After a 30 year absence from RC racing I purchased a Pro2 SC10 RTR to see if it would spark an interest. Of course I've spent like 2 nights a week at the track practicing and getting back in the groove and I can see this escalating pretty quickly. I've upgraded a couple small things (shock oil / spring rate/ alignment) to make the truck work better on the clay and carpet tracks I have at my local disposal for practice.

I'm curious what is the typical upgrade path on electronics and if you can ease into things or if you really have to buy everything at once as a system?

In driving currently, I'd love to explore some of the modern ESC features such as drag brake and progressive brake setup and even throttle curve controls that my current RTR ESC does not offer. In looking at what's raced locally it looks like any decent 13.5 blinky electronics setup will get me into a competitive race class locally as I progress.

Can I upgrade the ESC only first? (thinking HW XR10 stock spec). Since it will work in sensored or sensorless setup I'm assuming it will work with the 4 pole 3300kv motor I have now allowing me to put off the 13.5T motor costs to somewhere down the road.

But will this ESC work with my current RTR transmitter / receiver?

I'd love to do ESC first and work on more advanced driving techniques with the feature set of the ESC, then probably move to a move advanced transmitter and finally do the motor last when I'm ready to finalized the package. Is that plan do-able?

Thanks,

Generally speaking, yes, you can (mostly) upgrade bit by bit. For example, changing a brushless ESC for another should not be a problem at all. You're already aware of the difference between sensored and sensorless (though I cannot confirm or deny that the HW works well in sensorless). As long as your receiver has the standard connectors to ESC and servo, it should work with any of them. I only fear you might end up a bit disappointed with the "progressive brake" and "throttle curve" options, as there may be less of that than you might expect. But going for a sensored system is most definitely a step into the right direction (of course needs to be followed by a sensored motor before it'll have any effect). If or when you might consider changing the steering servo or your radio, depends entirely on the quality of the components you got in there. For racing you should end up one day with a servo that has at least a speed of 0.10s / 60° (or faster), and about 10-12 kg of power. A good mid-range radio ($150-$250) from one of the top brands (e.g. Sanwa, Futaba, etc.) is often quite a step forward, too (you need matching transmitter and receiver then), but unless you're dealing with a more or less toy-grade vehicle, where some of these compenents are muddled together into one piece, it should be possible to upgrade bit by bit without trouble.

There no one way to get into racing. I’ve raced with people that have gone out and bought everything brand new. Then after couple races decided it wasn’t for them. Personally, I’ve gone the used route. Nearly all of the 8 classes I race my car is used.

Also depends on what class are run. Couple I run at have a very consistent RTR class. Most I’ve been to the entry class is hit or miss. Most pick a buggy or SCT class to start.

Thank you for the info. The ESC that comes in the RTR package is a re-branded HobbyWing 10bl60 but with all the features locked out so it has zero drag brake and no adjustment on the brake percentage so when you do hit the brakes in a 2wd truck all it does is lock the rears instantly and make you wish you coasted and used the front end to scrub speed as it upsets the truck less...at least so far in my learning curve.

Yeah, ok a little finer control than a digital "0" or "1" can indeed be expected. But braking in 2WD (RWD) will always require a more careful finger on the radio than on a FWD or 4WD (just something to keep in mind, as controlled braking seems to be the hardest input for many people to get used to).

This would be my order of importance for upgrading RTR electronics:


1) Radio - Single most important upgrade, based on what's currently available today I would get the FlySky NB4, more info here (dated thread but information is relevant):

• Which surface radio system is the best?
  

2) Servo - Some quality budget servos listed here:

• Which servo is right for me?
  

3) ESC/Motor - Best to buy both at the same time

• HobbyWing is decent, but I don't recommend the stock spec for high grip tracks because the brake is weak on the ESC, it does fine for low to medium grip dirt but carpet/turf needs a stronger brake so I would recommend the XR10 Pro
  
  • https://www.hobbywingdirect.com/coll...pro-g2s-series
    
• If racing stock spec, then things will get very expensive if you want to stay competitive, everyone is gonna say their favorite brand of motor is the best in the motor war. I have found it best to buy a 5% Certified motor to guarantee that I'm getting a hot motor with the strongest rotor magnet and lowest IR on the stator:
  
  • https://www.teamtrinity.com/xfactor-teamspec
    

4) Charger - for stock racing you can boost performance by charging your packs at 40A, more info here:

• Which charger is the best?
  

