Dag-Nabit 2012 Spartan Season

[dag-nabit]

So..... What can we blow up this year

Starting to get parts ordered and working on repairing and tuning the Spartans, and my other boats, to be ready for the thaw.

I bought a new hull for my Red Spartan this year (new style) and started setting it up this morning.

I added an extra support for the rudder strut. It has been speculated that the somewhat wobbly rudder mount may play a role in the instability of the Spartan. Chine walk, and more specifically that unnerving 90 degree right angle turn it occasionally does at WOT.

The extra bracket really firmed up the strut, it is considerably more solid now. We're going to do this to my daughters blue Spartan as well so we can evaluate if it helps at all on the old style hull.



Another minor change I decided to make was running the water outlets back to the rear and out the transom. No real reason for this other than to try something a bit different. One positive is I will be able to confirm water flow regardless if I make a right or left pass by.

It was necessary to trim a bit of plastic on the inside to allw fitment of the extra bracket.





Kevin

[Spartan]

Dude yes!!! Keep it coming. im definetly gonna be following your build....Do your water p/u work really good?? Where did u get that extra bracket for the tail

[GTRhino24]

I'm looking forward to this thread. We are both trying lots of different things and I have a feeling that it's going to help a lot of Spartan owners. I also suspected the wobbly rudder so I've got a longer one coming with much sturdier mounts. Good luck this season man!

[dag-nabit]

Dude yes!!! Keep it coming. im definetly gonna be following your build....Do your water p/u work really good?? Where did u get that extra bracket for the tail

Yes the water pick up works really well. The bracket was a left over piece I had from a strut mount. Not 100% certain but I think it was this one. http://www.offshoreelectrics.com/pro...d=ros-21-strut

Heck of a price to pay just for 1/2 a bracket. I'm not sure where you might pick up just the bracket.

Kevin

[dag-nabit]

Dude yes!!! Keep it coming. im definetly gonna be following your build....Do your water p/u work really good?? Where did u get that extra bracket for the tail

Yes the water pick up works really well. The bracket was a left over piece I had from a strut mount. Not 100% certain but I think it was this one. http://www.offshoreelectrics.com/pro...d=ros-21-strut

Heck of a price to pay just for 1/2 a bracket. I'm not sure where you might pick up just the bracket.

Kevin

[dag-nabit]

2012 Set Up

For the start of the 2012 season I'm not going to change much on the Spartan's setup from what we were running at the end of last year.

Red Spartan (mine)
New style hull
T180 ESC
Castle Creations 1515 2200kv motor running 5S
Jeff Wholt .078 wire drive
Octura X442 prop (was running a Prather S215)

My setup should run pretty similar to the stock Spartan running the new castle setup on 6S.
The X442 is pretty much a straight across swap for the stock 42x59mm prop.
Using nominal voltages of 22.2v for 6S, and 18v for 5S, The stock Spartan 1800kv motor running 6S would turn approx. 40,000 unloaded rpm, my 2200kv motor running 5S would turn approx. 40,700 unloaded rpm. At bit faster rpm but pretty close.
It will be interesting to see how it performs.

Blue Spartan (daughters)
Old style hull
T180 ESC
Leopard 4082 1500kv running 6S
Jeff Wholt .187 flex cable
Prather S220 prop.

There are no changes on this setup from last season, except we will be adding the extra support on the rudder strut.

Kevin

[Spartan]

Thoughts on a three blade prop. And I would like to get a pretty durable and resistant drive. Which should I get. I would like a very strong one..

[Spartan]

I think im going to get that thicker rudder mount and longer rudder for it too.

http://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/...chmentid=71720

This looks really weird and like a chine walk disaster look at the trim tabs and why is the rudder so offset. shouldn't the steering arm be going through the middle of the mount

[dag-nabit]

For the drive it really depends on what you are planning to run for props.
If you are running the stock Traxxas electrics I really recommend you stay with either the Prather 215 or Octura X442.
Both these props should work well with the .150 flex cable (stock cable size) if you don't get too rammy with your driving. I like Jeff Wholts cables for quality.

If you are planning on upgrading the electrics and pushing larger props, then I would recommend either the .187 flex cable, or, the .087 wire drive. As per my post above we have been using/evaluating both these drives since about mid point last season and so far the reliability of both are proving to be excellent.

It is too soon for a definitive conclusion, but I'm starting to lean slightly in favor of the wire drive. It doesn't auger the grease out of the stuffing tube as bad and they are not prone to "flex shrinkage" like the flex cables are. The Spartan is an excellent candidate for the wire drive because the drive line has very minimal curvature.

