nitro-rob

My cooling kit arrived today, I am going to put it on tonight and will report back with a review.

So...short or long chassis?

redfisher1974

hard choice Rob.

DARKWAV

Personally I like the way the Blitz drives and handles jumps a lot better than the E-Firestorm, and a lot of that has to do with the longer chassis and better weight distribution. So if it were me I would go for the longer chassis. Besides short course bodies you could probably fit MT bodies on it I would imagine. You could mount a rear Blitz bumper with all the right parts but I don't see any real easy way to get a front bumber to work without some fabrication cutting and drilling.

nitro-rob

Its 50/50 which tells me I would be fine either way. The longer body would be a no brainer if I liked the bodies. I shouldn't pick an RC by the body, but....

I installed the cooling kit. Novak gets a D minus for this one. The heat sink is a replacement for the ring that goes around the stator. It was .4mm smaller than it should be. The manual says use a hairdryer to make it expand a little in case its snug and I burned the stickers off it using the heat gun. I ended up honing it out and getting it to fit. Its also not the width of the original band and a bit of the stator shows. The fan also doesn't fit on the heat sink in any direction without half of it hanging out and the only way I could get two bolts to hold it down was to mount it sideways (one of the two ways suggested in the manual). Its a very fast fan, though, and moves a lot of air. I have it running off the Aux channel and was thinking of putting a switch on it but won't bother.

Despite the pain it was it looks good and hopefully will make a difference. I put the same gearing on I've been running the past month so I have a good feel for how it handled heat before this.

A photo is coming tomorrow as well as a drive test (its raining now).

redfisher1974

Yeah would like to see a pic.

nitro-rob

I got ten minutes in before snapping the steering rack. It was about 50F, about 15F cooler than I've been driving at.

87/19 gearing, 35C 5Ah 3s battery, novak ballistic 4200kv with a ccmmax pro without the cooling unit runs 140-155F and tonight after ten minutes was 95F and it appeared to be levelling. When the steering broke the temperature was 95F and by the time I walked across the street and back to get it it was down to 84.

I burn a slipper pad every ten packs or so. I have a blitz slipper setup coming.

I didn't get to drive it long enough and want to try warmer weather as well as verify with a second thermometer, but thats the preliminary look.

AdamW

I hear that the E Firestorm is a great handling truck, but I have heard that the Slash 4x4 would kill it on the track. Have any of you guys raced your E Firestorm against one?

redfisher1974

Cant compare a 4x4 SC truck to a 2wd ST truck, Just not fair. Now if you compare it to a traxxas ruslter it does out handle it.

AdamW

So the Slash 4x4 will beat the E Firestorm on a track? I know it will beat a Rustler, I just was wondering if it would beat the E Firestorm.

redfisher1974

Yes it would.

AdamW

Ok, thanks.

nitro-rob

Its 48F and the truck is fixed. I am going to beat on it and do my best to get the temps as high as possible.....report back in a bit.

nitro-rob

21 minutes running wide open as much as possible. The front end was in the air the whole time, traction was amazing for some reason. It stayed between 92-98F with the fan on. Once running for 15 minutes I ran the rest with the fan unplugged and it went up to 110-115. After driving hard for a few minutes and stopping the temperature will spike up 10 degrees or so which says to me that most of the cooling is still coming from the air passing by the truck and not the fan. Then after 15 seconds or so it would go down quickly, about 3F every five seconds, much faster than without this setup.

Its not a great test, though, since its fairly cool outside. A nice 70-80F day would be better. I've run in the high 50's and low 60's lately and the truck very quickly heated to over 140 so I think this works. I will keep reporting as I drive the truck. As of now I would give it an A+.

The 23T pinion goes on for tomorrow night.

redfisher1974

Sounds good so far Rob..

nitro-rob

The taller pinion should say a lot more even at the colder temperature.

I just remember I made some camber adjustments, they must be helping with the traction.

I was playing with the speed calculator again and with my setup it should run 52 and 63 on the 19 and 23t pinion, respectively. It drops to 47/57 if the kv rating is dropped to 3800 from 4200 to account for load. Have these calculations been verified for accuracy?

redfisher1974

I can tell you novak rates the kv unloaded, So your 4200kv is more like 3800 under load, We can figure it out as my novak 5000kv on 2s lipo geared 24/87 hits 40 dead on. We can look at the speed calculator and just keep lowering the kv untill it says 40 and see.

redfisher1974

looks like you have to drop around 800rpm off the motor for load.

DarksideVR

Been doing a rebuild on my storm. For the record a set of STRC bell cranks will not fit on the blitz...I had to try Found lots of other carnage I will post pics later. Good info on the cooling system...curious to see temp with the other gear.

nitro-rob

I've been thinking about getting an aluminum bellcrank. The top half of the servo saver cam has worn the bolt through twice.

Here are photos of the cooling system. Its cold today. It looks like the test under warm conditions has to wait until may.

DarksideVR

nice. your banzai bar still looks good I bent mine repeatedly. I haven't pulled the pics from my phone yet but, I replaced my tranny case with a blitz ese case (gray). I was bashing and actually ripped the whole thing off. It broke the on the bottom corner of the case and broke a pin off the end of a dog bone. I patched it together and kept using it...I was shocked to find that I had bent both rear Titanium hinge pins badly They were the HPI ones and I replaced them with Lundsford ti. I also broke another bulkhead and the carbon fiber front brace...I have another on the way. I tried the STRC blitz bellcranks (as I mentioned above) they don't swap over. So I used stock replacements. I think that is all..Oh and I swapped on a new chassis.

nitro-rob

I've never bend my banzai bar but have worn the banzai bars tires quite a bit. Do you do a lot of jumping and is that what bent it so many times?

That must have been a hard bash to break all that stuff. I am surprised the titanium bent, though. What did you hit?

DarksideVR

I do jump it... that is usually when stuff breaks. flat landings from 8 ft in the air are harsh. lol

manamp27

Howdy....does anyone know if there is a quicker alternative to the battery hold down with the thumb screws?
I'm looking for something like an elastic or strap solution.
I do remember seeing something like this but can't remember where to find it.
Thanks in advance for replies.

nitro-rob

I've been thinking of making something that will hold the battery down. The idea I had was to put four bolts around the battery area that stick outwards from the chassis to hold a large o-ring that can be stretched over the battery. If a commercial solution is available, though, I would get it.

DarksideVR

I got those dark soul racing over sized thumbscrews....they are easier to use than the stock ones. not as quick and easy a stretchy strap would be though.