RC Driver Electric vs Nitro
 

Hi,

Just received my copy of the November issue of RC Driver. I was amused to find an article where an electric conversion 8ight was pitted against its nitro sibling.

The editors of the magazine concluded that the nitro was still better than the electric. In their test, the electric buggy was better at acceleration, speed (they call it a tie eventhough the e-8tight registered 47mph while the nitro registered 44.55mph), jumping while the nitro won the traction & braking :surprised:category.

Hmm...:gasp:

Regards,
Joe Ling

even if they gave it to the nitro, its still good to see the electrics getting some attention.

Interesting... My guess why nitro won for traction/braking is because the test person/people drive nitro, which is quite different from driving electric. And so, they couldn't adjust to driving with electric (because of electric's smoother powerband, more responsiveness, etc.). If they were given a lot of time to adjust to the electric setup, I'm sure they would find that traction/braking in the electric setup is just as good as with nitro (if not better).

Cool! I'll need to pick up this mag at the local book store.

Alright, time for some lies/misprints:

In the mag they say that the two lipos are wired in PARALLEL for a 3s 4400mah pack. However thay managed 47mph. They even state that the motor is turning at around 14,500 rpm. If you do the math that would require a 40tooth pinion gear, assuming that the spur and diffs are factory ratios/sizes. If you do the same calc with 6s you arrive at a more reasonable 18-20tooth spur gear. So that means that a MM was run on 6s by mag tester and did not let the smoke out. It also shows that a 2200 battery kept up with that motor/gearing combo. Unless they are making it all up, then then the MM is badass(must be an A batch model!). I understand that the higher voltage keeps the current down, and the batts must be 20c min so that would be 44amps cont at 22.2v. This would be a little over 1 horsepower, figuring about 85% eff motor. Not too shabby and it out performed the nitro 8ight.

I like that they chose the nitro as the winner... last thing we need is the nitro guys to point to a mag. article and say: "see, you are cheating... it's not fair to race with your electric car""

Ah, very good point!

The breaking advantage will most likely always go to the vehicle with the ability of F/R brake bias.

In the first article they did ( a couple months ago), They were saying series but 11.1v. I tryed to get it straight with them, but they said it was parallel. So i Emailed Mega motors themselves, they said it was series as was the Xray they did in their vid. I really don't use RC Driver for reference, though i do read it, they seem to not have all the info on many things. I personnally think they are a bunch of Nitro heads (smokers as Dafni calls them) and thats not bad, But they need to be realistic. There is no way that 8 buggy will go 47 mph with that pinion, that motor and on 3s Lipo

As was mentioned above, the driver of the electric was probably some sort of seasoned nitro driver. You definitely can't drive an electric as you would a nitro, in terms of application of the throttle and the angles at which you attack the turns.

It is also likely that both trucks were setup similarly. I don't know about you guys, but I've found myself running a bit stiffer springs on my shocks, a bit heavier shock oils, and have gone way up on the diff fluid weights, just to deal with the added torque of the electric systems.

I think that the results of their little test is a bunch of crap. I know that when I'm running on our track with a bunch of nitros driven by people of simialr skill and experience, all I have to do is keep it smooth. In those instances when I get to let my truck flex its muscles, like in the straights, it just widens the gap. As long as I don't make any stupid mistakes that give them time to catch up, I'm good.