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Well... the Puget Sound Fast Electric Model Boat Club (PSFEMBC) held it's second annual Todd Wilkens Memorial Race this past Saturday, and we debuted the TopSpeed 2 OPC tunnel FE conversions for the first time.
Stock TopSpeed 2 hulls with modified radio boxes for FE.
REK Lower units
Stock SV27 Motors and ESCs
4S1P Lipos
So here's my summary of how these things worked... AWESOME!!
The video link below is for the first heat on the water... We had each ran a couple of practice and tuning laps, but this is the first time we put them in the water to race, so we were all getting used to driving them, getting steering dialed in, etc...
My had a full-bladed ABC 42x55, I think Brian was running a Prather 220, and John had an X642... Amazing that with that range of props, they still ran this close... but they did, and they did for the next two heats as well...
The boats handle GREAT for these speeds... I GPS'd mine after the second head and got 33.6 MPH... so I think about mid-30s once they are dialed in is about right...
We ran 10-laps for the first two heats, but decided to cut it back to 8 because we were pulling about 3400mah out of the packs, which was approaching the 80% capacity mark for the packs we could fit into the hulls... 8-laps was about 1-mile... Battery temps were approaching 140-degrees... With some setup and dialing in, that may come down some, but as you can see from the video, they are already running pretty well...
Brian tested an AMMO 2300KV motor and the boat GPS's at 41mph... However, the handling was not that great... Since these hulls were designed for the stock 3.5cc motors and about mid-30s... That may just be the way they are..... Brian tried a TON of changes, all having negligable effect...
As a result, we've decided at this point that we will push for this class to run with the SV27 power system for the time being... We think that it will be much less frustrating for those new to tunnels to make this system work and the racing did NOT suffer from the slower speed... It was FUN, and I can't wait to get six of these out there at the same time...
Looking forward to getting these out there again!
Here is the video for the first heat: PSFEMBC TopSpeed 2 Tunnels - First Race - Heat 1
Stock TopSpeed 2 hulls with modified radio boxes for FE.
REK Lower units
Stock SV27 Motors and ESCs
4S1P Lipos
So here's my summary of how these things worked... AWESOME!!
The video link below is for the first heat on the water... We had each ran a couple of practice and tuning laps, but this is the first time we put them in the water to race, so we were all getting used to driving them, getting steering dialed in, etc...
My had a full-bladed ABC 42x55, I think Brian was running a Prather 220, and John had an X642... Amazing that with that range of props, they still ran this close... but they did, and they did for the next two heats as well...
The boats handle GREAT for these speeds... I GPS'd mine after the second head and got 33.6 MPH... so I think about mid-30s once they are dialed in is about right...
We ran 10-laps for the first two heats, but decided to cut it back to 8 because we were pulling about 3400mah out of the packs, which was approaching the 80% capacity mark for the packs we could fit into the hulls... 8-laps was about 1-mile... Battery temps were approaching 140-degrees... With some setup and dialing in, that may come down some, but as you can see from the video, they are already running pretty well...
Brian tested an AMMO 2300KV motor and the boat GPS's at 41mph... However, the handling was not that great... Since these hulls were designed for the stock 3.5cc motors and about mid-30s... That may just be the way they are..... Brian tried a TON of changes, all having negligable effect...
As a result, we've decided at this point that we will push for this class to run with the SV27 power system for the time being... We think that it will be much less frustrating for those new to tunnels to make this system work and the racing did NOT suffer from the slower speed... It was FUN, and I can't wait to get six of these out there at the same time...
Looking forward to getting these out there again!
Here is the video for the first heat: PSFEMBC TopSpeed 2 Tunnels - First Race - Heat 1
. What was the total cost of that build packs included? 
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