Video: Brushless savage speed runs
 

I have been meaning to get some video for a while now of the savage in action (it's not real unless you post it on the net you know). It's just a short video of some speed runs. Nothing spectacular. I have taped the tires now as we were getting some strange results with the speed gun. We were getting faster readings on the gun on the shorter runs then on the longer ones. The car wasn't really meant for speed but it's still plenty quick enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RULD5BTvdSE

nice vid:yes:

Thanks e-mike. I got a chance to run the car last night with the taped tires and my eagle tree connected. The taped tires make a big difference. Lost a bit of top speed which is good and my handling is so much better.

The eagle tree said I was pulling just a little over 2000 watt. I can't wait to get this car on the track. It should be awesome.

Nice vid and truck!

Thanks. I had it at the track today and let some of the guys that can drive, drive it. It was awesome watching it give the buggies a hard time. It was just a bit of a muck around day.

Tire Taping.
 

Yea tire taping really does make a difference as long as you use the right kind of tape, and if you go one step farther you should also balance your wheels. That will help get your top end up even a little further, and help with handling performance. Just think about what having an unbalanced wheel on a full size vehicle does to its handling? If you have ever ridden in a car with an out of balance wheel it is rediculously violent in nature once you get the vehicle over like 30mph.

I have just built a balancer setup using parts from the T/H Dubro balancer kit, and will post up some photos of it this week. It was very easy to manufacture, and it really does make a difference in the way the vehicle handles, especially at higher speeds. The kit is too small for MT tires, but you can modify it a bit and make it work for your tires.

I'll be keen to see what you have done. I really want to balance my tires but what I use to balance the wheels has to be removable as i am using bead locks. The tires definitely need to be balanced as trying to hold the vehicle with the wheels in the air is just scary.

I am also concerned that the balance of the wheels will change quickly making the balancing useless.

Working On It.
 

I am working on getting some photos posted up for this. Once you balance a wheel it is good to go, unless you take the wheel apart for some reason or the tire gets torn open. Then you will just have to re-balance it.

The process that I used was first to glue the insert to the rim with a bead of CA glue in each side of the mounting surface. That is just to make sure that that insert does not shift during operation, wich will throw your balancing right out of the window. I then turned the tire inside out and ran a bead of re-enforced packing tape around the center of the tire (X2), which helps prevent balooning. Then you just put the wheel together as you would normally do. Axial beadlock wheels already have holes drilled in the rims to keep the wheels from bouncing too much due to trapped air(like a basketball). The next step is to balance the wheel.

Once you have a good balancer setup it is pretty easy to do. With a shaft assembly attached to the wheel it lays on a set of bearings, and you rotate the wheel slowly to determine where the heavy side is. It will lunge as it rotates forward and even travel backwards eventually settle at the bottom of the cycle. Then you need to attach some kind of counter weight on the inside of the rim opposite to the heavy side as indicated by the rotation test.

I use simple pine car weights that have a sticky back and simply stick them to the inner circumfrence of the rim. Some wheels may take a couple of weights before you reach a perfect balance. When you can spin the wheel gently and it no longer lunges or tries to go backwards, you have reached your goal. You will notice that the wheel now almost travels endlessly and smoothly. For added safety you can also put some hot glue or some other kind of addhesive over the weights to keep them from coming lose and becoming a missle. That would not be good. I hope this helps, and I will work on posting up those photos of my balancer.