I was curious when I saw the Surpass motor last year. My brother Jake milled me an adaptor plate so I could try one in an A12. The 17.5 on 2s was on par with a 17.5 540 motor on 1s. These don’t have adjustable timing. I could see running 380 motors down the road. It does make the rear design potential easier since it doesn’t need as much space. I hadn’t done much to adjust weight, just ran it how it came out which I don’t recall right now. I did this last year’s indoor season and since we are on a track that is only built on race nights and on a limited time window to race, I didn’t have much time to play with set up changes. I did run on foam spec tires we race with in our stock class. I still have a Novak 380 motor when they had those available and wondered why it never took off. I know several over in the UK had tried to make it a class back a few years ago. These new Surpass motors are quite a bit longer, so maybe they have the extra grunt necessary to push a 1/12 car around better.
-Alex :-)