Antony Poon

Properchopper,

Many thanks for your advice on using two brushless systems on one boat. Would using one receiver on two brushless systems require any modifications too?

In regards of the gear ratio when using two brushless systems, what are your views of the new gear ratio? Should it be lower (say from 2.5 to 1.48) or higher (say 2.5 to 3.5)? I tend to wonder if it should be the lower one (say 1.48) since the torque has been increased near double and therefore applying a higher RPM may be possible. Your views please.

By the way, I love the red color of your newly painted Twinstorm! It is great! Did you add an air intake from the front? Where do you use the intake for? I have installed two Lamborghini intakes on top of the radio box for my Twinstorm. I use them to give air to my "additional" fans, which are installed on top of the ESC and capacitor/receiver.

Antony

properchopper

Anthony,

Whoops ! It's Radio Rookie you're referring to ; It's him with the Red Twinstorm & the insightfull engineering data. Don't worry, It's cool !

Tony

Antony Poon

Oh! Sorry, Radio Rookie! Your sharp red Twinstorm is surely one of a kind!

radio rookie

Properchopper,

Thanks for the compliments. BTW are you referring to the green or red paint job? My twinsotrm is still not the best looking at my lake. There is a picture I posted of a twinstorm with an Orange bow. Now that is really a beaut! The airscoop was pinched from a Kyosho F16 and when he installed it, it looked as if it’s factory installed. I was really impressed with his work.

I will try and post more pictures when I get the time to share some of the crazy stuff we are doing at the lake. For us over here is anything goes!

Yeah I can surely relate to that, pacing around with several boats is really fun. We do this all the time, from scale electric to fast glow F1 boats. We race sailboats too! In short if it moves, race it! Crazy fun! In fact we have been having so much fun that we have started to neglect flying our RC aircraft!

I will be interested to know about the results of your quest for the Feigo. Do keep me posted. I am still pursuing the calculation way just to be absolutely sure.

Oh yes, I haven’t installed turn fins yet and man I do really need the width of the cove at the lake to turn. I usually throttle down to turn or it will skip and hop badly. Also at full bore, it’s pretty hard to turn even at full rudder.

Yes the Yamaha looks pretty scale. You have to see it’s big brother with a 26cc gas engine. My friend grafted twin K&B 80 glow outboards on it and man this is going to be insane! He is still waiting for his props so chances are it wont be ready this weekend. Bummer!

As for my little Electric Yamaha, I don’t think it will run that stably in the 25 to 30mph realm since even with a 3s1p (11.1V) Lipo setup it’s already beginning to hop. I do have plans to install a BL motor later but am waiting to see the results of the Giant Yamaha on the twin K&B first!

From what I could tell from the hull, it’s of a Deep-V configuration and henceforth wont be that stable at insane speeds. Having said that running on the edge could potentially be fun too!

If you are interested in the Yamaha, here’s the link to my local store: http://www.hobbytech.com.my/
Or email Mr. Wee at [email protected]

I think he still has a couple of units left as of last night. Oh do check the pix at the gallery out.


Clarence
"Now what is that familiar burning smell?"

radio rookie

Anthony,
Thanks for your compliments too and no worries on the confusion. It’s probably logical to get properchopper and me mixed up because we both seem to be having the same train of thoughts with regards to the mods. I will assure you we are not twins (or clones), though we both own twinstorms! That is as close a twin as we can get! He! he! Maybe in our case with you now, Anthony triplets!

Propchopper, talk about great minds think alike!

With regards to your question on any mods required on the RX to run twin ESCs. The answer is no. Assuming that you are using a standard 2 channel gun radio, just use a Y-Harness to connect the RX to both ESCs. Alternatively you could also fabricate your own Y-Harness out of two servo extension wires by splicing them together in parallel. It’s pretty straight forward. Just match the colors of the wires and there you go.

If you have a multi channel radio with mixing functions like say a JRPCM9X then you could install the other ESC to an auxiliary channel and program in a mix in the transmitter to slave that channel to the throttle without the need for a Y-harness. On a twin outboard setup, you could go as far as to mix the throttle to the rudder to provide a thrust differential in turns to assist getting tighter turns.

