Originally Posted by
The Lycan
I've been reading and spoke to a racer at my local track that link cars aren't consistent from week to week. Does this hold true with the AE12R5? My concern is that I don't want to have to chase setup each weekend at my home track. Is it necessary to buy the brushless parts if I am going to run a brushless motor? Thanks for your help in advance.
In my opinion, the link cars are VERY consistent from week to week. If the track conditions don't change, the car stays fine. On the other hand, my experience with t-bar cars is that they tend to change over time as the t-bars wear, and the change can be so subtle that you don't notice it happening, you just get a tiny bit slower each run and can't quite put your finger on what's wrong.
I didn't have my R5 long enough to say of it stayed consistent from week to week, I only had it out to race once, then had to sell it. Not that I thought anything was wrong with it, at the time my track had no R5 parts in stock and I prefer to race a car with lots of parts support at the track.
Associated does make a newer pod for the car that is more suited to brushless motors, but it's not a necessity. The kit as it comes is pretty brushless friendly. The only thing the optional pod does is move the motor a few mm to get it perfectly centered on the car's centerline. I've run brushless in sesveral cars and only one of them had the motor dead center. I can't say it's much difference if any.