FE Tunnels at WTC

[HTV Boats]

http://www.rcracinge...club=Charleston Model Boaters&event=2012wtc

Hers a link for all the results at the World Tunnels. Was really nice to see a good turn out and share info with the some really good FE tunnel racers. We all learned some things in actually heat racing a lot of projects. A few guys had last minute glitches and couldn't make the fields but I know there will be more next year so keep building.

I tried to support every class and had some good results with my son Jay driving most of the boats. We also had several nitro classes to run. Our best boat ran in the Open tunnel class against gas.and nitro. We had the only FE in the class and Jay went perfect 2000 points. Running against some of the fastest nitro 40-101 tunnels with a 1520 Castle 1600KV, A Swordfish 200 Amp speedy with a couple extra caps and a Zippy 5800MA single 6S 30C pack and an M545 prop. I did not use exotic equipment as any more power and we would have been upsidedown. As an open tunnel we could pass and pull away from anyone in the field at will. With a 32" boat we after locking up the win in 4 rounds wanted to see what the boat could do in traffic. Starting behind the whole field in round 5 we picked off 5 boats in one lap and the 6th in the second lap. This is going through water stirred up by big nitro and gas boats. Not trying to rub anyones nose in it as we knew we could out accelerate everything at the start.

We opened a few minds up to the power of FE. Saw a few jaws drop when we puller the trigger too. When their are more P & Q tunnels built it is going to be some real challenging driving in heat racing. The boats and their handling characteristics will for a while keep costs in check. Hope to see more at the races.

Mic

 

[James E Beasley]

This was my first serious shot at FE Tunnels and I had a blast and was impressed as well. Although I did not design my hull I did assemble it, set up the electrics and set it up for heat racing, even picked my own prop and it was not a big-name guy prop. My hornet drove like it was on rails and would corner at full speed with no bad habbits at all. I think I will play with FE some more, but nitro will always be my favorite. Once you get everything matched up for proper amperge and heat avoidance, these boats are quite pleasant to run, all except for that unerving "pop" when you make the battery connection! Some techno-electro-geek needs to develop and compact high amperage opto-electrical switch that we can use and activate magnetically or mechanically to fix this issue. Voltage spikes that leave black buirn marks are not comforting. Beasley

 

[Dick Loeb]

Nice job by all of the F/E gang,alot of work alot of fun. Jay wish the shoot out would have lasted longer but fun while it lasted, James super job with that Hornet. Lets all keep the F/E ball rolling its a BLAST. TEAM UGLY sure ran pretty

 

[Chilli]

James, The spark is caused by capacitors in the ESC charging up. There is some debate whether the spark is a good thing or bad. Some ESC's come with a built in spark arrestor. Some manufactures don't recommend them. Check with your manufacturer. I've seen some elaborate spark arrestor set ups, but all it takes is touching a resister between battery and ESC lead for a second to charge the caps. This will charge up the caps at a slower rate. Then you can plug the battery in spark free.

 

[Tim leyde]

Mic

What hull/motor/lower and esc comb were you guys running?

TL

 

[HTV Boats]

Mic

What hull/motor/lower and esc comb were you guys running?

TL

Tim,

As I put above it was on my own 32" HTV hull.a Castle 1520/1600KV motor and a 200a Swordfish with a couple extra caps I added. A single 6S 5800ma 30c Zippy battery. I do have a set of Hyperion 3300ma 6S packs to run in parallel but I need to redo the radio box to fit them. That will make 6600ma and a cushion. Prop was M445 and a M545. We tried both and the 545 was faster but we dialed back to the 445 to keep a safety margin as we don't have that much time on the setup. Temps with the 545 were abouy 115 esc and 120 battery after the 7 laps as we had to do a full mill mixed with IC boats. I was charging packs for 5 boats but I seem to remember this one used about 4500ma per heat max.

I know some of the FE community are not thrilled about mixing power FE and fuel (IC) boats. If you think about it how else are you going to get your foot in the door. Existing FE races are minimal and growing slowly. You have two choices for new members, the newby fun runners or some old guard converting from fuel. The one thing that fuel racers will bring is we know the system and the people to get on race programs. The newbies will worry about controls and changing regulations and get mired up in "restrictor plate discussions". The existing fuel guys who just appreciate performance ask what are you using to run that fast. When I tell them the next question is cost. There is a big misconcerption on possible new conversions to FE that all this "black box" stuff has to be expensive. They know the exotic 8-12S stuff runs fast but also feel it is very expensive. When I tell them that my total cost with battery was less than an average IC motor befor pipe carb and whatever mods needed they just shake their heads. This is after we just dominated their $2000 rig for under $800. It gets their attention and if they build stuff even to play with it is going to wind up racing before RTR boats.

On an FE forum my stuff is junk. Cheap esc and god forbid I can't give you the data logger info cause I haven't got that far into it yet. I am just having fun with fast equipment. I go to the maybe toughest race in tunnels with 12 boats and fortunately my son is a better wheel man than me. We win three classes, two major ones, and place in 4 more and if you come over to my trailer and ask me what the CG is on any one hull I could not tell you. I know the prop, height and trim ange though. Fuel guys are ready to play with performance and some do not want to be told they need to start in the spec classes. They are ready and like me will make mistakes and burn up some equipment. They are used to thowing rocks in the lake with $100 bills attached. Want to see FE grow plant your seeds in good soil.

Mic

 

[raptor347]

Glad you guys are having fun with FE and congrats on the good showing at WTC.