Even running the stock electrics, either upgrade would strengthen your drive line.

I ran three different three blade props on my Spartan. All were props I had in my kit and were not sized specifically for the Spartan. Grim Racer 40x52/3, Octura V940/3 (40 x76), and ABC H-1616/3 (40.6 x 65).
I was not impressed with any of them, the seemed to cavitate a lot on the hole shot. Once they caught they moved the boat well, but you lost plane easily in the corners and then had the cavitation issue getting back on plane.
I did not bother to try adjusting the strut etc., which may have corrected the problem, nor did I look into a prop that might have been more appropriately sized for the Spartan. Perhaps some of the other Spartan owners will share their experience with three blade props.

I have no experience with other rudders on the Spartan, so I will leave comment to those that have.

Kevin

[dag-nabit]

Had a chance to get in one quick run with the Blue Spartan (old hull style) a couple days ago.

The ice was still on the lake but there was enough open water out front of the cabin to run.

Too soon to make a definitive statement on whether or not the reinforced rudder mount is helping to stabilize the boat at speed but my initial observation would suggest it is helping.

Water was pretty calm and I got a few WOT passes with no chine walk at all. Only once, when the boat caught some air passing over it's wake, did it get loose and wobbled on me.

The run was pretty short, only about 3-4 minutes before LVC kicked in. With only one rather short run it is impossible to claim I have fixed my chine walk problem by beefing up the rudder support, but the result is encouraging.

The batteries were showing 11.9v residual when I put them on the charger so I will have to double check the LVC setting, but I think the ice cold water may have chilled the batteries reducing their ability to discharge effectively.

Kevin

[Jeff Wohlt]

Damn, must be a lot of them out there...I still get several orders a week for the shafts. Many running the 078 but many going 187 since some do not get the wire drive logic. They are shipping all over the dang world.

[dag-nabit]

Damn, must be a lot of them out there...I still get several orders a week for the shafts. Many running the 078 but many going 187 since some do not get the wire drive logic. They are shipping all over the dang world.

LOL, Sorry 'bout that, I'm one of the biggest promoters of your drives on the Spartan forums, and many others now recommend your drives for the Spartan as well.

I'm running Wohlt drives in all my boats now, the Spartans, the SV27's and my Fightercat Genesis hull.

Kevin

[dag-nabit]

Hey all,

Been too busy this week to post, but here is a bit of an update.

Last weekend was a mix of good and bad at the lake. We had one afternoon/evening and the following morning with nice smooth water conditions. I managed to get in a few good runs with the Fightercat Genesis Cat, and also with my SV27's. The Spartan however was not so successful.

No fault of the Spartan, it was my own misfortunes that caused the grief. It was my first chance this season to run my red Spartan with the new hull. I had finished up with the setup by double checking the ESC settings, motor rotation, etc. but I only had a pair of 2S batteries handy so I had popped a serial connector onto the ESC to get 4s power.

Fast forward to beside the water with two pair of freshly charged 5S batteries, but air head me forgot to switch out the serial connector for a parallel connector, connected the batteries and poof, fried ESC.. NOTE TO SELF: 10S makes for a very unhappy T180 ESC.

I had sent two T180 ESC's in for warranty replacement near the end of last season, so fortunately had a couple spares on hand. Switched out the ESC that evening, and ready to go in the morning.

I made an interesting discovery when I un-boxed my new T180 ESC, there was and extra set of capacitors soldered on. This was new to me. I have since heard from one other Spartan owner who has the extra capacitors on his T180, so I assume they are now shipping with this configuration.

T180 with Extra Caps
[IMG][/IMG]


The next morning I get out for a run. The boat is running great, nice and fast on the 5S setup. One thing I did notice was that it was still chine walking pretty bad at speed. This was with two nice heavy 5S 5000mah batteries sitting about 1.5"-2" from the full rear position. I think it is safe to say the extra brace on the rudder has done nothing, or very little, to reduce chine walk. It really seems to come down to battery placement and CG, a bit to far forward and you are running wet and sacrificing speed, and bit to far back and she gets loose and chine walks.

I also had a couple of the incidents where, when it starts to chine walk, it suddenly jumps and does a sharp right angle turn. This lead to the next disaster. I was coming back in toward shore for a pit stop and battery swap. I was coming in at a good clip, not WOT, but moving plenty fast. I hit a bit of a wave, it did a 180 degree hop and before I could correct, slammed into the neighbors dock.

First run on a brand new hull, and toast.

Anyway, new hull on order and will let you know how it goes next time out.

Kevin