5) Battery - Get the highest quality battery you can afford, Trinity White Carbon packs can handle 40A charge rates without breaking a sweat:

• https://www.teamtrinity.com/tep2321-...m-bullets.html
  

If you want to save money, stick with open mod classes, stock classes are super expensive if you want to be competitive.


Good Luck!

billdelong Thank you for the GREAT feedback.

Could I get you to expound on the radio first stance? Is that because the latency and precision between the RTR radios and the better units is such a large step that it helps with driving consistency and feel? When I raced 30 years ago Furaba ruled the market, looks like Sanwa has taken that space but I couldn’t help leaning towards the T4PM from futaba as my upgrade of choice on that topic. The flysky looks REALLY good but I’m worried that as reviews are either great or full of skepticism as far as it’s actual performance.

I did scope servos the other day and can see either a savox 1528TG or Protek t130 in my future.

based on my local tracks it seems like either 13.5 or 17.5 Blinky is where the fields are at so it is what it is to get competitive. I race cars and Karts already so Im sadly aware that the potential for how fast you can go is relational to how much you want to spend, thankfully at the club level practicing and developing driver skills can help offset the equipment of others.

While the radio may have an overall bigger impact on your ability to control your car (and therefore making it ultimately go faster around the track), usually the motor and ESC is what's mostly regulated in racing, so it makes sense starting there, just to get legal in the class you actually want to race in. The actual quality/performance of motor/ESC might matter less than the quality of your radio, but again: you gotta get race legal first (unless you start in a beginner run-what-you-brung type of class).

Many people (wrongly) shy away from spending enough money on radios, as the result may not seem as intuitive as let's say buying a faster motor (especially in bashing), but in racing a good radio is actually key. It is after all, the only connection between you and your car. Everything you want that car to do has to go through your radio. And since you can use that one good radio you get for years and years, and car after car, one might argue that it can indeed be considered your single most important piece of equipment. (Now that doesn't mean you need to get the very top model for many hundreds of Dollars/Euros/Pounds, but you should certainly not skimp when you really decide to go racing.

RTR radios often have analog adjusters which need constant adjustment, or have digital buttons but no display to tell you what the settings are. They often also lack basic adjustments like dual rate. A radio like the 3PV meets the requirements of everything you need in a radio with adjustments and latency, but falls a bit short in ergonomics. There's diminishing returns spending money beyond that, but there's value in buy once cry once with the higher end radios, they can last you many years.

To add on what others have shared about the importance of a quality radio is that you need a radio which supports "Steering Speed" adjustment, this becomes extremely important on high grip carpet/turf where I typically start with steering speed at 85% with a new set of tires and then I add 1% speed after every run so that by the 15th run I'm at 100% speed and then after that the tires are downgraded to practice tires. I'll run the first 3-5 runs for the mains and rotate older tires for quals being careful to mark my wheels with a sharpie on the inside so I know what percentage to set my steering speed. Every track is different and folks will have different systems for tuning, same with brake strength settings, etc... very rarely do I not make an adjustment somewhere on my radio between every single race... throttle/steering adjustment is key if you want the car to be easy to drive.

I currently race with a discontinued HiTEC Lynx 4S and have a sealed Graupner X-8E for my backup systems, but if I were to buy a new system today, I'd get the NB4 from FlySky, though they do steering speed tuning a little different it's in millsec delay rather than percentage.

I've never messed with the steering speed adjustment. Settings like that seem like a band-aid to me. If I want the wheel to turn slower, I'll turn my hand slower. It's a nice to have if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not needed. Especially if you start with a radio upgrade before upgrading the slow RTR servo.

I've talked to some pro level drivers and they will agree with you, they don't use steering speed for the very same reasons you listed, however they are also getting free unlimited tires given to them which makes perfect sense to slap on new tires to get the car to feel the same without making radio adjustments, but I'm talking about casual club level driving where many of us are going to try to find a balance between budget and performance and that's where I tune my car with half worn out tires first, then when I put a new set of tires on and the car feels twitchy, I dial back the radio for the tires and adjust accordingly until the tires are about 50% worn down to maximize my budget where tires are by far the most expensive item... for a big race I'll splurge on new tires but for club racing I'm gonna pinch my pennies and let the radio equipment do what it was designed for

I'm a penny pincher too. This was one of my front tyres after one of my finals yesterday.



I adjust my hands instead of the radio when I want to turn slower.