Looking for some tuning advice if you please, on stock diff oil setup (F7/C5/R3). Coming out of a turn and down a short 15' straight my front tire balloon up pretty bad, rears stay normal. Does this mean I want to up the oil weight in my center diff?

You would want to up your center diff oil,im going to start with 7-7-5 in mine because anytime i ran 5 in the center the front tires would be more worn than the rears causing my car to be inconsistent near the end of a long main.In ebuggy i always go at least 7 in the center,usually never lighter.

Since you guys are talking wiring, I found this awesome seller on eBay of the braided sleeve to clean up/spice up your wiring.

ebay seller is smartfireinjectors just search "braided" great colors and prices.

Ordered a bunch of colors but I am going for this look posted by IIGQ4U:

that wiring job is amazing

Yea the only bit i was unsure about was running the battery wires thru the heatsink, seemed like it may cause heat issues? plus i tried it and you would have to really squeeze the wires at least on an rx8 gen2

Id never run VP tires. Worst clone company out there.

+1 that is how I have mine.

I was thinking more along the kind of specs like the RX8 and VTX8 deliver. Still good esc from what I am hearing.

They work well for me.

Hey has anyone else built a .2 and had issues w steering link hitting body both w stock servo horn and after market?

Edit: Never mind I figured it out, the stock dimples are def not where you want your mounting holes huh?

Hey guys, i'm looking to get some new batteries for my eb48 and my future et48. I'll be running 4s in both. I'm wondering what battery would offer the best 50/50 weight balance for both vehicles, is hardcased, and can make a 10 min main easy. I'm willing go compromise some balance for runtime, but i'd like to find a happy medium between the two vehicles. I've been very impressed with the smc batteries i've used in my sct410 and have seen both their 4s packs. The 6500 looks as if it might be too heavy (632g), and the 5100 looks lighter, but i'm wondering if i'll need more runtime. My budget is $80 or less or close to that and could really use some advice. I'm open to any brands except turnigy and gens ace.

At that price point your really limited but I run the 6500 smc and have great luck but couldn't tell u the exact weight dist left to right but the kit is designed w the ave 4s weight in mind anyway

Depending if im running indoor or outdoor i run 10 or 15 in the center. That will help put more power to the rear and limit those pizza cutters up front

The SMC 5100's will be plenty for 10 minutes. A lot of pro's are running dual shorties and still making 10. I'm running the EcoPower 4100 from A-Main in my buggy and haven't had any issues, and at around $55 it's a good deal. The next packs I'll be running are the new 4600 4s hard case shorty packs from SMC.

The 4600 4s make it 10 mins?

I run and like the 6500 SMC. On the other side of the car I have an RX8, T8 1900 (original), 18t pinion, metal case servo, and micro receiver, MyLaps, and good heavy wire. Nothing on my car is lightweight.

That puts me somewhere in the 510-515g range on the electronics side based on some quick addition from product stats sheets.

To get some napkin math involved, as the 5100 SMC pack isn't showing weight listed on the site...
5100 2s x2= 552g
6500 2s x2= 640g
6500 4s = 632g
so I'm going to assume the 5100 4s is roughly 544g by subtracting the difference that should be purely case/wires that are the same across both packs.

Even in quick S sections, the car doesn't seem unbalanced at all with my 6500 though, which makes sense due to where on each side the weight is placed, with the electronics side sticking out a bit wider. I think you'll be happy with either pack unless you're going to be using this to convert to onroad 8th scale or something like that. If you've run the Gens Ace 4s pack before (which maybe is why you don't want one?) then it sits directly between the 2 SMC options you're looking at.

As for making a 10 min main, here's how you can figure that out easily, as it varies a LOT per driver and track.
Take whatever you're using for batteries now and go run hard and aggressive for 5 minutes, as if you're racing it (and even more aggressive, so have a marshall). Then go charge the pack and see how many mah you put back into it. Let's say you put back in 1750mah. Now, double that number (3500) to see how much the 10 minute race would likely use. You will want to tack some more on for practice laps and false starts...generally an extra minute or two of runtime is good. In that case, we'll simply take a 0 off to get 350 mah per minute and so we're adding 700 to 4200 mah. This is not what you'd normally use, but how much you want to be able to use in case something gets more dirt/weight in the car, or various other things aren't perfect. Lastly, you never want to use more than apron 80% of a battery to keep it healthy, so divide by .8 to get your final desired mah. In this example that would be 5250. Due to having built in several areas of "in case", a 5100 would be ok in the example case, though you'd be cutting it closer, while the 6500 would leave plenty left over, which is never a bad thing.

At our tracks, I generally use 320-325 mah per minute as I've tended to drive smoothly, while other more aggressive drivers can use up to almost 500 mah per minute (with most in the 375-425 range). This makes it nice as I typically come off just above storage charge voltages after a 10 minute main and a couple laps for warmup or after race fun. If your track is large, or has a lot of full throttle or full brake spots, expect your usage to be high...if you do a lot of coasting to adjust speed or the track is very flowing, expect your usage to be somewhat low.

Notes: Electronics setup can change this a lot too. I run no current limit and no turbo/boost/etc. If I were to turn on current limiting, I could drop my numbers further (a great trick if you visit a new track and can almost, but not quite, make the time with your battery). A truggy is heavier and has much more rotating mass with the tires too so will of course use more mah as a result.

TLDR: Run an aggressive test, calculate your needed capacity, and then go buy accordingly. Battery weight is unlikely to matter much unless you go with shorties or low profile batteries, allowing you to shift weight around.