fredswain

iTrader: (1)

Even a 4WD shaft drive off road buggy has forces from the driveshaft trying to rotate it. However the spur gear and the motor turn in the opposite direction which helps to cancel this out. Anything that rotates will exert an equal but opposite force somewhere else.

bertrandsv87

iTrader: (2)

In a utopic world every car has torque steer!!!! The question is, is it noticeable in any condition???? The answer is NO !!!! The only thing noticeable is the rc companies coming out with theories against the competition!!!! AND THAT IS A FACT !!!!!!!!

Robotech

There is a reason why the Hot Bodies Cyclone TC is basically a belt drive Pro 4...that's what the Pro 4 SHOULD have been. I have owned each of HPI's sedans (and still have my original RS4...and I can't think of another sedan that came with a slipper than the RS4 either) and my Pro 4 has a couple little tweaks to it for this reason.

BTW, the reason you see the Pro 4 as being a TC3 rip-off is because of marketing. The TC3 came out while the Pro 2 was dominating the TC market. HPI was already in the development of the Pro 3 when the TC3 came out. However, due to the popularity of the TC3 and it's "revolutionary" shaft drive (and the fact that you could push the TC3, without motor, and the thing would roll forever to show how little resistance a shaft drive had compared to a belt car...making people believe shaft = better) and the floppy design of the Pro 3, HPI decided to come out with a shaft drive car even though they believed the dual belt setup was STILL the better design. Thus the Pro 4.

Then after HPI bought Hot Bodies and decided all it's real "race cars" were going to come from Hot Bodies and HPI would focus on more "hobby" type cars the Cyclone was born and the designers got to do what they wanted to do with the Pro 4 all along.

Torque steer was one of the major reasons why HPI went with the belt configuration. While it wasn't the first TC to go with a dual belt setup, it was one of the first and certainly the best executed. There is a reason why latter Associateds, after touting their "low resistance" shaft drive system, went with a couple of belts instead.

heretic

Bertrand : you are right.

robotech : The first pro4 protos ( even before the one I witnessed) had the whole TC3 suspension on a dual CF plate setup . Not sure about the drivetrain. If anyone has pictures of what I mean...

Agreed,there is a big part of marketing in these releases. I'd sure buy a Pro3 for the hell of it, if I found one super cheap.

The cyclone release seems more to me like a way to compete with the 415. Or am I wrong about the release dates ?

Robotech

I know...

Not a bad car, and transistioned real quick with the battery laying down the centerline...but the overall design was WAY flexible. Even with stock power and on a bumpy parking lot track the stock chassis required a slight bit of stiffening even if that meant just upgrading to the modled graphite chassis. In mod people were replacing the entire chassis trying to find something stiffer. I liked it, did well with it, and eventually sold it because, of the four, it was my least favorite. (My buddy still has my Pro 2.)

No, and you're right that is what it was to compete against, but had it not been for the TC3's success, the clammoring of customers WANTING shaft drive over belt, AND the flop of the Pro 3, the Pro 4 would have been the Cyclone more or less.

bosco72

how about a belt on the pinon to the spur

daleburr

For what purpose?

RW Racing tried this in the mid 90s. It made the car super quiet but just added friction and an extra part to fail.

bosco72

There is a vidio that associated made why they made a belt drive car.The guy from associated said the reason belt is better it gives a little play when u hit the throtal and u don't get that torq but the shaft it is instant power to th wheels.So i thought slipper first but why not a belt so it will not be instant

Robotech

A company called HyperDrive made a pinion to spur belt drive setup for pan cars sometime in the late 80's early 90's. Since Associated's RC10L and RC10LSS were the dominate cars back then I'm sure Associated is familiar with this setup. Don't know how it would work with TCs.

The idea behind it was that as rpm increases, the resistance of the belt decreases. With gears it's just the opposite. I think the biggest drawback to the idea was people had to run specific spur gears and pinion gears. Because almost no one carried these gears on their shelves, and the Internet was non-existant, they just never gained popularity.

Xpress

iTrader: (3)

Another drawback was that you needed to reverse the rotation of the motor, which made the car handle differently, or have pod plates made to mount the motor on the opposite side. With two gears the pinion and spur rotate in opposite directions while two pulleys with a belt rotate in the same direction.

masterhit

iTrader: (16)

**Doh! Beaten to the punch!**

And you needed reverse rotation motors (for fixed timing classes).....

I believe they also made car specific pods that flipped the motor orientation to mitigate this. But, if you didn't have the right car or wanted to run it in a truck or buggy you had to hunt down a Trinity reverse rotation stock.

Mike Slaughter

YR4Dude

iTrader: (44)

I have it all. Pinions, spurs, belts and the pod for the RC10L.

Its all part of my little RC museum at home. I even have the Hyperdrive T-shirt I got with the gears as part of my raffle prize from the RC Thunderdrome. (yeah, I'm old.)

Robotech

Wow...would love to see some of that stuff...

You wouldn't happen to have ever raced at a hobby shop called "One Stop", would you? Was in Los Alamitos many moons ago. LOL

Forgot about the reverse motor issue...I remember looking into Hyperdrives but never had the money for it...I think the reverse motor/flipped motor setup was an issue.

CR0SS

iTrader: (5)

My understanding of torque steer is it has little to do with the belts or shafts of the car. It is all about the orientation of the motor in the car. Hold a motor in your hand and give it full throttle. It will try and twist in your hand. The same thing happens in your car. Those forces have to go somewhere. In shaft driven cars the motor is mounted so the twisting forces are side to side. In belt cars the forces are front to back. The torque steer will only happen under hard accelerating or braking. There is no actual steering of the front wheels. 1:1 cars have this also there is a reason motors do not bolt directly to the frame. There are motor mounts that allow the motor to kind of float. I have seen 1:1 drag cars with the front wheels lifted into the air and the frame is twisted from the torque. Look at a Semi truck accelerate with a very heavy load, one side of the front bumper will lift higher than the other.

If you keep a motor at a constant rpm or slowly change rpm the motor does not try to twist. Now how much these forces really effect the car is hard to say. As others have said for the average driver they would not notice it. Top drivers will notice a subtle thing like this.

Donn

WOW....One Stop! I raced there many times over the years...what a fun place but you had to be on your game when you drove there. I understand that the track is still in the back of the building! It was just to much for them to remove, so I've heard. Drove by the place a couple of weeks ago, I wonder if they would let me look in the back to see if the track is truly still there?