Granpa

Well, now it begins for you guys. The mad scramble to find the best 21.5 for your series is underway. For the life of me, I can't figure out why you went to an open 21.5 motor rule from what you were running. Of all of life's stupid decisions, this ranks pretty high up there.

Yeah, I know you were opposed to this, but I'm amazed since the guys running your series had to know our experiences in the TCS series. I'd help you out with information on what motors are the better ones, but I don't think stupidity should be rewarded. Therefor, spend your money and take your lumps.

Now, a word of advice on saving $$$$$. It will become apparent which motors are the best just by sitting back and observing. I was lucky cause a good friend started making 21.5 motors and some of us did some testing for him. The lucky part is that at that time he was making the best all around motor for Minis. Whether he is still making this particular motor is not something I have any knowledge of cause I haven't been to the track in a year. The R1 motor is worth taking a look at and is the motor I used in my last race.

Yeah, I know. But, Steve's a good guy and I did a bunch of testing on his motors and rotors. At the time, his was the best for the Tamiya USA track. Whether it is for your particular track is something I won't comment on. A very desirable characteristic of the R1 over the others is that it would run well hot.

patorz31

Well Granpa, the ORCA system we used in Western Canada is out of production. So they voted to use a spec that wasn't tied to one manufacturer. Hard to grow a class when there are no systems for new guys.

Granpa

The particular tire you are using has too much grip on carpet and I never could get those to work on asphalt. Not a big fan of those particular tires, but do like the 60D slicks with the Tamiya hard foam insert on asphalt. A good all around tire is a Sweep pre mount tho for asphalt, my favorites are the Atomics.

Just a tip, if you want any useful advice, please give the type of track, grip level, whether the track is big and open or smaller and technical.

The amount of toe out is specified in degrees and 1.5mm doesn't give me a clue. If you mean you have 1.5mm spacer in the steering link, that might help this who use a spacer in that link, but I don't use one cause I'm constantly fiddling with the amount of toe. This is a much overlooked tuning aide. I once chopped nearly a full second off of a friends car with a 1/2 turn adjustment on the toe and a 1mm adjustment on the front ride height. For the toe, one way is to put in too much and keep dialing it out till it won't drive straight. Then, you can play with that and expo till you get the turn in you want and the tracking. The amount of toe out is an individual thing and depends on the "feel" you want.

There are a ton of things you can do to tune your car. I gave you a # of things in a previous post with the most important being THE SOFTER SPRINGS. I cannot emphasize this enough. The stock Tamiya Mini springs might be useful for a BBQ, or a bed, or------.

Granpa

Yeah, I understood that. However, the open 21.5 motor route you chose to go was among the worst choices you could have chosen. You were brave enough to choose one motor and one esc before so it would not have been difficult to specify one motor. Also a more comparable motor for your needs would have been the 25.5. Just spelling out one motor would have saved your guys a ton of money.

The route you chose was as expensive as you could have chosen for the competitors. I predict you will have what amounts to a motor war with guys spending a ton of $$$ trying to find THE motor. I race with a very competitive bunch of Mini racers and for the TCS open 21.5 rule, most of the guys had $500 motor budgets. At $90 for a motor and $40 for option rotors--------.

For your sake, I hope I'm a wrong as can be. The motor wars are pretty much settled down for the TCS guys, I think. I'm pretty much going with my R1 but there ould be a better choice out there. New motor come out every month so everyone has the opportunity to try it out. I hdd Trinity has a new killer motor out now to replace the illegal D3. Have fun.

sakadachi

iTrader: (1)

While you guys were talking brushless, I was scraping gunk off my 60D's. For some reason they keep building up gunk and unless I literally scrape this crap off, no tire compound will revive the tires back to its original softness.

My tool? Just the Futaba servo box lid. And I have a hard bristle plastic brush to scrape the last of the crap out of the treads.

I did 16 tires... kind of tired now.

sakadachi

iTrader: (1)

I wish Tamiya had HPI's Cup Racer hex offset system. We already know this, but Mr. Akira Kogawa is a genius!

monkeyracing

iTrader: (10)

Well, Bob, as I've mentioned, there are a lot of guys with disposable income up here, who are willing to spend the money to buy the speed. The hyper-competitive weenie factor is huge and is what drives the price of competing up. The rest of us suffer as these asshats chase their tails.

