Here's one of my favorite projects ever. This is basically the result of years and years of trying and tons of hours of trial and error. I have no idea why I came up with the idea... or exactly when. My first memory of putting an airplane prop on an RC car was on an XXT, probably 1995'ish. The XXT was very new in any case.
I can remember taking it to the track and getting some laughs and comments. The track I raced at needed constant water and if it didn't get it, it was a dust bowl. And this thing would make some serious dust. It was heavy and slow, ate batteries like crazy and was terribly hard on motors. So I kinda gave up.
That winter it snowed, so I broke it out again after quickly crafting some skiis.
Oh, looky there, a time stamp. OK, so it was 1994 that I first did this.
I gave up on the idea due to performance for a few years. Then I tried it on a B3 a few times, which was way lighter, but also way tipsy....
For some reason, I never thought to use the brushless motor I bought for the monster truck I posted earlier. It dawned on me that this motor (and especially the controller) were designed for planes, so it made a HUGE difference in performance. And I needed a way bigger prop with way more pitch. After throwing the Aveox in the mix, everything changed. I now had far more power than any platform I had come up with could handle. It was just stupid fast on the B3, but was impossible to control and scary to drive because it would torque roll so severely. Worse, the bigger prop forced me to put that heavy motor higher in the air, making CG just terrible. No amount of suspension setup would fix it. So, I set out to create a new platform.
This is the earliest pic I could find of the new platform. I was using the old propulsion just to test.
I made special packs for this thing that were lighter than whatever was available at the time. This motor produces just about 1HP on 16 cells! So I wanted to use as many cells as I could... but 16 SubC cells weighs a ton. So I bought these nifty 2/3 SubC cells. Better, but still not good.
Then lipo happened. This changed everything again. Less than half the weight, more punch, longer run times.
There were a few minor revisions previous to these pics, but they are boring and minor. This is with a 4S (14.8 volts or roughly equal to 14 cells) 2400Mah lipoly pack. I am kinda pissed that I lost the rear foam DS tires I had. I cannot find them anywhere. I'll be getting video of this thing pretty soon. It is faster than you would think. It is very VERY fast. Acceleration wise it would beat most cars designed for dirt and for sure anything with a stock motor. Top speed wise, you'd have to put together something pretty impressive to beat this thing. Handling wise, it pretty much straight up sucks, but it can get around when not under power. The torque roll really messes with the handling under power. And brakes? Nope! Brakes are a drag, man!