Digging this one up eh?? Has anyone noticed how delta winds and wye wind motors have a major difference in motor drag when spun bye hand?

With the phases shorted or not?

Different brands have differences in feel but within the same brand delta and wye have always felt the same to me. That's without shorting the phases together. But I've only had Tekins and Novaks to compare where I had one with delta and another with wye.

Not shorted... I have noticed all of my Tekins spin very freely when turned bye hand even my 1900kv 4 pole e-buggy motor. While my SchuurSpeed 13.5 and fantom fr-1 8.5 have dramatically more "rotor cog" I guess its called . Its even seems like the tekin rolls thru the corners better on carpet . However the tekin 13.5 gets smoked bye the SchuurSpeed 13.5 coming out of corners.

I call it "magnetic detent" but "rotor cog" is just as good.

This has nothing to do with the wind. It is a function of rotor magnet and stator design. Tekin T8 motors have very little rotor cog compared to the Castle 15 series but they both work well and produce power.

At one time I had two Neu ("Genuine Neu" - manufactured by Neu Motos) 1512 2.5D motors. (1512 is the same size as the Tekin T8 Buggy motor and the Castle 2650.) One felt like a Castle and one felt like a Tekin. I called Neu to ask why they were so different and was told it was a design change to reduce no-load current. The one with less rotor cog was newer. Nothing to do with the wind.

Right now I have a Castle 1717 in my 1/8th Truggy. Being bigger in every way than the 15 series, you would naturally thing the rotor cog would be stronger. But it is not.