Originally posted by Jack Smash
Sorry Sammy, I was refering to the previous comment about extending the races due to battery capacity increases. I should have been more clear. Modified sedan pushes the envolope for runtime. Carpet places even more emphasis on that runtime. If you drive 1/12th scale modified, the drivers must conserve battery the wholerun and rarely ever are full throttle.
Five years ago, when my club decided on 12 turn motor limit,I was racing with guys who used 2000 mAh cells and would always finish the race. The motors were warm after the race. Now those same guys are using 3600 mAh cells and dumping. We still have the same 12 turn limit and 5 minute mains. The difference lies in gearing, motor-timing, speed controls and brushes. Mostly gearing and timing. But now you can see that at the end of the race the guys are slowing down because the motors are too hot and starting to lose power. If you hold a finger on the motor as it comes off the track you'll burn it. The finger that is, not the motor, so don't use your own finger.
It doesn't matter how fast the motors are or how big the batteries. You'll always gear and time the motors to last about the duration of the race.
Quick calculation gives me about 300 watt-hours being used to dump 6 cell 3600 mAh pack in 5 minutes.
Going to 4 cell and gearing same cells to dump in 5 minutes gives me about 200 watt-hours. Now which formula do you think lets the motors last longer. And with 4 cell you can use slightly cheaper ESCs because there is less load on them.