vnmsgt

Caster Racing is coming out with the first factory assembled and built RTR brushless buggy real soon. They are taking orders now for it. Here is a teaser pic of it. The truggy will be coming out shortly after. [link]http://casterracingusa.com[/link]

fasstrevo

Cool.

I saw a guy with a converted 8ight at the track a few weeks back and that thing ripped!

KyJoe340

A sign of things to come. I'm looking at one of the Novak kits to convert my 5R.

FoamyVictim

Still uses motor for brakes, won't cut it on the race track. That's a toy. Any manufacturer's best bet is to make a different chassis with room for li-po and brushless system, and ADJUSTABLE BRAKE BIAS. Otherwise, it's great for bashing, or racing other buggies with non adjustable brake bias. If you take that one up against something with good brakes, it'll get SMOKED on a race track in the hands of the same driver.

kvrc

foamyvictom you are wrong about the brakes. yes it will drive differently but all you have to do is adjust your driving style and it will corner great. at our local indoor 1/10 size track with 8' lanes. there are usually about 10 converted 1/8 scales racing there, all with electric brakes. many of these guys also run regular 1/10 4wd buggies. they can turn just as fast laps withe the 1/8 as the 1/10. anyone who races knows that if you can get a car to turn on a tight track you can get it to turn anywhere.
the ony guys that have a problem with the brakes issue are hardcore nitro guys that havent tried one out yet. many of these guys also race nitro 1/8 in the summer and they all say the brakes thing isnt an issue once you adjust your driving style to suit the car.

Furadi

I wouldn't imagine the brake thing to be an issue. However, most brushless systems still can't run long mains. and personally, I love the sound, noise and smell associated with nitro. Running a brushless would be like driving a hybrid car irl

FoamyVictim

No, I'm not, and I'm far from alone on this. When my brake bias is wrong(50/50 like electric brakes would be), my lap times are PATHETIC. Then, I make a subtle adjustment to my brakes, and all of a sudden, I'm hauling ass again... If you can't get adjustable brake bias, you can't compete with a nitro car. If there's enough to run a class of nothing but converted cars, yeah, that'll be fine. But that's not going to be the case around here for some time. [)]

stz28

A guy at our track just started racing a brushless buggy this season. I agree with Foamy, it needs better brakes. He ran a high end Kyosho last season and consistently placed in the A main. The electric was sick fast, but out of control. Last weekend, he ended up with me down towards the bottom of the B main instead. In my opinion, he had instant acceleration but just couldn't stop fast enough, or keep from skidding. I expect he will get faster as he adjusts his driving style, but brake bias would help, too.

kvrc

when you hit the brakes the energy transfers just the oppisite of when you nail the throttle. think about what happens when you hit the gas hard, the power transfers towards the front wheels. when you hit the brakes off the spur gear the braking power goes to the rear. if you have ever seen one brake you will see that the rear wheels do skid.
these cars are very different in a couple of ways. they usually are a little more nose heavy, and the biggest thing is how hard they accelerate on the bottom end. i have watched many 1/8 nitro races and usually the guys take corners wider to keep the motor spooled up in the power band. with the electrics guys usually race them like big 1/10 buggys. you can take a much tighter line and just blast out of the corners.
i will admit that i have never driven a nitro anything, but i have talked to MANY guys that have raced a lot of nitro and these. almost all of them say they can turn faster laps with their electric cars. the rest say they are about the same.

FoamyVictim

Like I said, it may work for some people, but I highly doubt many are A-main racers from a nitro 8th scale back ground. The ones that are, end up trying to rig mechanical brakes so they can adjust the bias. If not, they put the toy away and break out the race car. [)] It can be done, and it's NOT BLASPHEMOUS! I understand it works fine in 10th scale, makes sense too. If you got those little cars to handle any better, you'd HAVE to be Atsushi Hara to get the most out of it. As for the larger cars, it just doesn't work on a tight, technical track. When you said you saw the rear wheels lock up, that's because so much weight was transfered to the fronts. Then they brake and the car pushes. I run practically ZERO front brakes, so electric brakes through the diff would slow me down too much.

hakmazter

So wouldn't you be able to adjust your braking bias by what fluids you run in each diff?

KyJoe340

This is absolutely correct. Electric and nitro cars drive differently so you have to adjust your driving style slightly. Coming from an electric background, I'm just as fast with my electrics as I am with my nitros.

I'm going to open up the subject here a little. It's unbelievable the changes in electrics these past few years. 1500mah NiCd batteries were the norm just a few years ago. Now I have 6000mah Lipo's that weigh 1/3 less than my old 1500's. A few more years will see the weight cut in half again. Right now power to weight ratio is comparable between electric and nitro buggies but that will change soon.

A nitro motor is a mechanical thing, we've gone about as far as we can go with it. But with electrics it's just the tip of the iceberg. Brushless motors and speed controllers still have room for technology to improve them. How about a 6000mah battery the size of your cell phone or even a credit card.....it's coming. What's going to happen is an electric buggy that weighs 1/3 less than it's nitro powered counterpart and have more power to boot.

