Well, I finally got a set of good batteries (3800 mAh Ni-MH) from all-battery.com and realize what everyone was saying about experiencing a "good battery". I moved up from my 2400 mAh Ni-CD's thinking those were good but WOW, these babies blew them away.
I have a XL-5 Pede and went from about 15 minutes of decent run time to 20 minutes of great run time.
What I mean by decent is, on my Ni-CD's, the first 2 minutes I was able to pull a wheelie or two. The next 8 minutes were some pretty serious run time, followed by 5 minutes of slower rundown time (where they would start to die) where the Pede would crawl around maybe spinning on some loose sand. These batteries were hot to the touch upon removing them (kind nice in the cooler fall days
My new batteries, for the first 10 minutes gave me nothing but wheelie time. The truck did cookies on dry tar, a feat that the 2400's could never pull off. It was so much faster and I had a hard time keeping it under control. The battery maintained its power for most of the time not loosing most of it's ooph after the first eight minutes. When the batteries "gave up" they just slowed down and died out. They didn't tease me for 5 minutes like the Ni-CD's did. These batteries were not nearly as hot coming outta my truck as the others, giving me the ability to recharge them sooner.
As a group of people walked by they said, WOW that thing is fast! I was surprised to find myself saying the brushless motor can wait until spring.
I know some of you are saying if you think good batteries make a difference wait until you get your hands on that brushless. But the people that said buy a good set of batteries before a brushless were right, what a cheap way to upgrade your truck without much work.
This is also a great time for me to give the Traxxas Titan motor some props too. I've heard some people **** on this motor, but out of the box I have had tons of fun with this puppy. Lots of torque and decent top speed especially with the new batts. I'm on about my 50 run and all I've done is clean it once and it keeps going and going.
Just thanking everyone for their input and giving mine back.