It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I had A LONG way to go before I belonged running Open Short Course trucks. Even though I had the monster motor in the class with a 7.5T Novak (most other racers were running 10.5T or 13.5T – lower the turns, the faster it spins up and higher the max RPM, more akin to 2-stroke, as opposed to the torque motors in the 17.5T and higher windings, which are more akin to a big displacement thumper).

Even with quite a power advantage… I was.. well.. toast. 5 laps down on the leader. This is no place for a rookie.

Still being fairly new to the hobby, I was a little light on motor options, having only a 13.5T Novak and the 7.5T Novak I was already running. Having been kicked up form novice, I was either stuck racing Open class with those motors, or I’d have to spend about $100 on a new 17.5T motor. And in stock class you can’t afford to skimp on the motor, you need the best 17.5T motor you can afford. Add that to the fact I HATE THE NOVAK GTB speed controller. It’s so complex to program with the little push-buttons and lights. And it never seemed to really take the programming, even though the status lights clearly showed that I’d done it right. It was frustrating to say the least. So, in a state of excitement, frustration and resignation to my own personal quirks (let’s just call them imperfections, shall we, at least I’ve learned to recognize them, if not yet fully control them), I knew I’d stew over the purchase for weeks and weeks, eventually it would become the source of anxiety and finally depression, after which I would spend the money. So, I saved myself the 5 states of loss and took the $270 medicine up front:

Thus, I set about removing my Novak GTB system and installing the RS. However, I had one unresolved matter I had to attend to first. My last race with at the wheel of the uber-powered truck, had really done a number on it:

The cost of a new chassis is not really a consideration (under $30), however, it’s the chassis! That means everything mounts to it. To replace this part would require a 50% rebuild of the entire truck. That’s potentially hours of effort. Effort that would have to be duplicated again if I have just one really bad landing, or under-dump and lawn dart the thing.

However, I did have a solution. One that requires the purchase of a $19 aftermarket front bumper kit, of which 2/3 are discarded, and the other 1/3 requires modifications to perform the job of taking the place of the broken chassis nose.

RPM to the rescue!

Following the Frankenstein repair to the front clip, the next order of business was a complete rebuild of the front shocks including a re-valve, new springs and silicon oil change. Here is the final setup:

	Front Dampers	Rear Dampers
Valve Piston:	#3	#2
Shock Oil:	40 wt.	30 wt.
Spring:	Red (3.90 lb./in.)	Silver (2.10 lb./in.)
Down Stops	4 (.120″)	7(.210″)

Mounting the motor was very mostly straight forward. However, there was not enough adjustment in the motor mount plates to get the 29T pinion gear I needed to fit with my 84T spur, so I bought a new gear set with a 75T spur gear and 27T pinion. With the 15 degrees of physical motor timing (see photo) I have on pretty quick stock truck. Sure I’m topped out on speed by the end of the straight compared to the Mod trucks, but I have gobs of low-end torque that gets me up and over the jumps with almost no run-up. 6′ of air time is no problem at all with this setup. I can easily clear the 4-hump rhythm section with a quick punch of the throttle.

Some of you new or simply unfamiliar with surface brushless systems might wonder what the extra cable bundle is near the bottom of the motor. That’s the sensor harness. This measures the inrunner’s RPM, feeding back position and speed to the ESC, which allows it to automatically detected cogging at low RPM, and smooth the pulses, giving the driver very smooth and easy to control power compared to non-sensored systems. Having had both, I can say first had that this *DOES* make a difference. You lose some of the potential torque of the motor, since some magnet space is given up to the sensor, but power is nothing if you can’t get it all to the ground. The sensor provides the ability to do just that.

Mounting of the speed controller was simpler than the big and bulky Novak I was replacing. The profile is so low it barely extends above the sides of the chassis. The solder posts on the controller are also a thing of beauty. Vastly superior to the solder points on my Novak and most other ESCs I’ve seen so far. Easy to heat, plenty of post length, and slotted so you can mount wires horizontal (as I did) or vertical, depending on whim. The three wires on the left control the motor, the two on the right (with capacitor) are the battery power leads. Sensor harness plugs into side of ESC (right). Another bonus on the Tekin is the topside status LED bar, not on the side like the Novak and XP I’ve had in other vehicles. Another example of learning from racing. Put it where people can see it! Seems simple, yet.. so difficult for some companies to ‘get’

The last two updates made with this conversion, was the witch to the light-weigh 2/3 height SAVOX SC-1251 Metal Gear Digital Servo. This is a lot smaller than the stock XP (sloooooow) or the black body SAVOX I was running before. Also in this photo is my personal truck transponder. Other than the ESC, this was the single most expensive part in the entire truck. This is the newest RC4 compatible hybrid transponder from MyLaps. A lot of tracks (including the one that I use) had track transponders available to borrow for a race. They are basically free. So why buy my own at such great expense? 3 reasons: 1) I can get my practice day times logged for analysis 2) the RC4 hybrid is about 2/3 the size of the others and also lighter 3) I can permanently mount it anywhere I need for best signal.

I’ll say this right now, the position in the photos is good, but not ideal. The metal gear servo interferes with the transponder (another advantage to owning your own, you can test transponder positions to find the optimal signal). I have since found a better position for the transponder. However, it’s exact position is now a closely held secret and an advantage I have on the track.. so.. don’t expect me to spill the beans on the net, you’ll have to join me at the track to see what I’ve since done.