Unfortunately not in our budget this year, but than when are problems in our budgets. Is it always the top half that goes on these SC's and how much hp are these really rated for compared to the SCX upper and SC lower?

IMO scx is rated for about 800 and the sc 650. Scx combo sc lower will just wear out your lower gears every 50 to 150 hours depending while the scx upper has lasted behind 800 hp 450 hours so far.

best price I found so far is $10K per side for 1 SCX upper with the new bell to use it with the HP gimble, plus figure in a little more for rebuilding the gimble since it's that far apart already. So $24K to change over to SCX uppers. my lowers are fine but I do need to swap in the 1:36 gears. I'm running 36P 4 blades and need more prop still.