I have the novak 4.5R brushless motor in my xxx-s and had to regear but it's too powerful for drifting with that motor and I'm afraid of frying it or the ESC. Mainly I just use it for the track but am getting some of the HPI hard compound rubber drift tires to try it with, see if they don't get a little grip in the straight and still let it drift. I also have a completely stock TC4 that I use for drifting and am not too impressed with it yet. I wouldn't reccomend running the tamiya connectors with the BL system though, I tried it cuz i was too lazy to replace them at first and after about 2 minutes the wires from battery to ESC were way too hot to touch. Now even with gold plated banana connectors, when you take them apart, if you touch the metal it'll burn you. There's just a lot of current draw with them. Also, the 1500 mah battery won't be too bad but for drifting especially, you'll be lucky to get more then 5 min out of it, I have a 3300 mah NiMAH and can barely get 10-12 on the track. And so far, no complaints with the losi other then I fried the origional ESC but i had it in my off road buggy adn was doing wheelies so my own fault, they don't handel full reverse to instant throttle very well. Keep us informed on how it goes though, it's a great car and motor combo for all out fun in a straight line or sideways.