With regards to gear ratios, it all depends on the motor to start with. If you have a high reving motor (i.e. high KV, e.g 4200rpm/v) then the motor is most likely to be of low torque and henceforth needs to be geared down more than the stock setup. If on the other hand the motor rev is low say 1000 to 2000 rpm/v then you may go either direct or gear up to capitalize on the added torque. But be cautious about the current draw when you gear up.

The reason I am saying this about gearing is to ensure we get an optimum current draw with reasonable performance. If not we either will burn the motor, cable, ESC or battery packs. That is why I do depend a lot on motor performance calculators like Motocalc to work the possible combinations out. I cant honestly tell you what is the right gear ratio off the bat. The other thing to note is that one motor setup on one boat will not necessarily be the same for the next unless the hull design is identical.


With regards to the air intake, yes I grafted the intake on to the deck and then used epoxy filler to hide the seam. A bit of sanding needs to be done to get it real smooth. What I did was Dremel out the hole on the deck and then used CA to stick the cut out T-Rex canopy to the deck.

I also made a cut out at the rear of the cockpit for the air exhaust and covered it with fine plastic mesh (the ones used for insect screens).

The intent for placing the intake at the deck front of the cockpit was to draw cool air in well ahead of the battery and motor and to allow a less sharper angle the air needs to make to reach the battery and motor mounted closer to the surface of the hull.

I don’t think you need to cool the radio box since you already have watercooling for the ESC. The RX and servo wont really need cooling. In fact by adding air intakes to the radio box may expose you to the risk of water getting into the electronics when you flip-over. If you don’t have watercooling for the ESC, then you could make one using a sawn off CPU heatsink with some copper or alu tubes running back and forth and then strapped to the ESC where the MOSFET power chips are (usually the hottest spot on the ESC). If the surface is uneven, then apply Thermal Grease (white creamy thing you get in small tubes from DIY PC shops that is used to coat the surface of the CPU heatsinks) to make up the gap. It’s a bit messy but works great.

Regards,

Clarence
"Smoker on the water!"

Antony Poon

Radio Rookie,

Many thanks for your truly professional advice. I will see how my ESC goes before really going to TWIN brushless systems. Afterall, it will be an investment of USD 250 and it does carry risk, in case if something goes wrong.

Perhaps I am using Intellect 3800mAh (14 cells) and thus my ESC gets really hot and my boat stops half way everytime. It is however, works fine with 3600 mAh (at 12 cells) but with less speed. I now have installed two fans on my radio box for cooling the ESC and for exhausting the hot air out. In addition, in similar concepts, I have used air intakes (those from Kyosho Lamborghini) and I have already clued my ESC, servo, receiver etc to prevent them from getting wet. For the batteries and motor cooling, I once tried removing the hatch and found it worked much better even without airflow. (I used this method when I was using the "Options" of 19T from Koysho with V-top cooling coils). This application was not very different from the stock twin motors but one of the two 19T 550 was damaged after around 5 sets of batteries.

In regards of the gear ratio, I am still a little confussed. For my burshless system, one motor is now replacing two stock motors. Yes, it is of high speed at 4400 rpm/v and therefore I have already geared down from 1.48 to 2.571. Do you mean if I intend to use TWO brushless systems of the same type mentioned, I should gear down further from 2.571 to say, 3.5 or 4.5? I do not know much about the calculation in relationship of having two motor systems except knowing that they should have more torque. I could surmise the speed should be the same but I am not even sure about this. Thus, I have been wondering what gear ratio I should use. Should I use a bigger ratio like 4.5 or should I use a smaller one like 2.0 since the torque will increase a bit. (Under the assumption that the prop remains unchanged!) May I have your views please?

Kind regards,
Antony

radio rookie

Anthony,

The ESC getting very hot and the boat stops halfway is a symptom of the ESC overheating or over current. Usually it is over current as the ESC is trying to protect itself from thermal damage.

The reason why it was OK on the 3600mah Cells and cuts out on the Intellect 3800mah is that it is very likely that the Intellect 3800mah has a higher C rating than the 3600 which I am assuming is the Pansan. The “C� denotes the capacity of the pack. In the case of your Intellect 1C is 3.8A while the Pansan is 3.6A.

Therefore the discharge capacity (i.e. how much current the pack can deliver) is expressed in multiples of C. For example 1C, 6C, 10C, 15C, 20C, 30C etc.

