Horatio

Well today, I have concluded that all my years racing and tinkering with RC cars has brought me to the exact right spot.

I haven't rushed into everything or bought loads of stuff that I didn't really like, but on the other hand, I haven't really been static either or limited myself to just one niche.

Imagine my surprise when, after running my Kronos XTR for the first time, I realised that brushless is everything I liked about my 1/10th electric and 1/8th IC Buggys all rolled into a big, bad, insane Truggy. If the Xray XT8 was a scalpel, the Kronos XTR would be a chainsaw.

It's literally awesome. I haven't had this much fun since I waited for the overnight charge of my Tamiya 7.2v hump pack to finish up so I could go blast my Sand Scorcher around the Alleys!

​​​​​​In fairness, it sounds smooth and uneventful but it belies a machine that is bonkers in every way. 6S is OTT but fun. On 4S it would probably still be far from sensible, but less stressful!

Amazingly, it's still all in one piece and hasn't been scuffed up yet. Wheelies occur just by looking at the throttle. I'd hate it to get road rash, but it's going to happen....


With machines like this available, you can easily see why people might skip Nitro. And that's a real shame, because it's akin to skipping a chapter in a good book, or going straight to the last series of Game of Thrones. Or putting the campaign mode on your favourite game to easy.

So, in conclusion - this was something that I wanted to prove to myself: Brushless is simply not what you'd imagine 'electric' to be like if you're born before the 90's. It's quite literally epic. Despite this, both Nitro and Petrol powered cars will still attract people like me to them, as driving them is equally enjoyable, but just in a very different, cool kind of way.

jeanethics

iTrader: (3)

Nice Horatio
I purchase a TRX-6, haven't drove it much but its pretty awesome.

Horatio

6 wheel drive! 😎 RC Crawling looks to be a very absorbing branch of RC cars - I love the scale realism. Love G-Wagons too!

Raguvian

iTrader: (6)

Yeah, the new electric brushless stuff can be insane. I run my Tekno MT410 on 4S and it's already too much. I've also got a huge motor just so everything is overbuilt and understressed.

I still want a nitro, though. I'm thinking about the Hobao Hyper MT Sport Plus, but I will likely wait a few months as I don't want to break in a new engine during the winter.

I will also hopefully have an Xray NT18T coming soon but that will be a shelf queen/display piece only. I just love that Xray crammed an entire engine and 4WD drivetrain into a 1/18th scale chassis. IMO that one is worth getting for the engineering alone.

Horatio

Nitros are awesome - they smell nice and produce insane engine sounds. There's something special about 2 strokes.

I absolutely love my Xray XT8 - it's so responsive - and floats over the bumps. It's like a buggy but with all the stability advantages of a Truggy. Xray producing a 1/18th Nitro Truck - I've not seen one myself but Xray stuff is really good, precisely made and really well finished. If anyone could pull off micro nitro racing - they could

​​Not sure it will stay on the shelf for long though....

Raguvian

iTrader: (6)

The NT18T has been out since 2006. I've wanted one for over 10 years but figured they had stopped making them. Turns out they still produce the kit/roller.

The price is surprisingly reasonable too, something like $200 including the Hudy starter box. That's not much more than a brushless Mini T.

Horatio

That's a killer deal! 😍 I hadn't realised they were even a thing. Really interesting conversation piece, too.

Horatio

Happy Christmas everybody! Hope santa brings some nice RC goodies!

jeanethics

iTrader: (3)

Just to revive an old thread.
So running my nitros, the local hobby store told me they will not be carrying nitro Rc vehicles in the store..
i hope they still carry nitro.
so I guess it’s a thing that is passing.

MonsterJuice

My issue is nitro hasnt really changed in the last 10 years, electric is just so easy...

Roelof

We can not ignore that the development of electric with high power brushless and high capacity LiPo's did make electric racing/bashing more exciting. Also with RC flying has almost taken over the gas powered models.

But beside that on many forums where many bashers and beginners hang around the word is told that nitro is difficult with lots of maintenance and tuning so beginners will search for electric.

And from the shop vision you can not blame them, there is more demand for electric. But they are also a bit tired of customers coming every week to re-tune their engine(s) because they can not do it by them self.

Horatio

It's all relative I suppose. In some regards, brushless electric is easier than nitro. It's cleaner and faster in terms of straight-line speed.

There is a pronounced decline in bricks & mortar stores generally - let alone what lines they sell.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that some stores will only stock electric stuff.

However - there's still a good market for nitro from a racing perspective, niche as it is, people loved watching the Psycho Nitro Blast recently.

I'm running Nitro, Petrol and Brushless - IMO petrol is the easiest class to run without a doubt. But it's loud, where as brushless is more suited to urban environments.

I like all of them just as much, but in different ways.
​​​​​

Horatio

I think nitro engines have been honed to near perfection since 1947. In terms of the engines themselves, there aren't likely to be ground breaking changes.

In terms of the platforms we bolt them into, Buggies, Circuit Racers, Truggies - the platforms have seen refinements rather than the revolution we saw between the 80's and 90's. The designs we saw since the Kyosho Burns have been fairly closely followed since, with weight forwards designs finding favour as early as 2000, notably with the MBX4 RR.

If you take a Buggy from 2000 and compare it with a buggy from 2023 - there's a significant difference. Materials being the most obvious change. 7075, carbon fibre, oversize shocks, etc all present in 2023 where in 2000 - not so much, unless of course you bought aftermarket stuff.

Brushless have shorter run times and require multiple lithium polymer batteries. This introduces lithium polymer battery management and sophisticated chargers, appropriate stirage and risk management. It's a different kind of problem.

Nitros are more mechanical and require you to learn carb tuning, which is actually much more straightforward than people think.

To keep running at a site, you'll need high power chargers for brushless vs just fuel and low power chargers for nitro.

In my opinion, large scale petrol is the easiest platform to run. Ditto for aircraft over 78". Gassers are much easier to deal with and much, much cheaper to run than either brushless or nitro.

Roelof

Where the bad stories about nitro comes from is easy to tell:
- people can not detect a bad plug
- people can not detect a worn P/S set
- People buy the wrong fuel (airplane with too much oil), I have even seen people who wanted to start nitro engines with plain gasoline..
- people can not detect a broken clutch

And then they can not tune the engine right so it has become too difficult.

So in a short story, many people are not technical and too lazy to learn the technology..

Horatio

Yes, it's a shame that Nitro gets a bad rap because people haven't learnt the basics.

The worst part is that whilst the fundamentals of running nitro might be quite steep at first, once you've got it, you're set for life. Hour long finals and all the rest of it.

Plugging in a 6S lipo and flicking the on switch sounds easier than firing up a nitro, but brushless rigs present all sorts of challenges to newbies - motor overheating, esc programming, stones in cooling fans, driveline problems due to colossal torque. Not to mention the whole matter of driving a 4hp+1/8th buggy/mt/truggy - it's not without it's fair share of headwork. It's just different - not easier.

My observation is that people that like gismos and tech, connecting stuff with direct WiFi or Bluetooth and programming are going to lean towards brushless with electronic everything.

People that are more mechanically minded will lean more towards nitro.

1/8th anything will require plenty of maintaining - diffs, shocks, cleaning etc. That's in keeping with all RC.

Ultimately, the fact that RC can be challenging is what makes it such an absorbing hobby, isn't it?

People that aren't particularly technically minded aren't going to stick with either nitro or brushless IMO.