A new kid on the block
Nov 07, 2006
 

This is the ESC and motor installation. You may wonder - what ESC is that? Well is made by a friend of mine and it is tiny, powerful and packed with features. Price? Half the price of a Novak, LRP, GM etc etc.

I was wondering if I was a really bad driver or if the car was holding me back. The car was not the problem because a guy that wins a lot of races around here has a car just liker mine (HPI Pro 2 with all the goodies). But a friend of mine made me an offer I couldn't refuse (no horse heads involved). He said that I could have an Yokomo MR4TC World Cup Replica for the price of... And I said Yes!!! I want one...

I have this problem - When a see a good  bargain I have to buy it. The price? I won't tell you about the price but it was incredibly good.

It's a very different car in terms of layout and materials, but it seems that it can win on the right hands. There is also another reason behind this. I would like my kid to start driving a TC and I had only one. With this acquisition I'll have two capable TC's. Isn't it a good excuse?

The car is packed with all the hop ups Atsushi Hara used in the World Championship in Japan.

Here's the list:

1. Carbon chassis, suspension arms, suspension mounts, top deck

2. Front and rear sway bars

3. Titanium turnbuckles

4. Front and middle one way

5. Delrin pulleys

6. Yokomo Aerodish wheels and 24mm tires with molded inserts

7. Aluminum threaded shocks

8. Heat sink engine mount and finned lower heat sink

9. Front and rear CVD's

10. BB steering

11. Terribly good looking

12. Very photogenic with Sanyo 3000 packs

 Building

A view from the battery side. I assemble my saddle packs with a removable jumper cable, in order to install them in any of my cars. The small pink cable is the removable jumper cable.

The building of the car can be a little tricky. You get the normal manual and a supplement for all the hop ups that the kit includes. Some of the steps must be done very carefully, or you can do the same that happened to me. I switched the rear hubs and instead of a "normal" looking toe in I had a very strange looking rear...

Every time you see a building step on the manual, refer to the supplement just to check that it has the same sequence or parts.

I have to say that the manual is not as good as the HPI manuals. It's not very clear, and the added problem of having two manuals does nothing to improve the building process. However, I assembled the car in 4 hours. Experience counts a lot with these things.

All the small details were taken care of: Thread lock on the CVD grub screws, on all the screws that go into metal parts, polishing of hinge pins, etc etc. If this is a competition car, all the care has to be taken in the building phase.

The tub chassis has an incredible resistance to longitudinal and transversal torsion. The battery space was designed to accommodate  the more recent batteries, like the Sanyo 3000. A very effective strapping system (as you can see in the photo) is included and there is a provision for a Velcro tape strapping system.

The space for all the components is more than enough if you have a very small ESC and receiver like I do. I decided to install the receiver on top of the upper deck for accessibility. The weight distribution will always be inadequate, no matter how heavy your ESC, receiver and steering servo are. The batteries are VERY heavy and they are all on the same side...

The car comes with 48dp spur and pinion (very cool because I have all the pinions from 15 to 30 teeth) but the spur seems to be very special. I wonder if a standard spur can be fitted. The internal ratio is 2.2 and the spur/pinion combination (78/22) is the one used for 9 turn motors, according to the Team Orion web site.

There is no transponder mount (????) Didn't Atsushi Hara have one at the IFMAR champs? It  would have been nice to include one...

I installed Corally bullet connectors on all the wires and this results in a very clean installation. Better than soldering wires to every motor that I use.

The ESC I installed on the car was the recently acquired JP Pulsar. Never heard about it?
It's done by one of our racers and it's packed with features like no motor limit,  ABS, adjustable brake, torque, automatic sensing of  neutral point etc. For the price of a Novak Cyclone you can get two of these. On top of that it's really small and very easy to fit anywhere.

First Impressions - Comparing with the Pro 2

The first I noticed was how low this car has all the weight. The top shaft on the Pro2 stands very high (compared with this car or the TC3) and to adjust the spur pinion mesh on the Pro 2, one may even have to move the motor up a bit.

The belts on this car (especially the front belt) does not interfere with the pack or any other equipment. The car is divided in half and the wires can be routed easily from one side to the other above the top deck.