In some cases in Lipo packs this C rating is expressed like 10C/15C which denotes 10C continuous and 15C burst. That means the pack can sustain a continuous discharge of 10C and is able to momentarily (usually 10 to 30 sec) can take a burst up to 15C. Beyond 15C the packs overheats and in the case of Lipos they may run the risk of swelling resulting in irreversible damage or worst, explode.

Taking this into the context of the Intellect and Pansan, there is a difference between the two packs. From what I understand the Inellect has been quoted to give a considerably higher C rating as opposed to the Pansan. That is why the Intellect packs has a popular following in the RC car arena.

Normal high-discharge packs usually have about 15C discharge rating and I suspect the Intellect exceeds this. I am only guessing could be about 20C. Putting this into your context this is what I suspect has happened:

On the Pansan packs of say 15C rating, it only allows the motors to draw up to 15X3.6A= 54A.
On the other hand with the Intellect it could potentially allow the motor to draw up to 20X3.8A=76A

So when the motors are fully loaded, it will begin to suck amps from the battery and if the packs can support it, it will give that amount without considering the ESC. The end result is that on the Intellect, since the pack allows the motor to draw more current, it flows through the ESC and if this current is higher than it’s rated current, say in the case of a standard 70A ESC, it either overheats and cuts off. You could certainly up-rate your ESC but then it may cause a chain reaction by allowing excessive current through the motors thereby now burning the coils.

That is why I am pretty particular (to a point to being almost “anal�) with the calculations BEFORE sinking (pardon the pun) the hard earned dosh on motors. To date I have already ruined 3 BL motors, 7 brush, 12Lipo packs, 3NiMh packs, 2 brush ESC, 1BL ESCs by trial and error.

This almost sounds like a Christmas Carol sung to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas!

Oh BTW C-Rating also relates to the “punch�, i.e. the ability to give good acceleration. More C means more “punch� too!

With regards to your question about using two BL motors, you don’t have to gear down if you use two BL motors as you will have more torque over a single motor. In fact if it runs well on one motor, you could essentially gear down to a smaller ratio to speed the prop up. (in fact this is the design intent of the stock twinstorm, i.e. using high rpm, relatively low torque motors coupled together on a reduction gearbox to get rpm AND torque) That is the mechanical advantage of coupling two motors.

Having said that, the motors you are currently employing appears to be very high RPM (i.e. 4200KV). This motor will draw high amps at load and I would doubt if your 1.48 or 2.57 will be safe enough for a single motor application which could help explain your ESC overheating in the first place. Something like 5 to 6 would be more reasonable for a single motor setup and perhaps drop to 3.5 on two motors. Remember that the load on the prop goes up exponentially with RPM due to drag. Might be better to consider propping down and sharpening it as well just to be on the safe side.

Due to the efficiency of the motors, you could barely get away with the present gearing with a second BL motor but I don’t think that is a significant drop in amp draw to please your ESC.

Hope this helps and wishing you and properchopper Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Regards,

Clarence

properchopper

Hello and Happy Twinstorm Holidays ! I had to spend some time wrenching on my truck & motorcycle but I'm back. I must say that It's good to finally see some focused interest and intelligent r&d on the "Storm." When I got mine well over a year ago it seemed that I was the only one interested in the boat and endured a fair degree of skepticism regarding It's potential. However, after all, meeting and surpassing these challenges is what it's all about. So here goes :

Antony : I have the feeling that a twin brushless setup may be more trouble than it's worth. While I have no empirical data to back this up, my gut feeling is that two "high strung " motors might cause lots of driveline problems ; no matter what, no two motors are alike, and in the high-power realm of brushless, sourcing, synchronizing, retaining, and keeping intact one's motors and gears may be more trouble than it's worth. If you browse the " really fast guys " forum, e.g. Rumrunner Racing, no one uses this setup that I've seen. The go-fast setup the racers use involves single Hackers, Lehners, Pletts, and the like; either direct drive or with a single gearbox. I personally plan to go BL with either geared or DD with a Feigao setup from OE as time and money allow.