How about running long mains? Right now Lipo buggies get about twice the run time of a tank of nitro. All it's going to take is one of the larger companies to get onboard and develop a battery setup that clicks in as quick as you can fill your tank. Again, it's coming.

vnmsgt

Now that is some food for thought! Hard to imagine nitro being the slow ones. Imagine someone saying "I am looking to get into RC so what should I get?" and the response would be nitro is best for beginners to start off and then move up to the fast electrics LOL!

cluelessk

not really because electric is alot more matnnace free.

dicko

food for thought.

the 1/10th 4wd EP guys don't have a problem with brake Bias. the 1/8th buggies will be sharing the knowledge soon enough.

just my 2 cents.

sloppyG

electric 1/10 guys don't have the center diff though, which would make braking bias inconsistent in the 1/8 version

braking bias is always the same in a 1/10 with no center diff, but on the 1/8 it's going to be different in every corner due to the center diff

dicko

correct.

so the design of the 1/8 will change, or they'll use a servo for breaking like the RC motorbikes do for front/rear brake bias (rear off motor, front off servo).

onroad 4wd also use front one ways as a means of brake control. something else to consider. there's a lot of things that can be used. it'll be interesting to see what suits 1/8th buggies the best. the old school nitro guys like myself will probably be better off with the servo control. the EP guys comong in will possibly like something else.

time will tell.

Furadi

1/8 scale nitro is premier class racing for a reason. You have to factor in all the tuning that goes into it. From all aspects, clutch tuning, engine tuning, tuning for the days weather.. IMO if 1/8 scale was all electric it would take the rush and excitement out of it. There wouldn't be anything to stress about aside from having your Lipos charged. I wouldn't have any reason to go to the track in the middle of the week to test and tune.. IMO it would be boring.

Falcon XR

Agreed, however there is a definite niche for the 1/8 scale electric of road as well. I love nitro but can see the appeal of a brushless buggy. In fact I would consider one myself if performance was directly comparable, the ease of use would be hard to ignore in this case. Just my 2c

happywing

Furadi - Not having stress is exactly why I made the switch. I got tired of tuning and the anxiety I felt when I wasn't able to get to the track to tune. Showing up on race day and trying to get tune is a PITA. Then there's the afternoon tune when the clouds roll in...or out.

Falcon XR - When you say you would consider electric if performance were comparable. Do you mean that electric is too fast? Are you talking about handling?

lxmuff

Because you have break bias capabilities, it seems it CAN give you a problem. Without the bias, you learn how one drives without it and tune the chassis accordingly.

As far as being competitive, this past January in Columbus, OH there was the big race of electrics (300 entries) with many pro drivers entered. We had 15 converted electrics running in our own class. It was very hard to get used to the track surface, because most of us never HAD to run slicks to grip the track, but that is the way it was there. We didn't get much practice either because the 1/10 scales didn't want to get totaled by a 1/8th car in practice so the qualifiers were when we really got any practice in a hard run.

By the time the main came, the guy that won is a very good club racer in my local area and he got lap times within a second of the fastest pro 1/10th 4wb drivers (Tebo, Cav, Travis, Robbers, etc.). The next weekend was the nitros, but the track changed a little and the nitro times were a little longer, so it is hard to compare.

MorganSS

Cool little toy for bashing, but nothing will replace my nitros. I gotta have the sound, the smell, and the fun of tuning a screaming 35000 rpm engine

hakmazter

That's pretty funny, I understand what you are saying, but realistically, the electrics will probably be faster around the track then the nitros and it doesn't matter if it is a conversion or a Caster. I love the smell of nitro also....

KyJoe340

There's just as much tuning with electrics but it is different. I have a Mamba Max 5700 system in my xxx4 and you can adjust throttle and brake curves also drag brakes etc on your laptop. Obviously you don't have to tune for weather, just track conditions. Everything else is the same.....shocks, caster, camber, toe in-out, anti-squat, tires etc. I would say that with electrics there are more variables for testing and tuning, certainly not boring but different.
How about a 60,000+ rpm brushless? Honestly, I love my nitros for all the same reasons but I love my electrics also.

FoamyVictim

8th scale buggies and 10th scale cars, are very different animals. I've had/raced a XXX-4, and XXX-T. I understand that using the motor for braking works great with small cars, and when up against other 8th scales with the same system. But I can pretty much guarantee you that if two brushless 8th scale buggies with identical skilled drivers, one with adjustable brake bias and the other using the motor the car with adjustable brake bias will win. I know because when my brake bias is wrong, or anywhere near 50/50, I can't drive the car, it pushes like a dump truck. Why would changing the motor make that fact any different? Driving the car with a push wouldn't make me faster, even if I got used to it. It would still be faster with rear brake bias...

You said the rear tires lock up and drag when you hit the brakes on one set up your way. That's just because the front wheels slowed the car down, transfered the weight forward, thus allowing the rears to lock up. In that process, you lost your steering going into the corner.

This brings up an interesting question. Would a one way front diff get the results I'm after. It might, but it may make the car uncontrollably loose. If only I had an unlimited budget so I could test all my theories... [:@]