Hi guys. Sorry I have been negligent about following up on this, and Beagler, I missed your April 24th question, too.
Just seat of the pants, the top speed doesn't seem to have changed, but the torque going up hills is definitely better. The speed drops, but it keeps a steady pull no matter what the load. My wife loves the cart, too, and I have instructed her to more or less use the Go pedal like an on-off switch: either floored, or off.
One thing I have been meaning to do is check the voltage and current while driving up a hill, and also the voltage drop on some of the cables to see where the losses are. Hot Rod, some of the longer cables do get warm from climbing that long hill, but I am really curious about the voltage drop across the solenoid, fwd-rev switch, and the speed controller at full throttle. Those all look like weak links, but I don't know.
Hot Rod, I did fabricate a contoured aluminum block fit between the outboard end of the motor and axle tube, and used a large hose clamp to hold it all together. I have seen enough broken aluminum castings in my life and didn't want to see another.
Beagler, here are my naive thoughts about the high torque gears. I could be totally wrong and don't mind being told so if that is the case. It's all about learning and trading our experiences. So here we go: the high torque motor has lots of extra windings (longer and heavier) to develop higher torque from the same voltage and current. To me, it is basically a more efficient motor. But still, when the batteries get low it won't make as much torque. With the high torque gear set, the torque will always be there, even when the batteries start to get low. Also, with these series wound motors, their speed is dependent on the amount of load that is on it, so using a high torque gear set is kinda like lightening the load on the motor to let it spin easier. If you already have some spare stock motors, maybe the gear set is the way to go. I wish I had taken a closer look at the gears and differential arrangement when I had the motor off, but it shouldn't be too hard to swap the gears out. Without splitting it, I really couldn't tell. Beagler, do you have bigger-than-stock tires on your cart? That has a negative affect on the torque if you do.
Lloyd-ss