Originally Posted by
rccardr
Just to add a moment of clarity here: there's an enormous difference between a fully broken in and tuned Red Dot Johnson silver can motor and an out-of-the-box Johnson with a red dot on the positive side pip on the endbell (note: there are also white pips out there, the different colors denote the brush hardness).
Given the quoted price, I'm sure that Carl has one of the latter, not the former. Therefore Carl, your motor would indeed benefit from some sort of break-in period, either by running it with a slave motor overnight, or by giving it a brief water dip at 4 or 5 volts (if never run, that's less than a minute, or until the brushes are straight up and down and fully seated against the comm).
rccardr: Thanks for the clarification. I have a Tamiya spec johnson motor with a red dot on the positive side of the endbell ($15.00). IT IS NOT one of the tuned red-dot motors I've heard about ($50+). When you look into the motor it appears the brushes are shaped so only the edges touch the com...so breaking in the motor will help.
what concerns me: I've heard that TCS is considering going to a spec speedo and brushless motor because so many guys are tweeking their johnson motor and pulling +17,000 rpms from them? IMO a huge mistake,,,if you want to level the playing field at a TCS race, offer hand-out motors for the event. The great feature of a Mini Cooper is the fact that one can still use their old brushed speedo's.
Thanks to all for the input...