Ask Cubby (We Dare You!)

We get letters, tons of letters each month to BigSquidRC. For me to get that big fat increase in salary I’ve been asking for, I’ve been told I have to bust out more material. I have chosen to “answer” some of letters submitted to BigSquid, so here we go. 🙂
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“also i got a dumb question im getn the inferno ve its a brushless buggy n
can handle up to 4s i no 2x2s =4s but i was wonderin is it better to run two 2s or one 4s
thanks corey”
Corey, I must first say up front that my grammar blows, my spelling is horrible, but WOW, I mean seriously WOW.

To get to your question- a hard case 4S pack is preferred. Why? The top two reasons are- 1. 8th scale electrics pull a lot of g’s on impact, either with a curb, or casing a huge quad, either way a single hard case 4S pack will be less likely to shift or be damaged on the big hits. 2. You’ll have a lot less wiring (and less connectors) running around on a single 4S pack, and less wiring means less resistance, less resistance means more voltage, and more voltage equals speed. The uber pack to run in the Kyosho Ve? If it was my cash, I’d give MaxAmps a call, they are the best of the best.

Does this mean you can not use a pair of 2S packs? A pair of 2S packs will work, but use some good fiber tape to keep the packs from sliding around on the big hits, use good connectors (I recommend Traxxas), and be careful how you route all that extra wiring (keep it away from the spur!).

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“I have a jato 3.3 and I am looking to dump some money into it. I want to get the highest speed possible on a quarter mile dragstrip. I would love to break 100 mph with it or even more if possible. Any suggestions on parts?
Thanks for your time,
John”

Ya know, your question brings ME to a good question. My question is, where are all the really fast nitro guys at? Week in and week out, the electric cars at the top speed runs destroy the nitros. As far as I know, the fastest top speed ever recorded by a nitro was just slightly over 100 mph, a speed the electric guys are blowing by on 2S now days.

Now, if I had to try and break the 100 mph barrier with a Jato, just what would I do? The four most important things in my mind are range, tires, gearing and finally raw power.

It’s hard to get a good top speed if your radio range sucks. No matter how good you think your range is now, it will NOT be enough at 100 mph. Height is important, so try to get up off the ground to help increase the range of your radio system. Also, be sure and use a good quality radio system, and extend the receiver antenna as much as you can (don’t fold extra antenna back into the the receiver box). I prefer running the Futaba FASST system, and you can learn more about them HERE

For tires, commercially available rubber tires are not only extremely hard to drive at those speeds, but they like to explode above 70 mph. You’ll be looking at running foam tires on your Jato. The best place to get foams for your Traxxas is Jaco. Give them a call at 540-298-0446 and tell them what you are doing. I’d also recommend running a tire sauce on the rear for additional traction. I prefer the Grand Motorsports “medium” traction compound for an application such as yours. You can find it HERE

For gearing, I’m no gashole, so I don’t know what gearing combo will put your Jato to 100 mph. But what I do know is, start with relatively low gearing, and work your way up.

For raw power, once again, I’m no nitro expert, but if I were you, I’d be cruising the Traxxas forums seeing just how large of an engine I could shove into that Jato. The Jato comes with a good engine, but if you are looking to do 100 mph, more raw horsepower is going to be a must.

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That’s it for the first installment of “Ask Cubby”. Send your questions, statements, manifestos, death threats, etc to brian AT bigsquidrc DOT com, and he will forward them over to me as needed.

Your Cub Reporter