ORIGINAL: suburban_hooligan
or after several hours of being beyond stumped we took our problems to the hobby shop or race track to ask the guy's who actually knew what they were doing behind the counter for help.
problem is alot of them don't know crap anymore.
When I 1st got my nitro I did just like you said and went to the hobby shop, and was given some pretty bad advice. Main thing I was told a nitro motor should hit around 350F... good advice to royally screw up an engine...
Found another hobby shop (one I goto now) where they do have knowledgeable staff who own a wide variety of brands and vehicles, they got the place broken up into departments (planes&helicopter, ground based etc), and the staff have to actually try each product they get in stock out 1st hand(from what their one supervisor told me).
The 1st place I went to had around 90% planes and 2 ground based RC's seriously they had a old dust covered pede on the shelf and a HPI Evo 3 or something. The guy never even heard of the MT or MT2, and I think he was the owner... Last time I went for an odd sized pinion they reduced their onroad parts bin to a shoebox...