I find myself very interested in the concept of being able to switch my 1/8 nitro buggy over to electric, and back. I'm actually rather surprised that the current R/C manufacturers haven't tried to capitalize on this concept themselves yet. There are so many advantages it isn't even funny:
-for the manufacturers, they get to use all the same suspension, transmission, shocks, rims, tires, gearboxes, wing and body to carry-over to a new sku, while cutting costs due to only having to redesign a few smal elements of the rolling chassis. From a $$ perspective, it makes total sense.
-racers & bashers who enjoy electric AND nitro can have both in one common platform, and since electric & nitro use all the same shared components listed above, you don't need to worry about carrying spares for a whole different vehicle.
-You can now race the big 1/8 buggies indoors, without all the fumes and ventilation issues that nitro brings with it. The quietness of electric, with the tank-like durability of 1/8.
All that having been said, I believe that there are still some issues to be resolved. For example, I've seen some 1/8 conversions that have two full battery packs (12 cells total) while some conversions only seem to have one pack, presumably a lipo batt.
My question is this: can a 1/8 buggy with a single lipo pack (a Max Amps 7.4V 12000mah, for example ) acheive the same running performance as its nitro counterpart, or would it truly need two battery packs to do this?
Also, what would the total run-time be with the Max Amps battery stated above?
With regards to the ESC and Motor, would something like a Novak HV 4.5 be acceptable? Would this allow for similar performance to nitro? If not, what would be able to function reliably?
I think that if we can collectively address some of these issues, we can definitely help lay the groundwork for a whole new racing category. Granted, Nitro still has its own charm, and cannot really be replaced because of that, but it would certainly be nice to have choices
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