Who will be next to come out with a brushless / lipo optimized car...
 

Obviously the Type-R is about as close as it can get to a car optimized for lipo and brushless. Who do you think will be next? Will there be an Xray "Lipo Spec"? Taniya and Xray seem like the most obvious choices since they come out with cars most often. I wonder though, will manufacturers think the market is big enough? With lipo only being legal in the US does it make sense to release a lipo based car? I imagine it would cost a lot if they do.

Have you seen the Team Magic E4? That car is optimized for Lipos as well. I saw the carpet version up close. The car looks pretty sweet.

X-Ray make a us foam spec car, so why not a lipo spec car. But unfortunately, aside from putting the battery down the center, I think it would have to be saddle pack config. That way the car could be balanced from side to side a heck of a lot easier. But as of yet there are still no hard cased saddle pack lipo's, with the exception of the max amps, and after seeing the "hard case" for those, I am not sure I would call them that.

Oh yeah I forgot about that car. The 3 belt car, right?

Based on ROARs rules Im not sure a saddle pack would be legal (bc of the dimension). I agree there doesnt seem to be a good way to balance it. Though I think the motor down the middle is actually the key. Its now the heaviest item. Im not sure of the weight difference of a lipo vs electronics. I bet its close.

to be honest i think the only thing your going to see over the next few months is "raised top decks" and possibly car specific balance weights. New chassis with holes in them to screw in weights etc. with the "hard cased" li-po specifications, there's not a lot they can do. To be honest, just adding two weights on to the car to run a li-po isn't going to warrant a new car design.

I agree...the motor placement will be the key to new designs. I actually like the E4's design although I think a saddle pack config could be better for it. I would have liked to see the center belt run long ways on the chassis instead of the side belt. (See my crude drawing). But I'm not a car designer....

But I will say that there will/should be some interesting designs coming in the next few years.

Have you actually TRIED to get enough weight onto a LiPo touring car?

It's a handful more than two weights, unless you're using dumbbell weights.



My "heavy" Mi3 with standard steel screw kit and a "heavy" Novak GTB brushless system, and a "heavy" excessive paint job on a thick rubber tire body is still about 90 grams light. That's about 3.15 oz to you Metric-challenged. And I'm using a carbon battery strap to even add weight into the car as it is.

Show me where to put that weight in a contemporary luxury touring car chassis.

Yeah I know what you mean. I have a 127 gram steel plate under my Orion 4800 lipo with another 70 grams of lead on the chassis. It aint pretty.

I see raised top decks and possibly "heavy" lipo batteries. Current rules still make lipo batteries a labor of love. I run the Type R with the steel tray. It makes a clean setup. I don't know if we'll see an evolution of that car or not. If I ran Nimh I might run something else, but I love lipo and the R makes the most sense.

Nimh or Lipo the Type R is one of the best handling cars on the market. It is definitely the best Lipo-ready car out there and with the Lipo tray it's super easy to bring up to weight without all the crazy weight plates and all that stuff other people have to do for the other cars.

lipo's legal here too! same rules as ROAR.

lipo/bl designs
 

The problem with lipo/bl optimized cars is the weight issue. Since nimh is still the power source of choice, and a nimh 415 layout with bl is balanced, that will be the layout followed for some time.

A balanced losi type-r with 3200 lipo and bl system weighs in at about 46.5 to 47oz. You then have to add 7 ounces of weight to the car, effectively crippling its weight optimized design.

Until nimh falls out of favor and/or roar revises the weight rules for cars, cars optimized for lipo and brushless won't have much of an advantage because you won't be able to run the cars light.

Looks like a nitro drive train.

Do you have to run hard cases?