Clarence,

Wow [again]! I'm impressed both by your craftwork and engineering acumen, and glad you're on the " Advanced Twinstorm R & D Team " Great looking boats all, and the pictures are really cool. I'd love to see some close-ups & videos. I've given the Yamaha boat a closer look and, going with your impressions will put this direction on hold for now. Currently I have a new motor test planned; a friend at work who runs rc cars gave me a set of replacement motors he intended to use in his E-Maxx car. They're 550 fan cooled 19t drill motors and are said to exceed the Titans in torque and rpm by a bunch. They're installed and really rip on the bench with 14 tired cells; I'll run & report next week hopefully. BTW, as with your inventory of smoked components, I also have in my toolbox drawer sixteen, 550 sized, burnt-wire-smelling air [un]fresheners !

Tony
" Tune for Maximum FunStorm "

Antony Poon

Clarence,

Wow! With reference to your explanations, you cannot be just a boat lover. You must be an expert not only in boats but also in the scientific field or being an academic in related field. It certainly is not common that a boat expert would explain in such details. This is really good to have a boat racer at this level. Thanks very much for your valuable inputs. They are very useful, and of course really professional too!


Tony,
You too! Empirical data? That's not common words we use daily! I used this word only when I justified my research methods. We probably are somewhat in common when we go to work. Of course, at least we also love our TwinStorm too!
Yes. I agree with you and I have been thinking about the same matter regarding the use of two motors (including brushless systems). It is however, there must have some good reasons that outweigh the disadvantages when they design their prototype on the TwinStorm. As my field is nowhere near this, I will for different options too. Clarence, I agree with Tony regarding the concern on two motors. What are your views too?
By the way, if just as Clarence mentioned, I can remain using the original set up gear ratio at 1.48 when I add another brushless system (HV-Maxx fr. Novak), then my unloaded speed will be 4400 X 14 X 1.2 !!! I don’t know how it goes but maybe it will be overpowered. If this may be the case, I can reduce the number of cells to reduce the power to suit different occasions.
Today, I tested my boat with two fans and hull bottom water pick-ups. The heat problem appeared to be fine now. (But the temperature today was 12 degree C.) Nonetheless, my LL size turn fin failed to perform when I used 14 cells. The side of my boat hit the wall almost every time when I made my sharp turns. It probably was a result of my adjusting the rudder to 3 or 4 levels above the "standard position" (p. 13 of TwinStorm Instruction Manual). Tomorrow, I will try to use the Trim Tab with Fin. If that is too slow, even with better turns, I may consider to adjust the rudder back to the "Standard Position - 1" and remove the Trim Tab with Fin.
ps. I tried the prop (2317.48) from OE and it worked great! It is a much better prop than my other ones (437/3, 440/3, etc.). These few days, I shared the same feeling like Tony. I started to own my Twin Storm early this year when no one was able to locate one in Hong Kong. Now, I have found at least two lovers. Or perhaps just as Clarence said, triplets! Or many of you out there! That’s really good!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

calbridge

PropperChopper,
A quick technical question about your post talking about the Titan motor installations. You mentioned having to install another set of resistors on the motors to resolve some glitches that you had. What glitches did you encounter? The reason I ask, is that I performed some of your modifications & I ran into some stange performance issues on my first run. The boat planed off & ran fine until about 3/4 speed & then the boat started making a noise like the gearing went. Once I backed off the power a bit it seemed to run fine. I repeated a few runs & at about the same rpm the same symptoms appeared again. when I got home, I inspected the motors & gearing & everything looked good & tight. Do these Titans operate at a significantly higher rpm that might cause some kind of vibration problems? I appreciate any input & will list what I am running with below.

Thanks,

Joe
Grand Island, NY

Stock Kyosho Twin Storm
Installed 2 Titan 23T motors (I used the xtra set of resistors that were on the stock Kyosho motors)
Graupner 45MM carbon prop
7.2 v 3300mhA packs
All stock radio, gearing

p.s. I ran 21.8 mph on GPS before the mods running w/ a Graupner 48mm prop & 7.2v packs.

properchopper

Welcome Jobenty ! Good to hear from another Twinstorm guy. From what you describe, the problem isn't with the capacitors. My guess is that the stock ball/cup u-joint is causing the noise and vibration, especially under load. I've had that same symptom. The stock ball/cup is noisy, vibrates under load, sucks power, and wears out rapidly. I replaced mine with a Graupner u-joint [ p/n BJ 17 from Offshore Electrics]. It takes a little work to get it dialed in but it's very worth it. Drill out the 1/8 " end to 4mm, and shim & space it so that its pivot point is aligned with the outdrive pivot point, and you'll be happy with the results. Check out the picture of my u-joint upgrade at rcflix on the OE site.
Do stay active on this thread, I'm sure the other Twinstormers, myself included, would like to hear of your progress ; we seem to have a "synergy" thing going on here and will welcome any new input.