It looks more fragile. The suspension arms are thinner and lighter but I guess that they are strong enough to withstand a crash or two. Although it's not my intention to crash, some situations are beyond my control 

This car is more rigid longitudinally and transversally, thanks to the tub molded reinforcements. I like that a lot. There is a limited need for aluminum hop ups to add rigidity to the car. I almost rebuilt the rear (motor) section on my Pro 2 with expensive aluminum parts to achieve that rigidity. With the money I spent on the Pro 2 I could have bought 2 of these.

Enclosed spur, pinion and belts avoid dirt and small rocks to enter and destroy the belt and/or pulleys.

Plenty of space to put all the radio gear and ESC.

The shocks are awkward to build compared with the straight forward shocks included on the HPI kits. This foam system, and especially the way of filling the shocks is very prone to leaving air inside. I hope it goes OK. At least they compress and expand as they should.

Dynamic behavior

This car handles much better than my Pro 2. It could be due to the one ways, but I guess it's not. I also tested a normal MR4TC and it's almost the same feeling.

The car turns faster and this shows in intricate tracks. Even on a fast track I could trim one second per lap to my best time with the Pro 2.

For the first time I feel very confident running motors below 11 for 5 minutes. I'm not sure if it is the drag free transmission, but I can do that easily. The pains I had to find the best gearing for the Pro 2 were very tiresome, and I destroyed some sets of tires trying to do it.

The tuning on the car can be started with the settings suggested on the kit. It's just a matter of detail. Shock oil was changed to 600wt and in some cases I use the Orange springs. That's it. Amazing car.

Equipment to be used

Motors

I'm not sure about the motor, because it'll depend on several factors, but one thing I'm certain of - they will be Corally, Orion or Reedy motors. No more Trinity cr*p. I will never buy a Trinity motor again, until a new model comes out and EVERYBODY says it's good. Even then I'm not sure that I'll follow. I'm too tired of being ripped off with Trinity stuff. My testing of the D4 on the dyno, revealed a very poor can design with massive negative effects on performance..

Only the P2K is worth while on the current Trinity range, or eventually a Speed Gems. That black EPIC can is a nightmare.

Two Reedys 9x3 MW are on their way and the testing on the dyno will show they potential. I'm now a more knowledgeable motor tuner and it's starting to show on the track. My Rage Rebuildable Stock installed on my 1/12 has to be seen to understand what I mean.

Tires

When I tested the Pit Shimizu tires D20 and D25 I was amazed (not the only one) with the grip and duration of the tires. The price is on par with the HPI and Pro Line tires but in my humble opinion much better suited to our track.

I've prepared myself with a "few" sets for the season, some of them inch up versions with special Pit Shimizu wheels.

Be tuned because this car will run very soon and I'll post the results here

Bodies

I know that my testing showed that the HPI Dodge Stratus body is by far the best that I have, but...I haven't tried the Protoform Vectra 190mm. To fill that gap two are on their way.

It is sooo nice, isn't it?

Setup

I built the car with the same setup that Andy Moore used in the Worlds. However you can find a very good list of setups on the Yokomo USA site.

A version of the blank setup sheet is here in GIF format or here in PDF (Acrobat) format

Running

After some radio glitches that caused two days of frustration and damage, I finally got my car to run as intended. I was using Yellow springs in the front and Green in the rear with 450 oil all around. The tires were the original Yokomo with the original inserts and I have to say that the car was glued to the track.

It was so easy to drive that I was impressed with the easy adaptation to driving with one ways. The trim needed some adjustment because every time I brake the car steers to one side or the other. This was one of the things that puzzled me. It was never to the same side. The trim kept changing. A later inspection revealed the problem. Be aware of the CVD pins. If you think they are well tight, tighten them a little more. If they become loose in the rear they'll just disappear, but in the from they rub the steering hub and will cause strange braking with loss of direction.

The chassis in graphite is fragile. I broke one of the sides of the tub because the car hit a separator when running out of radio control. Also the front diff cover where the shock tower is screwed is fragile enough to break the front shock mount. Nothing that cyano wont cure, but is a terrible sight.

Later during the day I chose another set of tires (Pit Shimizu D20 with hard inserts) and the car was absolutely amazing to drive. I didn't brake. Just point and shoot. The grip is awesome and I was faster than ever. The little changes in direction made be afraid of brute speed, but in the turns this car really shines.

