I have a duratrax raze buggy that I converted to brushless and I cant seem to get the motor to run very cool. Motor is a 36x74 2800kv tacon made for 1/8th, running 14t pinion ( was running 17t but switched to see if it would run cooler) think the spur is 46 its stock. Esc is 80a hobbywing, running a 3s lipo. Also threw a heat sink on top of the motor, I have no idea why this motor gets so hot, I don't have a temp gun to get a reading but it gets really hot to the touch. Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks

Get a temp gun you have no way to know if it is to hot without one.

At what temp is a motor on a 1/8th scale suppost to get up to? This motor gets so hot that it nearly burns you when you touch it.

All my tekin motors come off the track after a 10 minute main at around 150-160. Never push them past 170 degrees in my opinion.

150-170 WILL feel really hot too your skin , but that is witjin the safe temp range .

Get a temp gauge or borrow one and mesure it accurately to know for sure .......

Ok ill try to find a temp gun, what do I do if it is running hotter than it is suppose to be running?

Like the above posters said, 170-180 Fahrenheit is considered the upper limit for brushless motor temperatures.

The Raze had a 3.31 diff ratio, and you've got it on a 2800kv buggy motor, 14t pinion, 46t spur.

Holy crap. That's a 1.33:1 rollout. That thing is way, way overgeared.

Take it down to an 11t pinion (1.04:1 Rollout) and try that instead.

OP runs it on 3s, that sounds like a good gearing.

A 2800KV is going to pull some pretty serious amps. How hot does the ESC get?

The esc doesn't get too hot it has a fan on it.

That is an awfully odd setup for a 1/8 buggy. Most people are running 4, 5, and 6s lipo, along with 1400-2000kv motors, geared with 14-20 tooth pinions respectively.

Motor heat is all about rollout. The higher you go above 1:1 (1 Motor Revolution to 1 Inch of Movement), the more heat you make. Exponentially.

My 0.02 is still to gear down.

On a high traction surface that sounds reasonable, up to the exponential point. What would cause that?

Spit on it. If it deosn't boil, you're fine.

I've yet to see a GOOD motor get hurt from high heat. Maybe the rotor will start to get a little weak after time, but I haven't seen a stator poof yet.

I've pulled my Tekin 2050 off the track at least twice with a drive train failure, boiled spit immediately. Still runs great, maybe next season I'll get it a fresh rotor.

It's all about the load you put on the motor. With significant gear disadvantage (rollouts greater then 1:1), the motor has to create more torque through it's entire power band then it would otherwise with less gear disadvantage (Rollouts closer to 1:1).

Voltage makes RPM, Amps make Torque.

IēR tell us that (Ampsē)*Resistance = Watts dissipated as heat. This is where the exponential comes from.

Your motor has a massively low on resistance. In the area of 0.01 ohms and lower. Obviously this will be different from motor to motor, this number is just an example.

But if that 3674-Canned 2-Pole is pulling 120A, it's putting out (for example) 144 watts of heat. That's a lot!

But if gearing it down means you pull 80A, that's only 64 watts of heat.

This is why overgearing is so incredibly bad for electric motors.