Tony
" Tune for Maximum Smoke "

calbridge

Thanks Tony,
Upon further inspection at home, I think the problem was caused somewhere in the outdrive / U joint. I have both the 45 & 48 mm
Graupner props that I will have to shim better becauce they both seem to have a little too much play. Also, should I run the stock prop a few times to break in the new motors? And finally, should I hold off on using the new 8.4v 3800mhA packs until the motors break in?

Thanks again for the advise.

Joe

radio rookie

Properchopper & Anthony,

Thanks for your kind words. Well, to be open about my experience in boats, I must admit that I am also pretty new to the hobby as I just started back in August 2005. My past experience with boats if it’s worth considering, were with full scale power and sailboats.

Most of my experience in electrics comes from electric airplanes and microhelis which I have been flying over the span of three years and I am now a full electric convert. The other 10% comes from my past time, ahem!, I mean day job in the electrical engineering field!

I have more or less given up glow powered aircraft (although I do still have a couple of glow airplanes) and have gone on a strict diet of Lipos and Nimh! With regards to boats I have also followed the same trend going into electrics and sail powered in-lieu of glow or gas and am now trying to apply what I have learnt in aircraft into marine applications.

With regards to the drive system i.e motors, ESC, transmissions and packs, both marine and aircraft are pretty similar in most aspects although marine requires special cooling and waterproofing considerations. The only difference is in the prop behavior due to the physical properties of water and conditions in between (surface drive applications) which I am currently attempting to understand and replicate in Motocalc to assist in a more informed decision on purchases and mods.

With regards to your 550 fan cooled 19T drill motor, you might want to bench test this motor by installing say an 11X3.8 prop (simulate an Octura 447, 47X1.4 direct drive prop) and measure the current draw. This will give you an approximate estimate of the current draw of the motors to be sure they will work with your ESC or packs. This will save you the hassle of the ESC cutting out or the packs overheating on the lake since it exceeds the Titans by a bunch and hence implies a much hotter motor especially considering your intent to use a 48X1.4 prop.
On a side note I did an in-situ test on the Yamaha’s motor at the lake last Saturday and this was what I found. The Yamaha is installed with a Speed 600 (china made no-brand stock motor) and I have installed a Kyosho 40X1.4 (Blue) prop. I used a Kokam 1250mah 15C Lipo pack and did a static test on the water.

What I have found by holding the prop submerged and the boat still, the motor drew 14A. This is the full load current drawn by the prop. Then I placed the prop half in the water to simulate surface piercinf conditions on full load and it drew 7A. Therefore the conclusion is that the setup with the Lipo is safe in whatever conditions since the current will not exceed the 15C rating of my Lipo pack which is 18.75A.

On the motorside, since there are no published motor data, I am taking the cautious route by making regular temperature checks during and after running on full bore. Not in the empirical way but by just touching the motor end bell to “feel� if it is excessively hot or not.


“burnt-wire-smelling air [un]fresheners !� ha! ha! Now, that’s a familiar smell!!!

I will try to post more pix from time to time. As for videos I am not sure as I don’t have a video cam. Spent all the money on RC.

BTW I have just uploaded new pix of the little Yamahas in action I shot last weekend. http://www.rcflix.com/photopost/index.php

Hope you like them.

Regards,

Clarence

P/S Happy New Year. 2006 IS THE year of the 30mph Twinstorm.

properchopper

Good Morning Fellow Twinstormers !