I have a very high turn speed. Getting out of the corners seems to be what this car likes (at least with this setup). The thing is blistering fast.

Another testing session, more parts broken...

OK, this car is fragile. I had crashes with the Pro 2 that could send this car to the trash in an instant. Maybe it's because of the ultra high tech molded carbon material that is made of.

This time it was the support of the front shock tower. A guy acting like a mobile chicane just stopped in front of me in the middle of the track. The car jumped over his car and on landing it was rubbing the track. That support was broken. I've replaced it by the normal molded plastic reinforced fiber part of the MR4TC Pro.

In the meanwhile I managed to setup the car quite well. It's glued to the track and it turns at a speed that has to be seen. The other guys notice something special on the car but they can't exactly tell what it is.

I guess it's the pair of one ways that make it that fast on the corners. And the acceleration with a Reedy 9x3 MW is excellent. I'm doing better lap times than the Kyosho 1/10 nitro cars with two speed gearbox!!! On a long track. That's a thing I could  never do. On a shorter track maybe, but not on the long one.

My next race will be next Saturday and I guess that  a good placement is not out of reach. Let's wait a couple of days and then we'll see.

Racing

There it is. Number 4 on the grid. This was the start for the first round (I was the second, but i missed the first one...I was late)

I attended my first electric race with the Yokomo. It was the second National Championship race in Tomar.

The town is 140 Km away from Lisbon and I left a little to late, and arrived a little too late. Enough to miss the first of the 4 qualifying rounds. Darn!! I'm always doing this.

New track, new car and a lot of good racers didn't promise a very good final standing, but there I went.

The good drivers were doing 17 laps and the second batch was doing 15 or 16 laps on that track. On my second round I was able to do 11 laps with the Reedy 9x3. The ratio used was 21/78 and definitely it was not adequate for the track. The car was veering to the right and with just one click of trim was going to the left. I had to control the car constantly on the straight and the harder springs were not helping a bit. Very disappointing.

The third round was better. Much better. I changed to yellow springs and the motor to my faithful Orion Chrome Touring 11x3 and those changes put me in the 16 lap group very close to much more experienced drivers.

However, I was so determined to work a little more on my car that I forgot to act as a turn marshal the following round. The penalty? I lost my best round!!! Talk about being a newbie.
The fourth round was even better, again with 16 laps in 5:17 with a best lap of 18.26. Not bad for a beginner. The 11x3 was a much better motor for the track.

That's me trying to figure out what the camber angles were. This was before the second round, after changing to softer springs. A 16 lap round was the result. There was still room for improvement, but...

This put me in the B main with a lot of pilots that for some reason this time didn't go to the A main. A very competitive bunch. Too much sometimes, because my car was the favorite target of some of them. After the first "kiss" the car started to drift to the right again and all was lost. A very bad first final round with 14 laps. They just could not see me in the front and brake. They usually did that on the back of my car...

What I can't understand is why there are no penalties to that type of driving. It's not just being competitive, it's careless driving - get out of the way style. And this causes some of the drivers to despair. No matter what you do there is always a guy that will hit you and he will get away with it.

The second round was plagued with radio interference in one section of the circuit, and I was not the only one complaining. At least two more drivers on the B main were feeling the same problems. This was especially bad because happened in one section of the track where we hit the trigger to top speed. You can imagine what this causes.

It was enough to send my car to a separator and one of the connectors on the battery fell off. End of race, end of day. I was in the 19th position. Almost the last in the B main. I'm sure that I'll do better  next time.

There were some very positive things about this race:

The most experienced racers are in the most cases excellent colleagues and very helpful
They keep the calm even on the worst moments
The organizers and all the club related personnel is very well organized and very nice with everybody
I've learned a lot with my mistakes...

A definitive thumbs up!!!

The Second Race (terrible)

I make a lot of mistakes. Some of them have nothing to do with driving ability or car setup. It's just plain and simple stupidity.

In this race I had a tip for using a certain type of tires. The track was very dusty and this seemed like a very good indication for using those tires, but I also decided to use a different body and I forgot that those unbelted tires balloon at high rpm. The right front tire was touching the body and the car would spin like a crazy dog due to the braking caused by that rubbing.

