thanks for that guys :)

ill use oldschool's method sounds good to me!
i need bearing oil!

and thanks for the confirmation MrRolla i ordered 6 of them :)

now my next curiosty is when they reach to peak performance or near it how long will that performance stay like that before it starts degrading? (X amount of packs or X amount of race meets?)

Not sure what rules you guys race under, but in all 540 rulesets I have ever seen, they specifically say the Johnson grey motor must be used. IE not the shiny silver one.

You might want to check that.

yea i asked the clubs president today in the morning before the race he said its fine as its still a stock 540 motor. :)

540 break in
 

with my experence with the 540 motors is that the more you push them the more you'll go through them.

here's a tip, get a brand new tamyia 540 motor run it on a 1400 pack in a glass of water for 1.5 mins. take it out of the water oil the bushings and run it out of the water for 10 - 20 seconds.(don't worry about using the 1400 u won't blow up the motor)

now depending on you local track gear the shit out of the motor. Generally the low 40s will do it. use a small spur and a big pinion.

this will make u fast(trust me:nod: )

give the motor about 1 - 2 months before changing it over. don't worry about the motor comming off hot this is natural for the gearing.

try this motor against your other break in way and decide which is faster.

....oh yeah.....oil the bushings before every run this will increase proformance.....i guess this is what u want:lol:

thanks murfy ill try your method as well :) after i get my 6 new motors ill do about 3 different methods with 2 motors each and will update results :)

i dont know why but im taking 540 more serious than my nitro racing!!! :lol:

sorry forgot to also mention that i was told at the track yesterday that it takes time before the motor gets to its peak performance or takes ages to run in... a guy told me he ran his 540 all season last year and is now only running good at the start of this season. and also been told the more you run it the more faster it gets.

can someone shed some light on this particular area here please?

cheers

I ran my 540 motor in with 4 x 1.2 V AAAs in a pack and after the 7 minutes in both directions the brushes are still not making full contact with the commutator so what is the break in time ?

I personally don't like running the motor in water, I've seen rust set in on the poles after a while....

540 brushes are very, very hard - so unless you use the water method be prepared to spend a looong time to get them brushes run in.

when using 540 motors, i found that when the brushes would be in full contact with the comm it felt really sluggish and you couldn't gear it up as much...... i think it might stem from the wear on the comm and the brushes means that the spring tension is weaker giving less power

I found the best way was to use brasso on the bushes and the slave motor technique to minimise brush burn and comm usage... cleaning the comm with a comm stick also helps with performance but getting one in there is the trick

Nielonsx

at $20 a motor just slap it in no oiling at any stage and just out drive the rest. racing 540 at the windsor indoor track and would be scraping into the tail end of stock a final with my times. Hang on maybe i should run one in and see if i could maybe be a mid a finalist in stock

I bet the stock masters are missing that they.;)

nah a brand new motor i think is very slow with my very old 540 motor and new motor with same gearing the old motor had much more top speed. but honestly the new motor had more punch.

and thanks to all for your reponses and sharing your methods i will try 3 of your methods on my 6 new motors (2 motors for each method as you can get dud motors as mentioned in here) when they arrive :) and will post up what i feel is best method and see which one also lasts the longest in terms of peak performance.

Any progress with this project yet??

the best method i have heard of (but not tried yet) is to run it on 1.2-2 volts for about 6 hours, they do this at tamiya with the black 540 motors, should be the same for the silver can 540.

BIG DAVE

Re: 540 break in
 

So does running a smaller spur / big pinion make the motor work better/faster..??

What do you mean " Low 40`s "

Reason i`m asking is that i just brought (2nd hand) a TC3 Team kit...& the gearing on it is similar.. 65 spur & 35 pinion (small/big) using a Tamiya sport tuned motor , which i thought was a bit odd.

The guy i brought it off has been racing for 10 odd years so i`m guessing he`s geared it right.

Cheers