can not disagree about your trany, since mind do the same. i fund out that the left side of the trany case was not propely adjust to the right side of the trany. so that make all the system band. what i did is: i rebuilt my trany with two VERY LITTLE drop of glue betwen the two part of the case to hold them in place as i thighten the screw. and its was just enought to get it run freely. if u want to do that, make sure before that there is no dirt inside your trany and check your bearing, if they are not good or if they are offset on the shaft, they will thigh the shaft as you thigth the trany. hope this can help. that crap that u spen more time fixing then runing. but as i said, its a 250$ machine so u canot expect the same quality then on some 400$ machine. somtime you have a choice to make, spend more on the buy and less than, or spen less on the buy and more than. for me i make that choice because that was my first taste of nitro so i dont whant to spend much, just in case. but dont be worry about my advice, i've been doing RC for 18 years and i got 10 years of mechanic experience. (with electro-mecanic diploma) PM me if you want