37" FighterCat Daytona Project

[ivoryman50]

Thanks to FighterCat himself, I bought plenty of stuff to get the project rolling. I will be running the 37" Daytona hull with 2 FighterCat Racing 3126 1500w 1600kv motors, 2 Turnigy 120A ESCs, and I haven't decided on the props yet. That's probably the last step. I will be powering it from either a 4s setup for fun or a 6s setup for speed. Hopefully I can get the build together kind of quick, but as it is my first one, I will want to make sure I do it right. The first step will be flotation in the front of the hull and then on to some hardware mounting. I'll try to take pictures of the progress and put it up for fun. Here's what I have so far.

[Boaterguy]

I wouldn't reccomend flotation first, you don't want to build around the less important parts.
BTW, I loove the FC OR's, yet to run one, but I can't wait, let me know how they work out for you.

[ivoryman50]

Not sure what you're meaning about the flotation. I'm going to put everything in the boat to mock it up, but then want to get the flotation in so that I'm not spraying it around the mounted hardware.

[ivoryman50]

I laid out the pieces that I could just to check fitment. The ruler is in there just to get an idea of the space I have for the ESCs. I will be picking up some fiberglass tomorrow to reinforce a couple parts. I need to order the ESCs to finally start mounting things. If anyone has some Turnigy 120A or something like that, please let me know. As always, suggestions welcome.

[FighterCat57]

[keithbradley]

Those motors perform quite well for their size and weight. Keep in mind what your stuffing tube is going to look like when you mount them (you want to avoid excessive bend). It's also a good idea when mocking things up to get an idea of your COG range wtih batteries in the boat. You can tape external parts to the transom just for weight, and put the rest of your gear in the boat. You want the boat to balance at about 30%of the distance from the back of the sponson transoms to the front of the boat and have room to move it back and forward by moving the batteries.
As far as props, you have a limited availability of props that are counter rotating. The logical choice for your setup in my opinion would be x442s.

[ivoryman50]

The motors will be shimmed to give pretty much a straight shot out the back. I don't want to have any bend in the tubing if i can help it.

[ivoryman50]

I fiberglassed the inside and finally finished it today. I got batteries thanks to jfrank71. Last parts I need are the ESCs, but I hope to start mounting everything now to get ready to run.

[Make-a-Wake]

I could be a spokesman for the T120 ESC.............best bang for the buck, period. $49 and i run 6s with Feigao's and Neu's..........basically bulletproof if you use them within specs. I ran my 32" Pursuit powered by a 2200kv Leopard 4074 with the T120 and it handled it just fine on 4s.

[ivoryman50]

Make-a-Wake...the batteries I have so far are 3s and I intend to run them in a 6s setup. If I run that setup at the beginning am I going to have any issues with the T120s? Should I think about the T180s?

[Make-a-Wake]

They should handle those motors just fine......................i dont know the FC outrunners real well but im gonna estimate that they will pull in the 50-70 amp range. Alot of folks say to disconnect the BEC and run an external rx pack...................i have never had a BEC issue on one of my dozen or so T120's and T180's. T180's have a large footprint and take up quite a bit of room, vertically as well due to the wires coming out straight up...............T120's are nice and compact.

[ivoryman50]

Cool, thanks for the info. I did like the relatively small footprint of the T120s.

[FighterCat57]

Do you have the 120's yet or have you ordered them? I have a pair here now if you need them.


The "Y" adapter I gave you has one of the red BEC leads removed, so the BEC situation is covered. Just make sure you never have the red wire from one esc plugged into the red of another esc if there is a bec on both. =)

@makeawake you're right on with the 3126's. 70amps @ 6s, no problem. I set him up for 6s1p and said 5k30c minimum. =)

@keith agreed 442's are the logical choice. The budget alternative would be the K45's. I'd like to know if there's similar CR sets by other mfrs.

@ivory T180's would work well and give you plenty of overhead. Just would be a bit of overkill and almost double your ESC cost. The 120's should do great.

[ivoryman50]

I don't have the T120s yet and actually what I'm waiting on is money more than anything. Good thing I don't have a wife to complain about all this haha. I'm going to try and do a mock up tomorrow and start to see where I'll need balsa wood for supports and all that.

[ivoryman50]

I got the Great Stuff sprayed in the front over the weekend for floatation and I'm pretty happy with it. Can someone post a picture of the bit to use the the Dremel to start the hole for all of the hardware? I want to be sure not to mess up my first boat with cracking it while trying to mount everything. Thanks.