The first qualifier was a painful stroll around the track. For the next qualifier I decided to use slicks (Take Off A) and the time improved, but I was having problems with the steering trim. It would pull to the right and with just one click it would pull to the left. The car was very dangerous n the long straight because I had to correct it all the time at full speed. It proved to be too much for my hands. The second was a little bit better but the car had a very loose rear and that added to the imprecise steering was a pain.

Then I did a very stupid thing. I changed the rear shocks position. Even worse. I had a completely mad car that would spin if I just touched the steering. Bad bad judgment. At this time I was sinking down the list of times.

For the last round I decided to reset the whole setup, but the car was so impossible to drive that on the straight it suddenly turned to the right and I broke a front suspension arm. Oh boy, what a terrible qualify.

On the lunch break I did a complete run with a different body and the car was PERFECT! I did laps 3 to 4 second faster than the qualifiers. This was an absolute mess. I had no idea of what was happening. The only positive thing was the combo motor/ESC behaving like a dream. I was using a Reedy 9x3 MW and the new LRP Quantum Competition.

For the first round of the C final I went with the same setup I had before lunch. And the car was a dog. It wouldn't accelerate and it would not brake. It was like this all the 3 rounds of the Final C. I later discovered what it was. A loose rear diff. The car would spin the front wheels because the rear was slipping so much that the car behaved like a front when drive car with no brakes.

In conclusion - A day to forget. And for a friend of mine it was even worse. He broke 3 suspension arms on his TC3. 3 guys broke 5 arms in two different types of cars. Associated and Yokomo.

A negative note: The organization of the race was the responsibility of the Associação Académica de Coimbra and the race director was a local club member. He has a very "special" way of dealing with what he calls bad behavior on the track and I was one of the victims. I had already a penalty (warning) and according to the regulation the second one is a stop and go.

On one of the qualifiers I was entering a curve on the inside. Another car was trying to overtake me on the outside of the curve. His trajectory was a little wide and he decided to get inside on the moment my car slipped to the outside of the curve. The cars touched and his car was sent to the separator.

I heard the referee say that I had another warning (a stop and go) but they took two laps to know what to do and after I stopped he applied a stop of 10 seconds, ruining any chance of going up in the ranking. It would be my fastest qualifier. I was angry because the punishment was exaggerated and I decided to go and talk to him.

He said that I had hit the car from the back (not true) and he had the power to decide what punishment to apply. No matter what I said. He agreed he could have been mistaken (he had not seen the actual accident) but the good thing was that he was coherent!!!

Man, I was really pissed off. Then he started being coherent. He applied stop and go to minor problems and some of the more serious hits (and somewhat intentional hits) got away unpunished.

I guess I will not attend any more races there, because there's a chance that is the same guy handling the disciplinary problems of the race. Driving 200Km and paying for all the expenses to return home like this is not an option. Nothing like this happens on the other races.

He tries to have a heavy hand, but this thing of being a judge is not easy and the facts must be seriously evaluated and punishments have to be applied with JUSTICE. Not just because he feels like it.

On top of that he makes stupid remarks on the PA.
After my protest I hit a car from the back entering a curve and he said something like - "So, the other one was from the side, uh?" on the PA.

A race director should not be like that. Trying to be witty and funny may leave space to sheer stupidity and lack of justice.  Being a referee is not for those who want but for those who can.

Current Layout

Another race, another disgrace (CRO 18/05/2001)

I'm getting worse every day. I know it's exactly the opposite of what it should be. But that's the pure truth.

1st qualify - the pack was flat!!! I forgot to change the pack (or at least to test it) before the qualify. No comments

2nd qualify - lousy driving accompanied by some strange radio glitches. Read on you will know why those glitches were there. The car looked like a snail with the usual setup (maybe it wasn't the usual setup after all...). Why? Why? Why?

3rd qualify - A snail again, glitches again and even worse driving.

4th qualify - The car went mad. No control at all. DNF (did not finish) or should I say DNS (did not start). Reason? There was a guy on my qualify with my frequency!!! The exact same frequency!! I had no freq on the list and no one bothered to ask!! This guy was suffering from radio problems since the beginning of the day. No wonder, it was me or him.

When I returned home I discovered that I was using pinions at least 2 teeth lower than I should. For some stupid reason I started using the ratios of 9 and 8 motors with 10 motors. This is what I call a chain of events that can lead to just one result - Despair.

