FlyinGN

ok. I odered the hpi 17 tooth clutch bell and upgraded springto upgrade my stock aluminum one.. and tonight installed it. Guess what? My Shockwave has a silver bell so I was told (and thought myself)its aluminum. Guess what? Its machined steel silver.. + it has the teflon white clutch shoes. I installed the HPI bell anyway even tho its a thinner material and definetly not as robust as the redcat stocker.. Heres a pic or 2 of the stock siklver bell that is STEEL.. interesting... So its safe to say that Redcat did a running change and upgraded th ebell and shoes??

Chubbysdad

My Feedback: (1)

Yes that is true. I got an order of clutch bells in and they were 4 different colors lol.. All steel though.

ehroof

hmmmm, i thought i said they were steel, and someone else hmmmmm, i forgot who it was, actually dont want to say who, said that it was aluminum. Oh well, what can you do?

Chubbysdad

My Feedback: (1)

Yeah I posted that all the single speeds are now coming with the upgraded shoes, spring and clutchbell. (thats what the boss told me and thats what I noticed on all my orders. ) The two speeds that arrive at redcat now, will also have the upgraded ones.(but there are still some alluminum ones in stock I am sure at the redcat warehouse.)

ehroof

the 2 speeds yes but the single speeds are suposed to be steel and better shoes and spring, wade said they were aluminum, that his last shipment of the xl's had aluminum but i was told they were steel since the new xl's were here.

AllAboutFunHobbies

Ya, they were aluminum, I checked them out, matter of fact I replaced one of the clutchbells this last weekend on one of the cars from the last shipment because it had an aluminum clutch bell and the old style spring and clutch shoes and the clutch spring had broken. But after seeing this post I ran and grabbed one of the new ones that came in friday and they are indeed steel with white teflon clutch shoes. FRIKIN SWEET, except here is the problem STILL with the clutch bells, they are NOT hardedend steel so one DO NOT USE ALUMINUM CLUTCH SHOES for any reason and two there is still a chance of warping from the heat as you can see the clutch bells are changing color from heat being produced and wearing out of the bearing hole. SO in a nut shell the hardened machined steel clutch bells from Integy, HPI or any other company that work are still a notch above the stock clutch bell. Size isn't everything the thickness of the wall of the hardened steel bell is still going to be ten times stronger than the machined mild steel stock clutch bell.

RedcatRacing

Let me clarify this for everyone.

All single speed models in stock which include the Tornado XL/Shockwave, Volcano SV and Volcano SV Pro have steal clutch bells and upgraded springs. The 2 speed versions are still all aluminum.

Darin

FlyinGN

Wade, agreed that hardened steel is better. I questioning is how do you know that the redcat bell is not hardened steel like an aftermarket one is? Without a Rockwell hardness tester you cannot tell. You cannot see hardness... This is getting interesting..

Frank

AllAboutFunHobbies

Ok, I may not have as much time as you do as a mechanical engineer, but I do have a degree in mechanical engineering and am presently going to school for a degree in Biomedical Engineering, I also machine and harden my own tools and parts for the machines I build where I work, I also cast my own aluminum and steel tooling, do my own machine work and know what cast and machine parts look like and how they differ. That clutch bell MAYBE hardened but it is a substandard method at best, it is also not machined it is a cast composite and only machined at best on the inside where the clutch shoes ride and possibly where the bearings go, the outside is probablly sand blasted and polished on a wheel at best.

There are several different methods for hardening of raw steel, Clear cold water, brine water, raw linseed oil, Whale oil or lard baths, and Oil I hardly think there using any of the methods other than oil, metioned since raw linseed oil, whale, lard or brine are expensive ways of hardening steel. The solutions have to be clean, the reason most manufacturers use an Oil bath is that the oil can be used over and over, not only that but oil gives the most favorable qualities for aplications such as our prescious clutch bells. A few of the quilities of oil bathing are an even hardening of the steel (unlike some of the above bathing methods), Gives the best proportion between Hardness, toughness and warpage(Unlike the above mentioned bathing methods) and the tempature of the oil bath method does not have to be maintained at an exact tempature, like the above mentioned bathing methods need.

So I will buy a redcat clutch bell and grab a hardened steel machined clutch bell take them to my machine shop and put them both on my lathe, and take pics of what happens to a Hardened steel highspeed lathe tool when you try and cut into actual hardened steel. Basically untill you get through the hardened shell it destroys your tooling bits.

I am in no way bashing Redcat or any other comany that sells Hi speed cars, at least there trying to improve the product, that gets a big fat thumbs up. The new clutch bells will hopefully give a longer life to the gears and clutch shoes and spring.

FlyinGN

ok.. I am waiting to see how that turns out.. I believe you.. Thats why I changed my bell to the HPI bell I ws just asking if you maybe did some testing on it.. Thats all

AllAboutFunHobbies

LMAO , sorry, I'm always up to a challenge. I'll post some pics in a week or so, just for the sak of curiosity.

slide150

i guess time for me to change to single speed......wow shows how outta touch i've been i havent beeo on here in months

FlyinGN

Id agree. Notice ALL the high end cars are all single speed. There is just too much that can go wrong with a 2 speed..

ehroof

true but i have a few that are 2 speed, jato, tmaxx, hpi rs4 evo, kyosho fw05t. Once i changed my clutch bell i was pretty much ok, only the 2 speed shifter seems to be a problem, its not consistent but crack the fix to that too!!!!