Hello from Michigan! New Member - Old Racer

[Mike_48098]

I was an avid racer dating back to '88. I'm trying to find some old parts to revive my RC10 and RC10T that have about 25 years of dust on them. RPM Rear World arms in particular!

What's "Stock" these days? Does ROAR still set that standard?
It used to be 6 cells, and something like 27 turns?
Is there a different stock racing class for "vintage"? I presume they still use brushed motors?

What's "stock" for the brushless class now??

[NomadRacer]

Welcome Mike! There's a few avid vintage racers here, I'm sure they can answer your questions shortly.

[mk-Zero]

Welcome!

[Dadio]

Hi and welcome Mike.

[duckhead]

I was an avid racer dating back to '88. I'm trying to find some old parts to revive my RC10 and RC10T that have about 25 years of dust on them. RPM Rear World arms in particular!

What's "Stock" these days? Does ROAR still set that standard?
It used to be 6 cells, and something like 27 turns?
Is there a different stock racing class for "vintage"? I presume they still use brushed motors?

What's "stock" for the brushless class now??

Hi Mike, welcome to the forums!!!

In the U.S. ROAR is still the major sanctioning body, they still hold regional and national level events and their rules are typically used (albeit sometimes loosely) at most club level events. IFMAR is still the world sanctioning body, and the IFMAR Offroad Worlds are still held every two years.

The technology used in racing and in the hobby in general has changed quite a bit...

- Radios systems are no longer crystal based AM/FM systems with analog servos. Most today are 2.4GHz digital systems and require no channel switching, etc.

- Multi-celled NiCd and NiMH batteries have been replaced by 2-cell LiPo battery packs for racing. Voltage ranges on these packs are similar to 7-cell packs and the mAh averages ~3600-5000. Long run times!

- Brushless motors, even in most vintage classes have fallen out of favor. 17.5 'turn' brushless motors are for 2WD 'stock' classes, and 13.5 'turn' motors are for 4WD 'stock' classes. You will also see these classes sometimes referred to as "Blinky" classes, a term coined after the ROAR rule stipulating you cannot use variable timing ESCs. The 'fixed' timing modes on all 'stock' ESCs will blink the LED so the rule can be enforced during inspection. It is worth mentioning that these 'stock' classes do allow for motor timing to be adjusted on the motors themselves, a departure from the old 27 turn brushed days. 'stock' classes should not be confused with 'spec' classes, where motor timing adjustments are typically not allowed and fixed timing motors are run, just like the old days.

Most vintage classes nowadays allow modern electronics, mostly for reliability reasons. However, you can run vintage electronics if you have sadomasochistic tendencies

Hopefully this helps a bit, if you have additional questions don't hesitate to ask!

->Mark

[Mike_48098]

The technology advances make me feel older than my gray hair! I'm pretty jealous at the advances. The idea of lugging around 4 battery packs and two motors to run 3 Qualifiers and 1 Main seem to be over?
How long are the races now? Are they still only ~6 minutes? It seems like people could race for a whole evening on one battery and one charge now? It also seems like gearing (pinion/spur) is no longer an important element either?

[duckhead]

The technology advances make me feel older than my gray hair! I'm pretty jealous at the advances. The idea of lugging around 4 battery packs and two motors to run 3 Qualifiers and 1 Main seem to be over?
How long are the races now? Are they still only ~6 minutes? It seems like people could race for a whole evening on one battery and one charge now? It also seems like gearing (pinion/spur) is no longer an important element either?

Hi Mike,

Most races are usually 5 or 6 minutes, although I have seen some 8 and 10 minute races for 1/10th offroad. Run time isn't an issue anymore, what seems to drive the amount of heats and how long the heats/mains will be is more about how many entrants and how many classes a given race night has.

You can definitely run one battery all day with no issues, LiPo batteries don't suffer from a lot of the issues that NiCd and NiMH batteries did in the past, like memory, etc.

In the 13.5/17.5 Blinky "stock" racing community there are always going to be folks who push the envelope with batteries to get the maximum voltage and current flow out of them. A lot of events don't use, or enforce ROAR rules so you get folks using the new High Voltage (HV) LiPo (LiHV) batteries and charging them to 4.35v per cell instead of 4.2v per cell. Or, folks will break the temperature and charge rate rules by cycling the batteries with high amp charging and discharging to introduce heat into the battery, lower the batteries internal resistance which gives a higher output.

All of this is fine and well, but the rules put in place in this case are for safety. Google "lipo fire" sometime and you will see what I mean...

Regarding gearing, it is still very much a part of racing not so much in the context of run time but really as a tuning option. You'll still want to get the proper ratio to compliment the type of motor you are using (torque vs. rpm) as well as the track size and configuration. Lastly, since "stock" racing allows for timing to be adjusted heat can be a concern which is why you will see fans prevalent and gearing tuned to manage heat.

->Mark

[fst72vette]

The technology advances make me feel older than my gray hair! I'm pretty jealous at the advances.



Man I know how you feel! I got back into it after 30 years and it has changed big time. Seems like its all for the better. Good thing is parts are really cheap now.... if you can find them!