I've heard that having reverse engaged on an ESC changes the performance. Is that true? I have the Tekin set to Forward/Reverse Break with reverse delay. I am racing on Indoor Clay. 2wd and 4wd buggies.
ESC's are Hobbywing XR10 PRO 1260A and Tekin RS Pro Black edition.
Cars are EB410 and soon to be built Losi 22 4.0 SR.

Thanks!

The first I've heard of such a claim. I see no reason why it would.

Yes, it turns you into a dork that has no business on a race track.

J/K...kind of

It would be hard to believe that it would affect the performance but, race tracks are one way roads anyways, so you shouldn't be doing any reversing.

I always leave the reverse on but never use it during a race. Comes in handy during practice when there really isn't any turn marshals.

So dang true, been their and always doing that

Besides its forward/brake then delay reverse

I run reverse in my Tekin stuff, and I don't notice any difference. I am extremely particular with how my throttle and brakes feel. Ask Randy Pike in the Tekin thread, he should be able to confirm that reverse doesn't change anything.

That said, some Hobbywing esc's had this weird thing that the reverse % impacts brake strength. They said for racing disable reverse, but leave it at 100%. I think they finally fixed that though. It could be with the Hobbywing that you were in reverse mode and the drive frequency and other settings were different. You'll have to look at the manual.

Isn't leaving reverse on illegal in your rules?

It's illegal to use reverse while racing.

I have a 1 second delay. I have used reverse once or twice in racing and got away with it. Race Director didn't see it, and the marshal was too slow, like I literally sat there for 3 seconds before reversing. Also, I didn't back my car into someone else as they were going by either. That said I did technically break the rules, and I really suggest not doing as I have done. You crash in racing, you have to wait for the turn marshal.

I only really use reverse in practice, so I don't have to leave the drivers stand. If I set my reverse delay shorter, I would probably be more inclined to use it during racing, so I keep it at one second, and follow the rules.

One of our local race director is old school, during warm up sometimes I'll drive my car in reverse around the track. He'll say I'm doing the fork lift race like we used to do when this hobby was still about goofing off some with toy cars. So, I know at least one race director knows my car has reverse, and he has honestly never said anything to me about it.

Interesting. I'm pretty sure that where I race, simply having it enabled is illegal. I don't think anyone bothers to explicitly check, but if anyone is aware it's enabled, you'd be asked to disable it.

I think this is a story from the brushed ESC's.
When you have a reverse ESC the motor is controled by a so called H-bridge where the current has to go through 2 FET's. Only forward ESC's have just 1 FET to control the motor. With such ESC's 1 pole of the motor was directly connected to the positive wire of the battery.

So yes, if you do not use the reverse on a brushed ESC you can connect the motor in a same way as a forward only ESC taking away one FET.

Sounds like a lame place to race that's full of petty d-bags. Seriously, as long as you don't use it during the race why would anybody care?

Very rarely do I use reverse in racing... if I get hung on the pipe and I do a mental count to 3 Mississippi and the marshal still hasn't seen my car, nor RD and there's no oncoming traffic, then I feel it's warranted. I actually used it this past weekend when being marshaled by a novice driver who blindly stared at my car just a couple feet in front of him, I guess he froze and the RD didn't call anything out until after I used reverse (go figure?) yeah just a bunch of levels of wrong mixed in, but it was a qualifier so I justified it to myself, yeah I was a dork, but I was a happy dork instead of getting pissed off at the inexperienced marshal.

There have also been times where a marshal refuses to rotate my car when it's pointed the wrong direction, or they marshal my car backwards, so then I will do a J-Turn.

I only use reverse for practice. I would not use it in a race. Having the delay enabled makes it easy to comply. I'm not sure about the official racing rules, I'm pretty new to this. At my track, you are not allowed to reverse during a race, but there is not a rule that says you can't have it enabled.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Maybe that’s why the marshal said hmm reverse huh. Lol I thought that was a old rule guess not. Maybe they just need some end caps on the piping and I won’t get hung up