Reedy Modifieds - which one would be your favorite?

[morrisey0]

Perfectly good thread just keeps getting ruined .................

[dinglem]

Could you please tell me where Mike Reedy called an Esprit series motor being a modified?

I checked the ads for the Esprit series and there are some samples mentioned as "Ultimate".
I can see the words "modified racing".
Well of course you could use such motor for racing at the modified class. But it doesn´t say "modified motor".
And that´s a difference.

I could be wrong, but I imagine the guys were looking at these parts of the Esprit advert:-

I don't mind either way. I am just going on my own racing experience, and perhaps things were different in the UK, but we only had two classes for racing. Standard and Modified. If you had a legal standard motor you ran in the standard class, if you had anything else, whatever the spec, price or whatever, if it didn't fall within the standard regs you ran it in the Modified class. I know Tanaplan sold a TT range of 29pound modifieds, advertised as such, but they also sold a full 40pound hand wound modified motor range too. The TMS Tornado range were all 29pound machine-wound motors and i know John Cooke qualified second at the 1990 Stafford Winternational behind Rory Cull using a hand wound TMS Tornado 13Double, because i have that exact motor which i purchased from him. In my mind these budget motors were to allow people without 40pounds available to break into the modified class which the majority of clubs ran week in week out and still have a chance of being competitive.

[1911Colt]

You clearly know the history of motors better than pretty much anyone. What was the real performance difference between the grades of (I hesitate to use the word) "modified" motors? I know it is an impossible question because of the number of variables, but if we pretend that every other factor was controlled and made equal, would a hand built Mike Reedy motor pull 1 car length on the longest straight on a typical track? 2 lengths? 5? Or to put it another way, were the best motor guys extracting a 1% power advantage? 10%? 20?

I know for me it would not have made any difference. I would have just hit the wall that little bit harder with the Reedy-built motor. My lap times were determined by how quickly the marshall put my car back on its wheels. Motor power was irrelevant.

[dinglem]

All i know is that the 40pound hand-wound motors which were available off the shelf at your local model shop were built by the motor builders (or their helpers as i know certain guys had other folks working for them) but these motors were a step below the hand-picked team motors which were saved for, or even specifically built for the team drivers and for specific tracks or events. I have examples of Reedy motors built for team Reedy drivers (I will dig pics of one out shortly) which was not even a commercially available wind.

The team motors i have are way WAY quicker than the off-the-shelf supposedly full-blown modifieds from the same marque. I know Mike Reedy had an inductance chart which detailed specific target inductance figures for specific winds. Not easy to achieve. The closest I have seen to his ideals on that chart from my motors were the armature in my BK Select and the Mustang motor I have built by Umberto Milanesi.

(Changing the subject slightly - there were also hand-picked batches of standard motors which were held back for team drivers, so again off-the-shelf standard motors were not on a level playing field with the best of the batch.)

Revs, torque and amp draw were all factors, all affecting gearing and thus overall car performance. You might do well at club level with a budget motor based upon driver ability, you wouldn't win at a regional or national level when up against drivers of equal capabilities. Similarly at the highest levels, i very much doubt you would be using a full-blown modified motor you bought off the shelf at a local model shop. The differences i saw when i started receiving team MG motors once i gained sponsorship were a massive eye-opener.

V12 is correct that a full-blown modified would have all the bells and whistles. Budget 'modifieds' - if i am permitted to say that - were a compromise which balanced out financial outlay over performance. The team motors were another level up again though... (ESC's were not always a level playing field either... in some cases tech charts showing a 'Demon Pro King' would in fact be built using higher spec components than your average Sunday afternoon club racer would be able to purchase off the shelf.... i only found this out fairly recently when buying a Pro King from Rory Cull's dad.... and then another from team Demon driver Ian Oddie). Basically, unless you were sponsored you were not necessarily going to get the top notch electrics listed in the tech charts in the magazines.

There was a great article in RCCA detailing budget modified motors, which looked like this:-

[dinglem]

This example is quite cool, and looks very much like your standard off-the-shelf Reedy modified, even so far as that the defining ‘Dot/Star’ has fallen off over time. However this motor has been sourced directly from Team Associated, Yokomo and Reedy driver Michael Ebert, who raced at a pretty high level from‘86 to ‘92 in the US. He featured quite well at the ’89 Worlds in Sydney, ending up 28th in the 2wd overall and 36th in the 4wd. When you look at some of the big names around and below him, it was quite a strong showing. His list of US National titles and high finishes, particularly in 1/12th is pretty impressive. Michael still has quite a selection of Team Reedy motors which were hand delivered to him by Mike Reedy at various events, each motor having only been run on that given day. As such this looks virtually new, and has, according to Michael, been run through just the qualifying heats and then subsequently getting a full strip and once over by Mike prior to the Finals. Pretty cool. This is not an off-the-shelf wind either, being a 15 Triple, so quite a unique Reedy motor. Pretty chuffed to have this in my collection.

[bluewormx]

The geographical issue has to be taken into account also. Different countries Different rules.
The UK was using standard motors until the 1987 season this meant factory sealed motors with bushings (any wind) this was the hay day of the demon MR-T special 2x22.
Starting in 1987 standard class went to 1x 27T sealed can with bushings. Anything not complying was considered modified. Most clubs chose to simply run modified "rules".

As far as Demon goes prior to 1987 rule change the team drivers where getting cherry picked motors and afterwards pretty much the same, the super stars where using reedy in international competition anyway JB RC etc...
I don't recall ever seeing a hand wound Demon motor, Nick usually worked with a Helper whose job it was to search for those special motors. Hand winding would have been way too time consuming for what in the UK was a cottage industry. Demon had always been an operation ran from Nick Adam's home not a factory.

Martin show us that crazy 50k rpm ultra low current Reedy silver dot you have.

[scr8p]

I bought an RC10 off ebay like 10 years ago (and should have kept it) that gave off team driver vibes. The look, the setup, the whole deal. When I pulled the Edinger addressed Reedy mod from it I noticed it had 2 dots on it. I sent a message to Curtis about it when he was frequently stopping in on here asking if there may be any significance to the 2 dots. This was his reply:

Mike Reedy used to use colored dots to show what winds and wire size was used in the motors. Mike had a code that he kept very quiet about. I don’t remember what the Gold and Silver dots meant. It could mean, for instance a 10 or 12 turn triple but with 2 different wire sizes. This could in fact be a Team Motor you have.

I thought that was pretty cool. I ever opened it up to look inside though.

[dinglem]

scr8p - I would tend to agree with your conclusion regarding the two dots....

I am friends with Jimmy Davis who lives very locally to me, a while back he sold me a pair of early Yokomo-based Reedy motors which he informed me he and his brother Wayne used at the '83 1/12th Euro Champs - it appears as though I have the two actual motors listed in the tech sheet for that event. They are both very early Reedy motors with the Erdinger Associated addy on the label, and one actually has the '83 meeting sticker still on it. When describing the motors to me Jimmy informed me that the green label one was a 'double red dot' and had been handed to him directly by Mike Reedy himself.

It still has the two spots intact, which you can just about see here:-

[scr8p]

So definitely something there.

I kind of regretted selling the car. The motor alone was a good conversation piece. I don't know if you saw it, but there is some writing on the label and I swear it could be "Worlds". For all I know, that car ran at the '85 IFMAR Worlds in California.

This is before and after the tear down and clean-up. Only thing I changed were the front tires/wheels since they were not period correct, and assembled a display battery for it.

[Frankentruck]

Are there any other colors of Reedy/Associated chrome label modified motors? These are the ones that I know of.
.