ASK Cubby- Your Questions, My Shady Remarks

“Gearing

Cubby,

I have just started racing indoors with a TLR 22 3.0 buggy. The track that I race at is clay and around 50 feet long and 30 feet wide what would you recommend for gearing? I race my buggy in the stock class with a 17.5 motor.

John B.”

Cubby- Yo Johnny boy, thanks for talking a few minutes out of your day to write in.

So you are looking for some gearing tips when racing on a small indoor track with a stock buggy. Fortunately, I have spent more than my fair share of time at the track. Now, I have not raced (or even driven) the TLR 22 3.0, after all, I am an AE guy at heart. However, the 22 4.0 looks freak’n off the hook, I might have to try one of those this winter.

I am going to steer you away from the advice that everyone else down at the track is going to tell you to do. They are going to tell you to hit up the “local fast guy” and start running his gearing. The problem with that is, the “local fast guy” is NOT YOU. He has practiced a lot more and he may be naturally a more gifted driver.

What I am going to encourage you to do is this- try a bunch of different gearing and come up with your own optimum. Back in the old days, we used to gear our buggies so they would top out at the exact time we needed to start hitting the brakes at the end of the main straightaway. That was back in brushed days. In the brushless era, here is the scoop. Brushless motors, like the 17.5 you have in your buggy, will keep on putting out more power as you gear them taller (to a certain point). This means that even if you are racing on a small track, some guys will run really tall gearing to get maximum wattage out of their buggies. The downside of gearing too tall is that you may overheat your motor, or it might put out more power than your skill can actually use. If you go too low on gearing, you won’t have as much power or top speed. Lower geared set-ups are easier to drive and remove the risk of burning up any electronics.

What I would hope you would do is hit the track geared for about 20 mph, then start working your way taller. Watch your lap times as you go taller, but more importantly, look for the pinion size that works best for your driving style, your driving skills, and the track you are racing on. At some point you will come across gearing that just seems to suit you (and your lap times), at that point you are Finished! Oh and, I highly doubt that will be the same gearing as your local laptime hero.

Plastic Question

Hey I saw a question on Facebook about how to dye black plastic parts. How is that even possible? Why would you want to do that?

Patrick W.”

Cubby- Yo hey Pat, thanks for writing in. Shoot me your snail mail so we can hook ya up with a sticker pack.

OK, so you wanna know why, and how, would someone want to dye black parts. Ummmmmmmmmmmm…. I bet that question sure got the trolls going on Facebook. LOL. So ya, that may have been a troll question, or it may have been an honest question asked by a true noob to the rc hobby. Either way, I am absolutely a believer in “there are no stupid questions”.

I have never personally tried to dye black parts, so I can’t say first hand that you can’t get them to change colors. However, I can not imagine that dying black parts would work at all. White or lighter colored parts, absolutely, but with black, I think a person would have a tough road to hoe.

What? You means that’s it? Yup, ASK Cubby is once again a wrap. Do you have a question? What about a rant? Just wanna talk about the industry? Hit me up (everybody else does)- thecubreportrc at gmail dot com.