E-CRT...15 minutes!
 

Hello,

I'm sure some of you will think it's lame to be so happy about a 2nd place finish but I've got to tell someone how thrilled I was yesterday! I headed down to my local track armed with my Nitro CRT and my Electric CRT. Now and then we have enough Electric Truggy/E-Maxx/E-Revo guys that we do run a class but I figured if there was not enough I'd run with the Nitro Monster guys...well, only one of those guys showed up and since I run my Nitro CRT with the truggy class my only option was to run in a full heat (7) of 1/8th scale buggies. In qualifying I was very pleased and qualified 3rd.

Now, I had NEVER run my Electric truck for more than 5 mintues in a race. Last year I had 3200 LiPos which JUST made 5 minutes with a warm up lap or two. Plus last year I had plenty of thermal issues with my old Schulze 18.97 and I'm not exactly running the most efficient motor. Anyway I was told the main was to be 15 minutes (many times this track runs 10 mins, but because of the low turn out they decided to go a little longer.) This year I switched over to the Trakpower 4900 batteries and while I've run them for a while in practice, I'd not tried going for a long race yet...I had my Nomadio voltage sensor set at a very safe level and headed out to the start line.

I decided to take it easy in the hopes of finishing the race. I still ran a quick pace when in traffic or making a pass but when I was all alone I decided to just give it what it needed and try to conserve battery. At the 5 minute mark, the truck was running fine, voltage was looking good. At 10 minutes I was still in the low 15's for voltage. At 13 minutes I started to get worried and saw the voltage go down into the low 14's but I kept going and by the end I had worked my way into a very solid 2nd place and finished under full power. Voltage was still around 14.

Oddly enough, I think not slamming the throttle everywhere helped. Trying to drive conservative kept my lines very clean and reduced wheelspin. I can't wait to do another 15 minute race next week!

DM

Cool, that sounds awesome! Congrats on the race, way to go!!

May I ask what motor/gearing you were running? And how were the temps at the end.

Thanks for sharing.

Daf

congrats to you!:p

Congrats!! And this was all on the Trakpower 4900 battery? Impresive... for it to last a full 15 minutes of racing.

My E-CRT has the LSP ring & pinion mod, 46 tooth Kyosho spur and I was running a 10T pinion...which was crazy fast - no one was pulling me down the HUGE straight. The motor is one of those "mystery" XLT-1's from Fine Design...I don't know what the kV is so it's hard to compare...my guess is a 7XL, maybe a 6XL...it is a bit faster than I'd like, I do drop the 9 tooth pinion in for some tracks...

Temps...well, pretty darn good I think...159 on the motor, just 99 on the speedo, I don't recall the battery temp but it wasn't bad as I recall. Only note on these temps, the speedo has a nice fan right on it and it runs till I unplug the battery so the race ended, I came down, grabbed the truck, went to my bench and took off the body, it had maybe 1-2 mins of no running, just fan, which may give slightly lower temps on both the speedo and motor than their peak when it came off the track.

DM

I know! I didn't think it was possible given my motor but it lasted...incredible. No warm up laps but maybe next time I'll take it around a few...

DM

I've got another race report...just got back from another Sunday at the track. This time, there was a full round of 7 MT (Revo) trucks so I decided to run with them. These guys are not exactly the most courteous racers. I was bashed up and down in the qual rounds and ended up A3. For the main, I figured the gloves were off. Rain was looming so we were to run a 10 min main. The start was ugly but I managed to zip through the mess. I lead the first lap and never looked back. It was a little unfair to these Revo guys - I know that - but I did put two laps on 2nd place in 10 minutes. And I did pit once to keep it fair - well sort of...

In the end, my E-CRT time was 15 seconds better than my Nitro-CRT main (where I finished A2)!

Temps this time were around 150 motor, 104 speedo and 102 batteries. It was much warmer and more humid than last week. I did take a few warm up laps, my battery voltage at the end was somewhere around 14.9v.

DM