what are you guys using?
 

I am looking to build a brushless 1/8 buggy to race with the nitro guys at the local track next season. I am not sure which car I am going to get yet,
but I need to put together a combo that will run 30+min for the mains. I live at 4500ft altitude so I only need about 36mph but 40mph would be excellent.

I am thinking of these cars Losi 8, RC8 or the new Hyper 9. I normally race FE Boats so I have a bunch of this stuff!

setups I am thinkin of:

4s1p 5000mah or is 2p needed?
Mamba Monster esc
Neu 1515 1y
Nemis/ Feiago 8-9XL

Thanks Sean

If you want long run times...the Neu motors are a must. 30+ min. on a battery in race conditions may be a stretch w/5k batts. You would probably need 6-8000mah batts. to make that long time...prob. is the extra weight of the bigger batts. The MMM is a great choice for a esc. Castle has just about worked the bugs out and it is v/smooth.
As far as a buggy goes..how deep are your pockets? the "premier buggies IMO are"
1. X-Ray 808
2. Mugen mbx-6
3. Associated/Losi

I own a mbx-5 Mugen and love it.

We are running a Medusa motor. Zippy 5000 batteries and Mugen MBX 5. With a Mamba Max speedo.....works well.

Check in to the Tekno kits (www.teknorc.com) if you are going to be serious about racing it.

30 minutes is, sorry to say too long to safely go for unless you do a battery change. This is not to say it's impossible. It just is a risk for damaging your LiPo battery. You could load on a HUGE pack, but the weight will be too compromising for a buggy to handle in a few ways.

If they are truly running 30 minute mains, I would just do a battery change at 15 minutes in. This will take you about 30 seconds if your pit guy rocks it. This will still be equivalent to the time the nitro guys spend in the pits for multiple fuel stops.

Try 4-6S (4-6 cells)on the batteries. And 1P is all that you need.
6S is best to keep temperatures down. I run 6S always and temperatures of my equipment is consistently lower than others running 4S set-ups. However you must MATCH the motor to the battery you chose. Meaning that if you decide to go with 6S, then you need to get a motor with appropriate KV. For more info on this, check out Tekno's site.

if your running a buggy you cant go 30 minutes. battery needed wont fit under the body. go 5s mim neu motor and MM or MMM speed control

my 808 with a 5s 3700 gets about 14 minutes.

I was thinking 6s would not fit in the chassis thats why i was thinking 4s but if 6s fits awesome! probably go with a 1515 2.5d then. (I race Fast Elec. boats so I have quite a few motors and batts to choose from!) 30min mains are the norm, ( I usually run the computer)!

Nice choices! my opinion of mugen though is very low, I owned a mbx 5traded it for a losi 8t, truggies just dont have the WOW factor for me, so I sold it, now I am with out a car.

Plan your battery weight under 660g iMO.. I love my 8ight buggy, I am using the tekno v3 kit (got it at amainhobbies though cheaper) but impaktrc.com does sell as well. I have yet to break anything other than my rear wing after months of racing... very durable, very fast and most important very easy to find parts if needed.

I am running the MMM v3 & medusa v2 60mm 2000kv motor and get ~20 minutes on my 4s 5k packs at my local track running a 15t bell. This is about 34mph top end but it is SOO quick I really don't loose any ground on the back stretch, but you have to decide more top end or longer run time ;P We have so many jumps any faster just isn't necessary to have top lap times. I would say if I were geared 13t on a 5s 5k would get me pretty close to 30min but.. this is also a ton of stress on the lipo packs going that low in mAH. You will be forced to pit anyway in 30min mains so why not just do 1 battery swap.

PS plan on getting at least 3 lipo's as well so you can get through your qualifiers and mains.. and watch out if you get stuck in a "B" main you may need a 4th battery on hand depending on how quickly they run the "A" Main for the night.

Typical race night for me was
1) run a pack for practice, toss it on the charger (takes ~1hr to charge packs to 97% capacity)
2) run a pack (same pack) for each of the two 5min qualifiers (toss on charger when the first pack is complete)
3) If in b-main run pack (throw aside to charge at home)
4) Run two packs in any a-mains over 17min (Sunday events and proseries are the only A's that typically hit 30+minutes and will pit 1x to swap)

will 2 5s 3700s fit on either side of the chassis in your 808 and fit under the body?

Keep in mind 2x 5s 3700 is like 950 to 1000grams of weight

Well I live at altitude so the cars I have gpsd with Nova Rossi engines only hit about 33mph on asphalt so 34- 36 mph would do me fine, are track has a 175ft straight so I dont want to get run over but cornrering is gonna have to be the number 1 priority, lots of turns.

Darn I was hoping not to do a battery swap but thats just to darn heavy, and I JUST realized that 2 packs wont fit on these cars, sorry brain is not working been up since 3:30am

You'll love brushless then, instant torque.. so quick they won't know what hit them :) You'll be fine on the straight then iMO, both tracks I run at are about that distance and because the brushless gets to speed so fast I don't loose any ground vs the nitros. I will say I don't really gain anything on the back staight either geared how I am... so it's all about the racing and holding the line, but I'm just sooo quick in the turns most can't keep up.

Usually I don't recommend maxamps, but they are the lightest cells for their capacity. If you don't push them that hard, they are fine and make your motor run cooler as well, due to the smaller amp spikes. If you pair a 6s 5000mah maxamps pack with a neu 1512 2Y, you should be able to get 30 minutes of runtime and be faster than the nitros as well.

i run a 1515 2.5d in my buggy on 5s 4000 these pack weigh right at 500 grams so they are pretty light and wiht the big neu on the other side its really balanced, im geared for 41mph and i get 19-20 minutes of runtime on our track and its 130x100, now when i ran a 5s 5000 battery i ran a 30 minute main and my car dumped right as i pulled across the line headed for the pit..... i was being very easy on the throttle the whole race but honestly the battery was just too large for the buggy and was killing my body. so now i swap packs at the half way point of our 30 minute mains.

im trying to think of possibly a hinged type battery strap instead of velcro so my pitstops can be faster than 15 seconds a good running nitro with a good pitguy that only needs fuel will spend roughly 25 seconds of a 30 minute race in the pits. also to make the pitstops faster ive thought about using velcro on my body and no clips. but for now one guy pulls the clips and body up just enough to while another swaps the battery and then the guy with the body can just slap it back on and pushthe clips in, my pitstop our last race took 28 seconds because of having to thread the two velcro straps back through itself.