The fact that our spec motors appear to have become extinct has left a bad taste in a lot of mouths, so a single source is seen as a bad thing. The thing is, we had a single source before with the silver cans and that went to hell, too. We had guys popping for 3 or 4 of Doc's finest motors each weekend. So really, for us, two single sources in a row went sour.

Still, I would be really happy if a solid, single supplier that we could all agree on came along. I guess the question then is longevity- how long will the motor be in production? We managed to get 4 years out of Orca. I'm still running my first one and I keep hearing it's fast. That seems a decent lifespan.

I'm still hoping Orca comes through for us by July. I really wish we could have got the reps to seriously consider speccing another 2200kv motor (made by the same OEM, no less. ) We could have had the same motor for even less. Open up the ESC to any "blinky" and you're golden. There would still be bitching, but there always is. At least the class would've stayed cheap.

The cars are still relatively cheap, unless you're a complete tool. Just the ratio of expense between motor/rest-of-car will change.

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

There's a very simple solution to this. Use an optical tachometer (less than $20!) to tech the RPM of the driven wheels at 8.4V and full throttle. Set your maximum allowed value to something sane that can be achieved by any 21.5 motor. Some motors will end up with more timing than others to reach this RPM, but the performance will be the same (given that the maximum usable torque is determined by wheelspin on a FWD car).

The optical tach method has been used by RCTech user Meradin for VTA, and he reports excellent results.

Imagine: no more motor wars!

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

Yes, it is certainly possible (as many Castle owners will attest), but I've never had the opportunity to check the system you are using.

scubierex

iTrader: (7)

So am I Jim so am I. I am also on my first orca combo from 4 years ago they are a great little system. I too agree switching to open 21.5 up here is a huge mistake, I thought the reps should have speced a motor then we all go out and buy it race and have a good time. Open 21.5 just makes me think back to the craziness of the red dot days which were rediculous in my opinion.

eR1c

iTrader: (2)

I agree that opening up to 21.5 brushless brand of choice (as long as roar legal) opens the class up to people having advantages based solely on equipment and ads a lot of extra expense w/ ESC's and Motors. I've already heard of some drivers switching out the stators, boards and such inside their motors so the can still says 21.5 on the outside. -doubt that is legal and I am sure it IS going on. The silver cans avoided much of that nonsense.

With that said, I notice the same drivers are still dominating after the switch, -this I feel is because they are just good drivers. I am running an identical motor as our top two guys and I am consistently 3rd or 4th ...I attribute this to their experience and better driving skills. So although certain 21.5 brushless motors may give you an advantage it really still comes down to driving the shortest line on the track. Which less experienced drivers will not do as well.

-----------

I had my first race after the switch from 05 to 05 V2. Definitely an improvement. I can't flip the car, its just way more planted. I can drive more confidently w/o fear of flipping it around tight turns after coming in with a lot of speed. We had a huge turnout this weekend, like mentioned I can usually get 3rd or 4th out of about 8-10 cars. Yesterday I got 5th overall out of 14 cars, -several didn't finish the race and we had a top TCS driver join us (who bumped my usual place down). Pleased w/ the new M05 V2 chassis and highly recommend it. Next race I am switching from short wheelbase to long ...i think the short wheelbase is hurting me a bit, no one in the top spots drives the short wheelbase on our course. Discussing w/ the guest driver who joined us his feelings were that the mid and long wheelbase is more forgiving and better for the larger tracks (as ours is). So back to the drawing board and hope to improve for my next race. Love this class ...the slower speeds really brings out the best in drivers and what they can squeeze out of their cars.

monkeyracing

iTrader: (10)

We actually looked at this. I even got one from eBay: $15 shipped and it's pretty accurate. A few of us even discussed electronic rev limiters. But, it comes down to there being a will to do tech. That's what's really lacking and why we moved away from silver cans in the first place. If there's one thing I will praise Tamiya for endlessly, it's running a tight ship at the tech table.

Very glad I'm not much of a decision maker anymore and I can just bitch about stuff. Life is good!

sakadachi

iTrader: (1)

Hahahaha!

patorz31

Well Jim let's get us a handout motor for the ATS series and screw the rest. I think if we can get it cheap enough we could do a handout. It would be the easiest solution for both our clubs.

Pat

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

This depends on the group of racers. Most guys that I've raced with will comply even without tech inspections. Some, however, believe that NO TECH = NO RULES.

I think I will suggest the optical tach for next winter's series in Omaha. Heck, I'll even donate one.