Jobenty, It wouldn't hurt to break in the Titans. The new brushes do not make full contact with the commutator at first and can cause localized hot spots. I'd run the smaller packs a few times, then load 'er up & let 'er rip ! Breaking in with the smaller prop couldn't hurt either if you have the patience. I'm glad you found the driveline problem & fixed it, although the ball/cup u-joint will re-create the problem as it wears out. The " Graupner Fix " will become necessary as you push the envelope, trust me.
Great news on the motor frontier ! : I installed the mysterious " drill motors ", re-tapped & red-loctited the gears, set the outdrive to the " arrow " for some upthrust to break the hull a little looser, and swept back my fins for minimum drag : FAST FAST !!! Low motor & battery temp, longer runtime with both of my tired 7-cell [first run] and 8-cell [2nd run] packs. My head almost exploded as I strained to visually estimate the speed. Had to throttle waaay down to turn. I'm thinkin' that with a sharpened metal prop, some fresh packs, and no fins the elusive T3 can be achieved. I'm looking at my budget for a GPS [ Garmin Foretrex 201 ], & could have some confirmed results in the near future.
Antony, regarding your turning dilemma, I'm of the opinion that the speeds that we're achieving, the Twinstorm's hull dimensions prevent it from turning with any degree of safety and finesse. Lots of turn fin help but on the flip side [ somewhat intentional pun ! ] create speed-scrubbing drag. The solution I've considered is a twin-rudder setup, although personally I'd rather put my money into a different hull. [So many choices, right Clarence ?].
Anyhow, yesterday was a fun, smokeless day ; ran twice, went FAST, gears stayed in place, YAY !!!

Tony
" Tune for T3 "

BTW, Clarence, thanks for the Yamaha pix ; vert cool boat. It's whetted [ whoops, another pun ] my appetite for a smaller, simpler boat. Check out the Flash Thick on the MHZ/USA site. Hmmmmmm...

Antony Poon

Clarence,

No wonder you have that kind of knowledge! I can understand now. It must be very useful to have airplane knowledge. I strongly believe playing airplane requires higher skills and knowledge.


Tony,

I found something new regarding the trim tab with fin. It makes the turn worse than before. Thus, I removed it and adjust the angle on the rudder to center - 1. I found the turns becomes better. Just as you say, fins create drags and trim tab with fins have even more drag. This implies that enabling shaper turns, adjusting the angle of the rudder is a better choice (with help of turn fins - I use LL size). However, it will reduce some speed but also improve the stability of rough water application.

Yesterday, after extensive use of my different testings, I suppose my motor needs servicing now. It became very hot even when I tried it for 1 min. I have to send in my ESC and also motor to Novak. Nonetheless, Novak tried dual HV-Maxx application and this is a very important message to me. They told me that the dual application on truck can be full load at 30 lbs and believed they could go for 40 lbs.

In the next few days, since I have nothing to test on my brushless system, I will try the 8 cells application on twin Super Big Block from LRP (with original ESC) and V Top. Good day, to all of you!

Antony

Antony Poon

Tony,

In regards of the turning dilemma, I missed a point that I forgot to share. I agree speed is one reason but the prop is another. I have tried a number of props and I found the one from OE ("2317.48" - maybe "1.4 X 48mm") gives the best speed for my setting. I surmise it is the wave length that helps the speed but it is also the wave length that reduces the turning ability. Now I switch back to the original stock prop 1.2 X 42 and found the speed decreases maybe a few km but the turning ability and control have increased a lot.

When I get back my brushless system, I will try using metal prop instead of plastic stock prop like now. I hope metal prop at 1.2 can help both on speed and turning controls abilities.

Antony

properchopper

Antony, Thank you for your thoughts on the turning situation. Now that my new "drill motors" are installed the boat is going faster than ever so the next challenge to address is getting through turns. I'm going to experiment with CG, outdrive angle, prop, and turnfin configurations to prevent the dreaded flipping. Until we get this situation dialed in we have a "straightaway dragster !" I actually had more fun running the boat with slower configurations where I could do full throttle [scary but semi-controllable] turns. My "dream" configuration" would be retractible [for top straightaway speed] fins which would deploy only when turning. Hmmmmmm. BTW, these "drill" motors are available on e-bay, they are great quality, fast, run long and cool, and are very affordable. I'm going to stay with these, probably get some more, untill the handling situation is sorted out. Actually, my next step will probably to prop "up" for more top end because my new motors stay at low temps with the 48X1.4 prop. Of course, a bigger prop would require trimming the cavitation plate on the outdrive for clearance, not a big deal. Keep me posted with any new info on handling solutions, I'll do the same.

