ejc34710

Why do these threads keep popping up, good lord. Electric is not better than nitro, that is YOUR preference. Faster does not mean better, nor does cleaner or quieter.... They both have their pros and cons. Electric is like watching an old black and white movie with no sound. Nitro is watching a movie in 3d with surround.... But, that's my opinion.

Nitro Fumes

I have nitro and gas. I don't care for electric. When I originally got into this hobby, nitro was king, that was in '83. No RTR's and kits only.

t-max97

My Feedback: (9)

Come on foxy I think your the one being a bit biased, Its ALL a matter of opinion you cant write down pro's and cons for each because everyone's list would be different. And I dont think the hobbies status should be measured by how many over priced electrics traxxas sales.

nitroexpress

You are usually accurate with your facts, but in this case, you're wrong.

The IFMAR 1/8 Off-Road World Championship is a worldwide competition. BTW, the 2012 champion is not an American.

yakfish

My Feedback: (27)

These threads are pointless. Both nitro and electric have their place. Some people still run nitro and have alot of fun with it and other preffer electric. Just leave it at that. It is all about personal prefference. When you really want performance it has to be brushless sorry but that is a fact. Line up and one of the many top nitro engines in a 1/8 buggy or truggy agains one of my 1/8 brushless vehicles and brushless will smoke nitro every time when it comes to raw power. Does this mean I dislike nitro? NO! Nitro has its place. I love the sounds and smells of a nitro engine flying past at 60 MPH! That is why I got into RC to begin with. You mean that little car has an internal combustion engine??? I have to get one! Thats how it started for me. But I am also a speed freak and love to go fast. After watching videos of people breaking well past 110-120 MPH in brushless 1/8 buggies and GT cars while I has having a hard time getting past 70 MPH in my nitro Inferno GT I made the switch. I still have nitro but I find myself running brushless much more often.


Edit: to those people who say that faster doesn't equal better answer this. What is one of the first questions asked by a bystander who is watching you run you cars? Of course they ask "how fast des it go?" or they will say something "like wow that thing is fast!" The point is to 99.9% percent of people who are interested in this hobby are interested because these cars are fast. How popular would 1/8 buggy be if they top out at only 10 MPH? The fact is that performance is important.


Of course this post will have zero effect on anybody elses opinion and the argument will cotinue. This thread will eventually get locked and another pointless Nitro Vs. Electric thread will pop up

HerrSavage

I'm not so sure about your so-called "fact". Would Cavalieri or Maifield turn a faster lap with a 1/8 electric buggy than a 1/8 nitro?? Not sure about that..

Electrics are heavier - and there's more to fast lap-times than theoretical top-end speed in a straight line with good traction on a street or whatever over a 1/4 mile...

yakfish

My Feedback: (27)

there is probablly a point on a track where too much power would be a deterant. I'm not a racer so I don't know where that point would be. Electrics though would benifit from more wieght. I bet if you were a racer running brushless and it was too powerfull to be effective on the track and you started adding wieght to the buggy you would see your lap times drop. More wieght would equal more traction and if the buggy is over powered more traction is what is needed.

Foxy

That was actually what I meant when I said it was an inappropriate analogy. Although 1/8th IC buggy is a worldwide discipline, it is by far the most popular class in the US (despite not being so in other countries) making the superbowl analogy somewhat more valid after all. I was rambling a bit and thinking out loud when I wrote that, sorry.

Ttowntoolman

I race indoor Nitro dirt oval in the winter sometimes.......Moody Auto .com Monee Ill.

I race dirt oval Nitro 1/8th scale latemodel durring the summer in two different classes. We have guys coming from different states all the time to race with us. There are always guys bringing Electric 1/8th scale latemodels to run with us. THEY LOOSE! Does not matter what they are running, they loose. We have tried to put them into there own class and the class always dies. They are allowed to run whatever motor/esc combo they want the only limit is 4s. Even our "stock" nitro latemodel class is to fast for them. When you compair the two using dirt oval rules, electric cant even compair. Just an FYI Dirt Oval style.

t-max97

My Feedback: (9)

Ha then Its going to handle like a brick.

Foxy

Hardly surprising if you are on a speed oriented circuit and you limit their rpm to a point that they can't compete. lol.

