An interesting one, or maybe not! I've asked about silvercan tuning/cleaning a few posts up as a few guys at the club's silvercan powered mini's are very fast. Last night during practise I ran my black can. Well, I could only manage the same top speed as these silvercan cars along the straight and no faster.

Does this sound normal for a 'tweaked' silvercan vs an out if the box black can? Note, these guys tell me they aren't running fast gears and we're all using 20t pinions with NIMH power.

Check your ESC's calibration. I know that my M03's seemed to have one faster than the other, but it turned out that one of my ESCs were mis-calibrated, so I was only getting 80% of the max power out of it. re-calibrated so that it'll max out at full throw and it's much faster now.

You have a PM

Are the black reinforced spur gears more durable than the stock ones?
Another one bites the dust in the middle of a straight away.

Yes, they still suck though...


It's a $4 gearset, it might become a 'maintenance' item every 4th race

Wow what are you using for a motor? I assume it's the spur gear portion that is going. Are you getting a good mesh between the pinion and spur. What do the teeth on the pinion look like? I did put the hardened pinion in mine early on.

I've still got the original plastic gears that came in my M03. I've been running it for over a year now and I have used everything from the Silver Can to a boosted 17.5 in it. Currently running a boosted 21.5 on a large road course. Never used any lube.

Of course because I said that I'll probably tear them up next race. I do have a set of the "high speed" gears to try out if that happens but I've been told they won't last.

Two things...

1. There can be a massive difference between NiMH packs. If someone has managed to keep hold of some decent race cells then they are significantly better than cheap stick packs. And some cheap packs are better than others. NiMH's are basically a pain in the backside whereas LiPos create a very even playing field.

2. Any class that doesn't specify a labelled motor is far too easy to cheat in. There are so many silver can motors out there that nobody ever really knows what is being used. Some "cheating" may be entirely unintentional. We have run labelled HPI SATURN 20s for years and I don't know of a single dodgy motor being used. I can't say the same about other silvercan classes i've raced in.

Using included 20t from kit which is set properly.
Using 2s and orca q'spark combo/2200kv motor
Max temp was 120F
No i dont know what went wrong this time.
It gives me an excuse to upgrade stuff as well

Lose the stock pinion gear and get a good one in there. The stock ones are very soft and the teeth get carved up and go all italic chewing u every spur you put in there within minutes. You should be able to get a Robinson Racing (pn1120) pretty easily. They're cheap and last for a long time.

Other makers include Duratrax and Kyosho. If you can get one, the Kawada is the cat's ass. Quiet and durable.

It will be done! What about hpi pinions any better than stock?
I seen some so thought id ask

Don't know. Do they make them in the weird .6 mod gear pitch?

Yes for the cup racer if i remember correctly

Nah, those show up as being 48p. 0.6 is sometimes (erroneously) referred to as "metric 48" but it's completely different. I even got a Duratrax pinion once labelled that way. Not the same!

Great Hobbies should have no problems getting in a Robinson for you. The Kawada is available online. Tamiya also does a hardened pinion. PN 53509.

Thank you Sir, all interesting stuff.

The NIMH packs are on my list of things to look into. I've got a top ESC, good servo, great car, good radio etc so I'd love to know what are the best NIMH cells out there??

Decent NiMH cells haven't been in production for about 5 years. All that's left are the dirt cheap ones for the RTR and power tool markets. That's why it is crazy to insist on people using them.