Proboat Blackjack 9 ?'s

So I got my blackjack 9 and after running a few packs compared to the Impulse 9, I've found my boat is substantially slower and motor seems to get much hotter. The water pick up isn't obstructed and I see no problem with the cooling system other than potentially the water exit line fitting through the hull exit a little tight. After running for several minutes I notice a distinct strong electronic smell when I pop the hatch off and the motor feels like it's getting hot. Being it's a brushed motor could mine just be a dud and replace the whole motor?

Welcome to OSE! :biggrin:

Are you taking the time to allow the motor to cool in between runs?

You can also blow into the water pickup to make certain there are no obstructions.

i have one. it has such a light load, it doesnt even need the water cooling. the water cooling it has isnt doing anything anyway. you either have some hair or weeds stuck in the drive shaft or your motor is a dud. tey also to sharper the prop. i know its plastic but it helped mine run better and stop cavitating.

There is slight cavitation before it comes onto plane. Once on plane it seems to run decently. I've been running in swimming pools and the water cooling system is unrestricted and puts water out the side of the hull. I was thinking perhaps I just had a junk motor. Would it be advisable to replace with another similar one or try and go brushless?

Have you compared it to stock videos online? With boats of this size, it becomes diminishing returns to put much money into brushless systems. However, having run many very small hulls, you could run one of the many outrunner setups that are designed for the 14" riggers. The real issue comes into play when you start running lipos that weigh more. At some point, the overall design is for that scale size. If you're running in a swimming pool, you'll almost always be turning at higher speeds which causes the boat to run more wet.

The real question is, are you unhappy with the speed and how long do you want to run with the higher temps you are seeing. The first thing to really check is to see if the driveline is spinning freely (while it is off of course). If there's resistance, then your issue may be with the shaft where it is binding for some reason.

The driveline is completely free. I'm not looking for blistering speed as I want to keep running it in the pool, I guess my issue is the fact my brothers impulse 9 is quite a bit faster. I realize the surface drive is to his advantage but just for speeding around the pool my blackjack doesn't even come close to the impulse's speed.

I would compare the speed to some of the stock videos online. Also, check to see if there is any visible damage to the prop.

One of the things that is very tough for this particular model is the angle of the prop shaft. Typically, regardless of model size, we run a neutral angle. In other words, when you place the model on a flat surface, the prop shaft should be very close to parallel with the steps. Most of the time it won't be on the same plane, meaning that it may sit deeper in the water. However, the most efficient use of the prop is with a neutral shaft. With the way it is designed, it has a lot of negative angle which forces the nose down. The intent of this design feature is to avoid flipping which could become very frustrating for some fun-run users. It appears that the Impulse has less angle and when combined with less wetted surface as the boat continues to come up out of the water, it would explain why it may be faster on the same components. It also appears that the prop on the Impulse isn't as deep in the water. This could also be the reason why it runs cooler than the Blackjack.

Not having one in front of me, does the Blackjack9 have a solid drive shaft or is it a flexible cable? It appears on the website to be a straight shaft, but it would be good to confirm.

The good news is that there may be some inexpensive options to address this issue if you so choose.

It's a solid shaft driveline and no strut. You control the ride characteristics via trim tabs. The impulse has a surface drive which is part of what makes it faster I'm sure.

I recently picked up these mini boats to play around with in our pool.These are some fun little boats with some tinkering.I burnt up the motor in the Blackjack after about 6 packs through it.Im running the stock 6 cell Nimh packs and some 2 cell 600 lipos.They are pretty darn quick on the lipos.I found some replacement 180 motors on eBay at 3 for $15 shipped.They are not the stock Proboat replacements.For the Blackjack motor cooling I used a HeliMax 180 clip-on motor heatsink.I drilled a hole the the heatsink fins for a section of brass tubing to pass through.
Making sure the holes I drilled allowed the tubing to sit on top of the top plate of the heatsink.This has solved my motor heating issues.For the Impulse I use a short section of heatsink off of a 540 sized brushed esc.Same thing I drilled a hole through it for the brass tubing for the cooling lines.Hard to see it very good in the pics.Ive got these boats dialed in and the literally scream around our 30' long pool.

If I would want to go brushless in one of these small hulls, what motor and ESC would you guys recommend. Probably off a 600 2S lipo. Stock prop? For running in a pool...