I qualified for the B final. I decided to return home. If it's not fun don't insist. Pack all you gear and go home. The good thing is that I finished 20th with 0 laps. It's for laughs!!

What a miserable day. I don't even know why I insist. Maybe I can get to the 10th position with 0 laps.

At least I got some nice photos.

The good guys always pay attention to all the little details.

Well, I don't. That's one of the reasons for my poor performance at the track. The last race (I wont bother you with details) I was having a strange problem with the car. Every time the throttle came to neutral the car would just not accelerate and the steering would start to jitter like mad, causing some annoying crashes.
On top of that, my motors were all showing crappy performance. Everybody would go by (on acceleration) and I could never reach top speed on the straight.

...and I would change to a smaller pinion. Result: less top speed and still crappy acceleration.

I was puzzled. All the things I thought I knew didn't work. Bugger!!!

The only thing that saves me from total humiliation is the fact that in 7 rounds I NEVER CRASH (probably the 1/12 school). At least this allows me to gain some places (or not to loose them), but because the times on the qualifying rounds are not that good I'm stuck on the B main forever.

When I returned home I found that the ESC was programmed to low punch (off road, low traction setup) and auto brake when neutral.

There it was. It's an easy setup ESC, but I JUST DIDN'T CHECK!!! I also didn't check the CVD's (BTW the rear ones are ruined) and a lot of other things.

Just one word about the Yokomo Light Weight CVD's: They are probably the worst EVER.

On the front, the car "chewed" two pairs before I changed to Shiny MIP CVD, and the rear ones are virtually destroyed. If you have one of these Yoks, don't buy the Yokomo CVD'S (Blue aluminum) because it's a waste of money.

The car is now dialed. I'm able to do enough laps to get to an A Main. In fact I can do better than several guys at the A main. Let's hope I don't forget another detail at the next race.

But even so I'm not as fast as I know I can. Still something missing. I have to compare myself with two other Yokomo drivers, one of them with the exact same car that I have. He's always on the A main. Same setup but with different tires and probably better lines around the track.

The MR4 Special conversion Kit

A few weeks ago I had ordered the Special Conversion Kit, but I almost forgot when. Finally I built it and I found a couple of interesting things.

The upper deck is very similar to the Worlds version with the exception of one mounting hole for the motor mount, the spur adapter is thinner than the Worlds and the pack is closer to the belt. This allows for a weight distribution closer to the centerline of the car and a much narrower chassis especially close to the rear wheels.

If you use Panasonic 3000 cells, the posts that support the battery aluminium strap are too high. The way to solve this is to remove the small spacers that are included on the kit. They are even too high if you are using Sanyo NiMh batteries (larger diameter). Use a smaller spacer in order to keep the batteries from moving. Because I have both types I need to change the spacers when I change the batteries, but it's only two very accessible screws. No harm done.

The practical results were clear (at least to me). With the exact same angles and suspension adjustments I was doing laps like a pro. With the previous chassis I struggled to do 14 laps (Monsanto track) and after this mod I do 14 very easily and in one of the runs I did 15. Now my average per lap is lower than my previous best lap! That has to mean something.

I tried softer tires in the back but I could not hold the rear on the curves (Front - D25 Rear - D20) but after changing to D25 all around the car turned like it never could. I had to remove some travel on the steering because the car turns like I want it to. It's more responsive than with the World graphite chassis. That's for sure.

The amazing thing is that I do less effort to reach these ballistic laps, than what I did to have laps 1 second slower. Probably some chassis guru can explain it, but it's far better than it used to be.

I was so surprised with the time I did that I attributed it to a error counting the laps (I do it with the built in function my radio has), but after 3 consecutive rounds doing the same consistent times I had to believe it.

I never found such a big improvement with any part or accessory I bought. Never.

Back to the basics

It's a good practice (at least I think it is) once in a while to revisit old cars and old ways of doing things. One year ago I was a very crappy driver (I mean, really bad) and I got the impression that the car was holding me back (don't we all? how would kit manufacturers live without us poor souls?).

The MR4, I thought, was a very complicated car to tune and to drive decently. The last test in the Summer of 2001 was enough for me to put the car on sale. Well, nobody wanted it (LOL).

Suddenly I saw the pictures of the latest chassis for the MR4, the beautiful silver plate chassis that Masami used in South Africa and like any other victim of the mysterious marketing forces I NEEDED one. But, what if the car is really bad? Was I right?