Tony
"Tune for Maximum Roostertail "

calbridge

Tony,
I may be asking you again for a little assistance once my new U-joint arrives from OE. I looked at your picture & read over your previous thread on installing it, but I think I may need some more detailed steps. I will drop you a thread once I start the project.

Thanks & happy new year!

Joe


P.S. Did you mention if those drill motors that you are now using are available anywhere else but through Ebay? Do you know who makes them? & were they pretty much a direct swap with the Titans?

properchopper

Jobenty,

No prob. I'd be happy to assist you . When you're ready, I'll post detailed steps & pix. The Titans are fast & bulletproof, last a long time.
Mine only failed when I flipped & 1/2 sunk the boat. I think the cold water on the hot brush springs " de-tempered " the springs & they broke on the next run. The "drill motors " are exact replacement for the Titans. I've only ran them twice so far but they show a lot of promise, If it doesn't rain today I'm going for another run. The only place I've seen them is on E-bay ; the vendor was easy to deal with and delivered as promised.

Happy new year to All !

Tony
" Tune for Maximum Twinstorm "

properchopper

Hi Fellow Twinstormers. Got two good runs in yesterday, no problems. Sometimes it's good just to have fun without having to fix anything dockside. I'm learning to throttle back for turns [ my runpond is pretty narrow ], although my head hurts from trying to estimate speed visually ! I beleive 30 mph is acheivable with my new motors with some fine tuning ; new hotter batt's, propping up, trim & CG tweaking.
Anything new from the other members of " T3 " ?

Tony
" Tune for Thirty "

jolupach

Hey Properchopper,
I was thinking in changing the system of the rudder and prop. With a fixed prop and another rudder the Twin storm would turn diferent because the prop will be straight and would not push the boat to the oposite side when it turns. I`ll probably make an aluminum rudder and fix on it the original cutted and shortened rudder just to hold straight the dogbone and prop between the aluminum rudder and the boat.

properchopper

Jolupach, I like your idea. After reading your post I sat and stared at my outdrive and totally agree ; all that sideways thrust, combined with the propwalk from increasingly larger props we're using creates a very precarious turn situation. Combining the stabilizing influence of longitudal thrust with a dedicated turning rudder might be the answer. My vote for the optimal setup is the PIP dual rudder setup from Fine Design. Somewhat pricey, but probably the best turning cure as speeds creep upward. Keep us Twinstormers posted if you go forward with your idea ; I think I can speak for all of us by saying that if we combine our global knowledge, creativity and experience we'll soon be wearing "T3" [ Team Twinstorm ThirtyMPH ] hats ! Better yet ; " T5 " [ Team Twinstorm ThirtyMPH That Turn ] lol !
BTW, I just ordered a very cool GPS ; the Garmin ForeTrex 201 ; the smallest and lightest unit I've seen. Soon I'll be able to post verified speed results. I'l be eating lots of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches while my budget recovers !

Tony
" Tune for Maximum Cheap Lunches "

calbridge

Tony,
I did the u-joint mod tonight & it seems pretty tight compared to before. The only thing that I am second guessing myself about is the accuracy of my boring from 1/8" to 4mm. Did you use a drill press or do it by hand? I held the u-joint in a bench vise & eyed it up as straight as possible with my drill. There seems to be just the slightest of an offset when it spins & I was wondering if you experienced something similar? When I put everything back together & fired it up, it seemed ok but I would hate to cause future damage by excessive vibrations? What are your thoughts?

Thanks,

Joe

properchopper

Jobenty,
Yup, I drilled mine with a hand drill and didn't get it perfect either. There's a very slight wobble but I'm living with it. Over time it's caused some wear in the brass bushing in the driveshaft tube; Kyosho's Los Angeles office hasn't been able to supply replacement bushings for months now [ shame on them !] Make sure the final propshaft drive bearings are good, theyr'e ball bearings and I've replaced them several times 'cause they probably rust & get sloppy real quick. If you need to source them, let me know, Tower's got them but I get mine locally. Keep the Graupner u-joint lubed with light oil after each run, it'll last a long time. Also, I'll PM you re: your PM to me.

Keep on "Storming

Tony
" Tune for Maximum Smoke "

properchopper

Jobenty, disregard the PM thing, It's for another Twinstormer. OOOps.

Tony