"Molded Outdrives" -- Really??

[XLR8]

When I saw this posted on ebay my initial thoughts were either this is a typo or it's a joke. I've never seen these before. I guess for an on-road application they'll work fine. Anyway, the parts are by AE so they should be reasonably durable.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Associated-3908-Molded-Outdrive-TC3/352535580994?epid=1100178147&hash=item5214c21142:g:e2kAAOSwZwlcBvxu

One thing's for sure, they should be super light!!

[GoMachV]

Plastic outdrives go way back. Losi used them on their sport XX models, and 4wd front iirc.

[jwscab]

Yeah they can work, especially if you use drive rings or sleeves. Losi used both. Aluminum or steel sleeves that fit over the slot to prevent spreading. They should wear better than aluminum in theory.

[Mr. ED]

Yup, Yokomo used them too , I think starting from the MR4-TC

[TRX-1-3]

Plastic outdrives go way back. Losi used them on their sport XX models, and 4wd front iirc.

A&L put out plastic outdrives bitd as well, iirc.

[GoMachV]

I was gonna go there but ours were a weird plastic and aftermarket...buy yeah- we had em

[Mr. ED]

And GPM made a set for the kyosho touring cars: TF2 , TF3 etc

[Lonestar]

Had them when racing onroad bitd, at least on my mr4-tc-sd-ssg-special (fieeewww ) and from memory possibly even on one of my TC3's.

I'm sorry to say but they were a disaster from a performance... with the heat, composite parts would expand and diff balls would start asking in all kinds of funny ways. Never broke one though, and wear was not unreasonable.

Net - not suitable for performance applications, good enough to put a car back together if nothing else available

[XLR8]

Okay, that explains it, I was AWOL during the whole TC phase of RC racing. My on-road experience is limited to pan car (i.e. 12i and 10L).
I also thought about possibly sleeving the slotted drive portion like Joe mentioned but, as Lonestar says, there will still be issues related to the ball diff, keeping it set properly given the flexible properties of plastic, etc. I was thinking about ordering a set just to play around with but I guess I'll just skip it.