Just to be sure I reassembled what needed to be reassembled and made a thorough revision to every minute detail on the car. Oh boy how sloppy I was one year ago!!!!

• I had several BB's ruined

• The angles were by no means decent

• The tweak was horrible (now I have that laser tweak station from Integy and I was able to discover that)

• The drag on the transmission was huge

• The rear diff would better be described as FULL of sand!!

I adjusted the car to my up to date parameters and went to the track. The hopes were low, but on the first pack the car started to behave like a decent machine. Still very slow due to a not very well chosen ratio, but nevertheless very able to enter curves with beautiful flowing trajectories.

WOW!! (I thought) could I have been so bad as a driver one year ago? Answer: oooooh yess I was.

Now this car flows so well around the track that some of my mates (and they are the top 2 National) tell me that the car behaves beautifully. And sure it does.

The ESC I strapped to the thing was my almost new GM V8 coped with a digital Hitec servo (big power baby!!!) and a mix of 12 wind motors from Orion or Reedy. The thing flies!!!

However there are a few drawbacks that I already knew about the car:

• Accessibility is HORRIBLE (to change a pinion I have to unscrew the rear battery holder post)

• To access the rear diff I need to remove 18 SCREWS!!!!! 8 from the upper deck 6 from the rear shock mount and lower shock screws and finally 4 from the diff cover. Losi where are you?

• The chassis is so tight that I had to rethink my pack mounting technique. Otherwise the belt would rub the tube connectors

• The Orion/JB front wheels have internal reinforcing ribs that interfere with the lower front suspension arm when at high angles of steering. Solution? Just file the suspension arm a bit or/and add offset shims to the wheels. This is awkward!

But even in spite of this, the little exercise proves for the second time in a row (the Pro 2 was the first) that any car can be a winning machine when properly tuned and cared for.

Today I look at some of our drivers at the track and understand where they are making huge mistakes in small little details. The result is a very frustrating set of results and some of the worst driving you can imagine.

I was fortunate enough to know how to tune a car before driving them and when I learned, I did it with decently tuned cars. From then on it's just practice. And that I had plenty!!! That's why after 1 year of racing the results started to appear.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE SMALLEST OF DETAILS. It may be the one that ruins your day.

Specs

Electric (Electronic) components
Motor	Team Orion Chrome Touring 11x3 or Corally 10x2 or Fantom 10x3 or "Orionally" 10x3 (see Motors to know why and when)
ESC	LRP Quantum Competition
Batteries	Sanyo 3000, Panasonic 3000,  Corally 3000 and 2400
Connectors	Corally
Receiver	Multiplex Pico 4/5 40Mhz
Steering Servo	Multiplex Profi BB 3

 

Setup sheet 13/06/2001
	This is the current setup. It differs slightly from the one you see in the photos. The shocks have different spring (Orange) and all the angles have been adjusted with a Hudy Setup System (that's good stuff...) I race in modified and we have no limitations, so I use mainly 9 or 10 motors from Corally and Reedy. I found it's very important a correct droop setting to avoid sudden losses of grip on the rear. Because of both one ways, using brakes has to be done very slightly and with the car well aligned.
Setup sheet 16/06/2001
	The above setup was perfect in one of our tracks, but on the other it was a complete mess. I readjusted a couple of things and now it's a car I can drive with confidence. Basically I just go at full speed to the curves, cut throttle, turn and hit throttle again. It's really impressive the way this thing turns.
Setup sheet 1/07/2001
	MR4 TC Special Conversion Kit installed With this setup the car seems to handle corners better and shows a more noble behavior when on tight turns. This course has 3 180º turns and the car handles perfectly allowing a considerable time gain. The best lap was 19.9 whereas my previous best lap was 21.37. Now I'm able to drive the car on the second 20 with few exceptions above this time. 14 laps in 5:00.25 gives an average of 21.64 per lap. And it seems easy to do. No effort beyond what I consider to be safe driving.

