High Speed Pursuits

While I'm in love with the dragster, I felt like I needed a more general purpose RC vehicle. I wanted to keep my parts current so I decided to look for another vehicle that runs on brushless & lipo power. I think that if and when my dragster starts running consistent 100mph passes, I will probably retire the chassis and put the motor and battery in another vehicle since it would be a tragedy to let them sit on the shelf. Now this lead me to the conclusion that I need to build 2 vehicles. Why? Because 2 is more fun than 1. My next 2 victims will be a stadium truck and a pan/touring car. I chose these because they are both 2wd, and both can run on the parts I already have. So in my mind at least I'm getting a 3 for 1 deal. I also can test a variety of parts in many different setups so that anyone wanting to know how a particular combination works doesn't need to spend their time and money working out details that many people have already tried.

The Stadium Truck

In a game of chance I have acquired a Traxxas VXL Brushless Rustler. For the Naive the rustler is this: http://www.traxxas.com/products/electric/rustler3708/trx_rustler.htm . Traxxas claims that it is "The Fastest Ready-To-Race electric stadium truck you can buy." I thought it would be a good idea to hold Traxxas to their word and test out the truck.

This truck already has a brushless motor in it, the "Velineon Brushless Power System." http://www.traxxas.com/products/electric/rustler3708/images/velineon_motors_both.jpg. While this should go pretty fast, at some point the Mamba will find its way into the truck and well see if that makes a difference.

For a few magic beans I managed to get a 3s 11.1V 5000mah Lipo pack from Max Amps. Traxxas says I need a 6000mah lipo and gearing, but whatever, the 5000mah came in the RTR run kit. The kit also included a pretty cool Hyperion charger (More on this in another post) and a Lipo bag (to conceal explosions?). http://www.maxamps.com/proddetail.php?prod=VXLRTRKIT-5000-111&cat=75 . Going along with Traxxas's claim this kit portends to propell my little rustler to 70+mph. Sounds fun.

I don't have any real goals for this vehicle except to make it fun. I wanted something that I can play around this at the beach or the parking lot, yet is really fast, and this seems to be the thing. I will review the VXL truck in depth next week, so check back for an ultra boring a long post about it.

I have modified the truck already. There seems to be a glut of wheelie bars and wheelie bar accessories for this truck. This led me to the conclusion that this truck might do a wheelie with the high voltage battery that I chose for it. so on go the wheelie bars. Pictures will come soon.

Formula 1 Cars are fast.

The Touring Car I spoke of will be a Tamiya F103GT Pan/Touring car chassis. I chose this because it has direct 2wd, it is light, and it is cheap. It also has many option parts, and my components that I already have should fit right in. This chassis is made to accept regular touring car bodies and tires, so that makes it easy to complete. It does come with a little scrawny brushed motor, which will either be annihilated by my lipo pack or never used. I have not received this kit yet, but when I do ill include some build photos and the modified parts I choose for it.

My goal with the touring car is just to hit 100mph. Will my Mamba Max + Lipo combo do it? Maybe, but if not I'll get as close as I Can and switch to a more capable setup. This car still operates within my original parameters, so I don't need to change my own rules.