Gregg, you'd be proud of me. We went and ran the cars at a local lot that usually has soccer fields on it. I suppose they're re-doing the fields, as there was a nice long (probably 20 yards shy of a football field) strip of dirt. It was kind of a crusty sand, i.e. the top layer was firm, but once you broke through the "crust" it was quite sandy underneath with a healthy dose of rocks.
I was impressed with the RC8Be's ability to just soak up the terrain and keep on a straight trajectory at WOT (4S, 2050kV motor, 21T pinion, 46T spur). There was tons of wheel spin since the ground was so sandy. Rooster tails the entire length!
With a bunch of WOT passes, motor was at 140F, 3rd LED on the RX8 (IIRC), and about 95F on the battery. Ambient was just under 80F with plenty of sunlight.
I figured it would be kind of sandy, so I tried Pro-Line V3 Bow Ties in the back and Pro-Line V2 Calibers in the front. I was thinking that the Bow Ties would give plenty of forward grip while the Calibers would have plenty of side grip (yeah, I know, I have a lot to learn about tires) to give me some nice turn in response, and it actually worked pretty good!
Got the car pretty friggin dirty (hence the reason why you'd be proud
), but having a nice big air compressor at home makes clean up pretty easy.
It sounds like I'm getting some ticking noise under light throttle while cornering, so I need to look into that.
My kiddo's MERV didn't do as well. He didn't even get a chance to try out his new caliber tires. He went about 30 feet and the steering locked full left. We brought it home, and I'm able to move the servo with no power, but once I apply power and turn on the radio, it goes full left. If I turn the steering to the right on the radio, it'll s-l-o-w-l-y move to the right, but once I let go, it goes immediately left. I removed the cover and the servo motor just spins (when I remove the servo hub that the servo horn bolts to). From what I've been reading, servo is likely toast. It's a Futaba S3102, so I'm thinking of replacing it with a KO Propo PDS3101, although I'm irritated that I have to replace it at all. To top it off, the rear diff gear ring is munched too. I just finished replacing the front...
