TOPIC:

I have a really old Thunder Dragon from when I was a kid and I would like to get it going again. I was thinking of getting a new brushless motor system but I'm not sure which one to get. I just want something that's going to perform about the same or better than the stock motor that came with it so. I found a Speed Passion Cirtix Series "Stock Club Race" ESC and Motor Combo and was wonder if this would work?

www.amainhobbie...Combo-175T

jdawg wrote:

I have a really old Thunder Dragon from when I was a kid and I would like to get it going again. I was thinking of getting a new brushless motor system but I'm not sure which one to get. I just want something that's going to perform about the same or better than the stock motor that came with it so. I found a Speed Passion Cirtix Series "Stock Club Race" ESC and Motor Combo and was wonder if this would work?

www.amainhobbie...Combo-175T

Hi jdawg, welcome on board

The "stock" motor & ESC you've selected there will perform an awful lot better than the "stock" motor you have in the car - beacuse "stock" in those two contexts doesn't really mean the same thing ...

99% of all Tamiya cars (Thunder Dragon included) came with a Johnson or Mabuchi RS540, 27 turn brushed motor ... the make isn't important, "540" refers to the physical size (something like a 35.5mm diameter, 50mm length, & 3mm o/d output shaft), and "turns" refers to the number of times wires were wound around the internal armature - less turns = more power (and greater battery drain) - 27 turns is considered standard (or stock), a scaler or rock crawler might have a 45 or 55 turn motor (giving much, much lower speeds), the Tamiya "Sport Tuned" motor is 23 turns (approx 30% more power, 30% more battery drain, can be used with the stock mechanical or electronic speed control (MSC, ESC) and gear pinion); a 19 turn motor is faster still, and so on ...

Because a brushless motor is constructed quite differently, "turns" are used to indicate equivalence with the old technology - with the exception that you can have a "half turn" in the number too - generally this means that the motor is a proper 540 sized motor, where as a whole number means it's effectively a 380 size motor (smaller, less powerful version of the 540) inside a case making it _look_ 540 size ...

Before your eyes begin to gloss over, I'll put it together - a 17.5 brushless combo will fit, but will probably be way too fast - fun while the car last though

"Stock" in the context of that motor means that the motor settings can't be changed in the way a "normal" brushless motor can - and therefore is theoretically better for evening up racing ... it's "stock" in the same way th "S" in NASCAR is "stock" :L

Looks like a very nice sensored brushless set.
Should do well off road - top speed won't be incredible though.
Here's an interesting overview of the specs of these motors :

Speed Passion brushless specs

Read some good reports about it...
Think the one in the webshop is a version 2 btw. V3 ( SP138175V3 ) has been available for a while too.
Just in case - you can click on the serial number above for the Google results.

I am a bit confused now. I know the Speed Passion brushless motor will fit. Is it going to be too fast or good for off road but not too fast? I just want it to go reasonably fast but not so fast that I can't even drive it properly.

I think it will fit your specifications then...
It will be a "strong" motor but it will not make too many max revolutions so the top speed is not that crazy.
Having torque available (which it does) is always nice but especially good for off road use.

Ok that's good to know. I'm into nitro cars like the Revo, Savage or nitro TC3 so I'm used to the speed that those provide but when it comes to electric brushless motor systems I'm not really an expert on those. I know that brushless motors have much more torque compared to brushed motors so will the gearbox be able to handle the extra torque?

With a 17.5T I think that will be alright...
It's mostly the combination of speed and power that can kill a gearbox.
Not giving it too much wheelspin or sudden change in forwards-backwards will save the gears in any case.

These (sensored) Schumacher systems look very nice.
I'd prefer them over an EzRun set up (for example) because these are sensorless...
The Speed Passion should run much smoother.

Ok looks like I'll go ahead and order that motor so thanks for your help on this. Hopefully this motor will work well. Now I just need to find a new set of wheels and tires that will fit. The ones I have are starting to get worn out and don't really grip the road that well.

I got my Speed Passion Stock Club Race ESC and 17.5T motor combo in the mail last weak and installed it in my Thunder Dragon a few days ago. I had to pull out the old mechanical speed control and resistor but I got it all to fit in there and now its working great. Its got a lot of power so now I can drive in grass without getting stuck. The motor doesn't get hot at all so I think I can put a bigger 17t pinion gear on. Anyways I just wanted to come back and give an update in case anyone else was looking for a good cheap brushless motor system for their Tamiya buggies.

Sounds like a great choice.
Very interesting gear I have to say...