Think about it, the nitros turn what, 35k rpm? Plus in oval, a nitro is in its powerband the whole time, so electric's big torque advantage is lost. A 2000kv electric motor on 4S turns 2000*14.4=28,800. That's quite a deficit.

Let them run 5S and then tell me what happens.

ER-95

Both have there pros and cons.

Foxy

I promise you I'm not biased. Tell me, what's better, more power or less power?

cumminspower5.9

My Feedback: (4)

Depends on the track surface and traction lol

Foxy

No it doesn't. The surface and traction makes greater or lesser demands of pilot skill. It's not the power that makes the wheels slip, it's the sausage fingered dude on the stand.

If cars had only full speed or full stop, I'd say you were right.

t-max97

My Feedback: (9)

Depends on the circumstances and the vehicle, if you keep adding power to something its going to fail somewhere, and electric isn't always more powerfull than nitro. Sure if you go get a high end brushless lipo setup it will typically beat a high end nitro in a drag race but more power isn't always better, slow and steady wins the race lol not that nitro is slow.

ejc34710

If its all about the speed, i can just strap 4 "E" rocket motors on a 1/12 carpet knife.....

HerrSavage

Exactly - the only place an electric really wins in speed is on a 1/4 mile stretch of straight pavement..

I've only ever been a slacker club racer at the local track, but more power is the last thing I need to become faster racing. Maybe the top %5 of buggy racers can really take advantage of the power of the higher end nitro engines. The rest are spinning tires, and getting out of position, making mistakes, etc.. from too much power.. - nitro power. Insofar as you're talking about 1/8 buggy offroad racing, most nitro engines are TOO poweful to get the best laptimes.

Foxy

Depends on what circumstances? At all scales there is a brushless set you can buy over a counter that flat out destroys any nitro engine in the same class for power.

Also, slow and steady wins the race? You know that's just something we tell noobs so they don't go WOT all over the track until they learn how to go fast, right? Consistency and technique win races.

This track thing needs to be put down now. The reason electric isn't faster round some tracks is because not even a rocket ship would be faster round those tracks, they are designed to limit the speed of the race and therefore make technique count more. If they made the tracks for electric speeds, they would be much bigger and straighter tracks, and then the racing would be like it is in real life, whoever has the biggest wallet wins. Thank god track designers long ago made sure that a fat wallet wasn't the be-all-and-end-all of racing by making technical tracks.

Case in point, top gear test track...the old classic, one of my favorite comparisons, Lamborghini Murcielago vs Mitsubishi EVO9 440, despite the fac that the lambo is a significantly faster car than the 440, it couldn't pull away. If you had a lamborghini, would you have sold it and bought an evo after seeing that?

HerrSavage

Foxy

The only place? So Adam Drake couldn't beat you in a nitro if he was driving an electric?

Thank you very much for making my point for me, although you seem to think it indicates the opposite...the tracks impose the limits, not the powerplants. Nitro doesn't suddenly get better jsut because a track is short and technical, all it does is remove the electric advantage. Electric still has more power. You can keep telling me that you don't care about power because its not usable on a track or that you would sacrifice power for sound and smell, but all of that is your opinion, the fact remains electric is more powerful.

I can't be bothered with this anymore, let me make it real simple. Electric=more power. More power=better, whether or not you can always 'use' that power.

A go-kart is faster round a go-kart track than a Bugatti Veyron. Therefore Go-karts are just as good as bugattis! Yay.

Foxy

Wow, your explanation of where I'm going wrong really made it clear to me...oh, wait...

HerrSavage

You seem to have a very cheesy obsession with POWER. POWER IS BETTER!! bla bla.. Yeah, we get it.

Insofar as you're talking about racing on tracks in the real world...., it's not all about power.

And anyway, all this hysterical ranting on about "power", like some jet freak barking down the throats of people who still enjoy running prop airplanes, thank you very much.. Sorry foxy - it's a stupid soapbox to stand on - "my RC car has more POWER than yours - and is therefore better..." - and in any case just perpetuates the whole stupid nitro vs. electric nonsense..

cumminspower5.9

My Feedback: (4)

Touche Foxy

firestone

nitro or electric who cares some people like nitro and some like electric