So I got myself a ZX-5..few Q's
 

I bagged myself a Zx-5 on ebay for £60 all I need is some radio gear and I'm good to go. I'm going to start club racing where most the members have 2wd mad rats with brushless systems down to 8.5t. I'm using a 15t hpi fire bolt and Nimh 3700mah (old school I know). Will I be able to compete or should I start looking into brushless?.

I really am liking the Kyosho its a great buggy. I'm hoping with a few tweaks I will be able to compete.

Thanks.

To be competitive you will need brushless and lipo's

Oh...I'm on a tight budget maybe I will have to settle for just making it round the track.

It will go really well, its driver skill that keeps you in the pack, we used to run ours with 12 & 10 turn motors, it was fast enough (did move to 5.5 brushless & lipo). Make sure the tyres & shocks are good thats half the battle, the ZX5 is easy to drive.

Remember that you could run on one set of lipo for a meeting, you may need a few sets of nimh. lower weight is a big advantage with lipo, put a strip of lead under the lipo to make weight up, but it then has a lower centre of gravity.

This would be a good motor if your esc can run it: http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50054

The club has 12t brushed motor limit and a 8.5 brushless limit. My esc can handle 12t brushed. So I'm gonna dig around for something like that.

So much depends on your track & your skill.
Personally you need to spend on tyres, then your set-up, with your 15T till you can run a race with only 1 or maybe 2 mistakes. Till then, the seconds saved by getting up the straight a bit faster won't amount to much.

Then go for brushless. Money spent of brushed will need re-spent too soon.

Hi Bob,

If you are interested in starting racing the best thing you can do is get yourself to your local club. You will learn more from your first trip to the club than spending several days trawling the net.

Clubs can also be a good place to pickup good second hand equipment. It may be worth your while popping along to the club before buying any more. People there will be able to advise you on exactly what to buy, so you don't end up having to buy twice.

Having the right tyres is much more important than having a fast motor, again people at the club will be able to tell you what you need.

In my opinion until you can drive the full five minutes without crashing you don't need a faster motor.

Hope you have fun racing, but beware it's very addictive!!!

Paul.

Great advice fella, thanks

mate,

if you are on a budget just try the gear you got.
You will soon figure out what you need to compete, i would say with a hot brushed motor the batteries you have might not have enough capacity.
But as the man says until you can race for 5 minutes without crashing you probably dont need a faster motor.

Tires is very important just make sure to get the ones that work on the track you are racing. theres no point in spending money on 5 different tire types to find only one works!

Got everything I need to run the buggy in it today and gave it a test run in the garden. After I had tightened the slipper up it ran really well in the speed stakes faster than I thought it would. Just got to set it up so it steers better and then I will be racing it. :thumbsup:

My 15t firebolt is overheating what pinion should I be using?.

Pinion size depends on a lot of factors.

if your car is getting hot you need a smaller pinion which will give you more acceleration but lower top speed. what pinion do you have now?

17t pinion.

it could also be too small :)

Best thing to do is try different sizes (larger and smaller) and see how it goes.

If i were you, i'd try a 22 (or something similar) next for say 2-3 mins and see how hot it is getting

Yes Sloth could be right. 17 is quite a small pinion.

Quick update. I changed to 22t pinion and accelerated into a bush and ripped the wire off the motor. A bad soldering job by me and a big flash and I have one trashed motor that I think was pretty well ruined by the heat caused by running the wrong gearing anyway.

I will be getting another firebolt as they are under £10 and trying again soon.

:woot:

I used to run an 18t indoors with a checkpoint 10x2, and a little bigger pinion outdoors track depending, so I think you're on the right "track" with the 22:thumbsup: