Brushed 540s…… why do they still matter?

You might think that with brushless motors dominating RC cars, boats, and planes, brushed 540 motors would be long gone. Yet, somehow, these old-school workhorses are still going strong—and for good reasons. First off, simplicity is king. Brushed motors are dead-simple to wire up: just connect them to a battery or ESC, and they run. There’s no fancy programming, no complex timing curves, no worry about high-voltage limits. For beginners or hobbyists who just want to get rolling, that ease of use is invaluable.

Then there’s cost. Brushed 540s are cheap, widely available, and easy to replace. If you break one, it’s usually just a matter of swapping in a new motor without breaking the bank. That’s why many entry-level kits, toy-grade RCs, and even some budget racing classes still use them—they’re reliable and won’t empty your wallet.

Durability and predictability are another factor. Brushed motors can take abuse and still keep running. They’re more forgiving if you overheat them a little or hit a wall hard, and their performance is consistent over long runs. With brushless, you get more speed and efficiency, but you also have to be more careful about overheating and ESC settings.

Brushed motors are also perfect for certain applications. For slow, scale-accurate crawling, casual bashing, and indoor racing, you don’t need the extreme top-end of a brushless setup. The 540 size is just right for torque-hungry setups without overcomplicating things. Plus, tuning a brushed motor is often as simple as changing pinion and spur gears, making it approachable for tinkerers.

Finally, there’s the nostalgia factor. For hobbyists who grew up with Tamiya, Traxxas, or HPI kits in the 80s and 90s, 540 brushed motors are part of the hobby’s DNA. They’re familiar, easy to source, and often work perfectly well for casual use, scale realism, or club racing where extreme speed isn’t the goal.

So, yes—brushed 540 motors and their variants are still in use because they hit a sweet spot: simple, affordable, durable, and surprisingly capable for a wide range of RC applications. In the right context, they’re still more than enough to keep the fun rolling.

There are a wide variety of RS 540 motors.

The Tamiya Black Can 540 and the so called Torque Tuned variations are only marginally better than the stock 540 silver can.
The RS540J is surprisingly good on the field.
The Hackmotos 540 23T is VERY hot. It is not going to work with any pinion larger than 26T.