JP Pulsar ESC Specs
Throttle
Max peak current	1200A
Continuous current	240A
Brake
Peak current	800A
Continuous current	160A
Tuning
Torque	You can set it using the two buttons on the top, between 10A and 120A. It's possible to tune how fast the motor accelerates.
Brake	Using the two buttons it's possible to regulate the brakes between 80A and 160A, with ABS in the range 80A to 150A.
	Point of max throttle
	Point of max brake

A few notes about the Pulsar ESC

You have seen on the first pictures a locally made ESC called the JP Pulsar. I received two emails asking how and where people could buy one.

I'm always faithful to the truth and nothing bothers me more than to deceive my fellow racers with something that may be biased due to some sort of interest of my part.

I live in a country where the prices of the RC goods is usually very high. The shops add a respectable profit margin and our customs add all sorts of taxes and fees to the imported goods. This was the primary reason that made the creator of this ESC to start making them. To provide a good ESC at a good price when compared with the prices we pay for imported items. He was selling them for around 110 USD when an LRP 7.1 costs the double at the LHS.

I got interested in one, not because of price (I'm very used to buy everything on-line reducing the absurd prices sometimes to half) but because I saw one version running in a 1/12 car and I liked it. I got a new version called RACE with all the tricks and gadgets that you can ask on this type of item.

However, I got a new evolution of the ESC and it started to fail. On the first day it ran for 2 minutes and then stopped. The FETS had reached a temperature that unsoldered some components inside the ESC. The builder was there at the track and repaired it very easily. It happened again. The temperature was getting too high. Solder melts at around 300º Celsius...

He took it home and made a complete overhaul. When it returned it was still getting very hot, but worse, much worse than that, it was causing incredible radio glitches. I attributed this to some problem on my Multiplex radio system (even more because I had two other problems in two different cars).

I got really worried about the radio and started to test everything. Rx, Crystals, Servos and finally I returned to my Novak Cyclone. The glitch was gone and I could drive with no problems at all. In the meantime I had broken an Yokomo WCR graphite chassis, broken one Rx crystal and I was planning to buy a new Tx module for $120.

I informed the creator of the ESC telling him what I had found, prompting him to solve the problem on the ESC. In the meantime a friend of mine that got a similar version on the same day, burned his 3 times. FETS were burning like mad and the ESC got really hot after a 5 minute run, even in winter. We thought what would happen in summer where we reach 40º Celsius in a normal race day.

I sent it for repair and when it was returned I had the indication that it was some component that had a problem. Because I had the Novak installed I just tried it at home, connecting everything for seeing if the glitch was still there. It was not, but I could not do any range checking or test driving  so it was inconclusive.

Some time passed (2 months) and my friend was having all sorts of troubles, to the point that the ESC burned again on a National Championship race final. He was devastated. And he bought a second hand Tekin G12CIII based on my opinion about it's quality and the fact that he needed an ESC desperately.

Recently the creator of the ESC came to my site's forum "advising" newbies against Multiplex radios that were proving to be a nightmare for their owners. We have (me and my friend) identical radios (Multiplex 403) and the problems were not similar on both cases. The only similarity was the ESC burning up and this had nothing to do with the radio system.

I replied saying that the previous versions seemed to be very reliable, but our version was showing some teething problems and they were the cause of all radio problems I was experiencing.

He got mad. He asked to be removed from the forum along with ALL his posts made since the beginning, and accusing us (a friend of mine and myself) of wanting to harm him. He also said that my problem was a question of taste and in 40 happy customers I was the only one complaining.

What bothers me is the fact that he repaired both ESC several times and he knew better than anyone else what was the trouble with them. So this was not badmouthing anything, it was instead one unhappy buyer with pretty good reasons to be unhappy.

In the meantime one of the moderators of the rcvehicles.about.com (Hank Hagquist) sent me an email to know who he should ask one of these ESC's to publish a review. I forwarded the email and from what I can see, Hank never got hold of it in order to test it.

So I'm in a very delicate position, because telling you this story may draw you away from it like the plague, but even if I say that the previous versions were very reliable, nobody will listen it the same way.

I've been harmed both in my wallet and in my trust, and in the end, in spite of buying it with the possibility of a refund, even running it only in front of the builder (with the described problems) I wont get any refund. So I have a very nice and "filled of artificial intelligence" ESC that I wont run with confidence.

My friends tell me that with this age and experience I should have known better, but after all it was a fellow racer (with bad temper, but...) that had a very good record with other customers. I guess that the mask has to fall sometime. Too bad it was with me.