I picked up one of these cheap boats of ebay and it comes with a single 750 motor and a very cheap radio whickhoperates the motor On/OFF and Full Left /right rudder.

The battery pack is two rows of 7.2 V NiCds in parralel. Is this acceptable . I thought it might cause problems.

I plan to upgrade the boat but wondered if anyone else has had experience with similar boats.
My first plan is to boost the voltage by rewiring the battery pack to give initally 8.4V and if that works go up till something burns out. (The advantage of cheap radio is that it is expendable). I will probably keep the same 7.2v to the radio and have a second wire from the higher voltage source.

I will eventually use normal radio gear and an ESC but I wanted some fun first.

How does the 750 compare with a 540 motor ?

How big is the boat? Personally I would replace the hardware, the boat looks nice though. I guess if your just wanting speed and don't care about burning out the stuff, then go the 11.1v lipos. Should move her pretty good, till something gave out (hopefully not burn a hole in the hull). The motor from the picture doesn't look like a 750, it looks like a 550 but would need demensions to tell ya better.

Ivan.

The boat is about 1 meter long (39 inch).

The motor has a fan built into it and really seems to use up the batteries quickly.
It is probably designed for a completely different application. I might try a 540 motor and see how that affects performance and run time.