Bought x4 5000 4s 100c Venom water cooled packs. max motor draw is about 200 amps. Max battery discharge rate is 500amps per 4s. 10,000mah total per x2 battery group. Should have about 4.5 min of good run time. I series wired 2 sets of 2 packs for the base voltage ~32v (~max for motor and esc). Then parallel wired the series packs , maintaining voltage. I used Offshore Electrics (THANKS for fast shipping as always!) 6mm bullets for all battery connections (all with 10 ga castle braided wire) and final + and - wires to esc are 8 ga w/8mm bullets. I think the Deans and traxxas connectors have too small a contact area for this power level. BUT, I have to be careful to hook everything up correctly!
Hooked up and tested and ran fine. Basically, I have more than enough deliverable battery power, and an esc that can maintain constant 200amp w/burst to 800amp, and a motor that draws max 200 amps (or a bit more...) So it should all be good now on the power side of things. Received a few different sized props for testing including the ss470. I just have to polish and balance them....
As far as the batteries, I removed the Venom shrink wrap and removed (CAREFULLY) the three heavy brass plates and cooling tubes from each pack. Probably about 2 lbs minimum in weight savings, not to mention the silicone tubes and all the water they would have held. My motor draw is way less than the 500amp max battery output. Even hot and pushing timing and a big prop, motor draw should not exceed 250-300 amps. I double wrapped the packs in 3 1/4" clear shrink wrap form Offshore Electrics. Now the packs all fit nicely into the front of the hydro.....
I also added a metal case/metal gear high torque servo and 1.5 inch aluminum servo arm (servo something like 13kg/cm at 6v). The generic servo I had was under powered. (on ebay : Power HD LF-13MG Metal Gear Digital High Torque Servo 4.8-6.6V 1:10 RC ) works great with my Rx. NO chatter. Holds position perfectly.