Equipment wise, I don't know that I'd call what you run junk. There's nothing wrong with that 1520-1600 CC/Neu motor. I have no experience with the swordfish ESC, but I know people have had good luck with them. The battery debate will never end (been the same since the beginning with graded 1100mah NiCd's ), I've learned to just ignore it and run what works for me.

Tunnels are a fun twist because it's really tough to harness all the power available in the FE systems. It's more of a trade off and balancing act. Lets face it, the only power class that's well tested in tunnels at this point is the P-Ltd stuff, the open motor classes are VERY early in the development stages. It's starting just like the other classes did, adapt existing hulls and refine from there. I'll be very interested to see what Q tunnel looks like in 3 years. Purpose built hulls (maybe we'll have purpose built lowers) to take advantage of the power?

The FE classes that have a lot of development time behind them tend to benefit from high end equipment, just because it gets pushed quite a bit harder every run. It becomes more a reliability issue, better materials and construction hold up over the long haul. I'm still running Neu's that I bought in 2006, bearing replacement is the grand total of maintenance. The other side of the equation is the gap in performance between the cheap and high end equipment has narrowed quite bit.

Keep up the good work and have fun.

 

[topfuel443]

Had I not destroyed my vision Q boat by stuffing it at full speed during a test session, I feel certain I had something for the FE guys in Q. I am hooked, no doubt about it. My p-limited boat ran flawlessly, and was a treat to drive. I am getting the back up boat built now for the Q replacement, and will be getting rid of that god awful hyperformance bullet drive. The OS will be much better for this set-up... Cant wait to squeeze the trigger on this thing again!

Jay's open boat was just plain STUPID. I ran my 40 nitro tunnel in that class, and finished second behind him. The only way I would have beat him at any point would have been for him to let the smoke out. Jay is an awesome driver, and the boat was ballistic. Thats a deadly combination!

 

[RonShaw]

Clegg,

You would have definitely been in the hunt had your Vision not been destroyed. It was crazy fast. I also agree with you on Jay. Not only is he a great driver, but highly competitive as well. In one of our heats he cut me off and cut a buoy to get in first. With several other boats on our heels he told me he was going wide on the next turn to let me back around as he did not want to win it that way. I held him off for the win but he won even more respect from me. Class act Jay.............

 

[HTV Boats]

Brian, Thanks for the post and I know the Castle Neu's are good motors. We started off with $100 Leopards to see where were at and at this stage overall lap times wouldn't be much different. I will say to all spend the extra for the Neu/Castle as it is cheap in the long run. I am not sure boats will change too much unless mass builders see a profit in numbers. Tunnels are different as you have the big blow over potential and have to really set them up well to turn. You just can't pour horsepower on like a SAW boat. Our 20 nitros are as fast on top as 40's and larger but you cannot handle water with a smaller boat. That said just like multi engine dragsters add HP and weight is not the answer. I don't try to get every mph out of a heat boat as it only ups your cornering entrance speeds which may lower your lap times. So tunnels may evolve as a very good drivers boat and not so much just thjrow money at them, plug and play. The sad thing is there are too many rules discussion and we need a system like NASCAR where one competition director can change things as needed. A blanket 34" lenght rule really hurts existing tunnel hulls and pushes us into Q when a full "P" would really run nice on many common tunnels and take some of the problems out of setup. I have been seeing 60-70mph easily on my "Q's" but for heat racing we barely break 60 as all we would be is upside down going faster. I don't see that limit going up much in the near future even with exotic power. Just putting a 1527 on a bigger hull is not the answer as you then need more battery. With space for radio,esc & batteries limited on most tunnels a limit on milleamps to say 5000 for a "P" and 6000 for a "Q" would level things better and we have boats ready now. Prop and setup would really shine through. That will start a discussion I don't want, but tunnels are not mono's or hydro's.

James, try cutting off the bullet and shaping the lower on the Hyperformance. If you don'r I will. The OS is strong enough if you don't prop too much diameter but it will not handle as well as the 45 K&B. Been there done that.

Ron, thanks for the nice comments on Jay, but remember next time he will just run you over. Just a tunnel thing nothing personal. :unsure:

Mic

 

[RickGlover]

I'm hooked electric tunnels. Burned 2 ESC trying to get my p tunnel going. I did several stupid things. My first 100 amp swordfish burned up when I put an old bent flex shaft in it and ran it. Next I bought a 240 amp swordfish because OSE was out of 100 amp and I wanted for the WTC. Got my boat back together the day before the race . Went to the pond and borrowed a programer so I could hurry up and run. Plugged my 4s into it when I shouldn't have during the programing process. While standing there it went up in smoke. $360 lesson. Don't get in a hurry, read the instructions carefully,and don't use equipment that I would use in my nitro boat. As soon as I recover $$$$ I will have the boat running. Thanks Mic for all the posts. Read them very carefully to learn about the FE s. To bad I Didn't read the instructions as carefully. No pain No gain. Rick

 

[ron upton]

wow rick......is there anyone that can help u program the next one......i just use the cheep turngy120's in my spec tunnel and never had a problem at all with em.....

 

[RickGlover]

Yea , I was in a hurry, there were plenty of people there. We even got it to program after the puff with Bobbys help. I did run about 4 laps with it and brought it in,needed to loosen it up, and it would not work after that. I 'm going to ship it back to China under warranty maybe they will send me something back.

 

[RickGlover]

The first one I blew up was a 200 amp $100 swordfish. Not 100 amp

 

[HTV Boats]

The first one I blew up was a 200 amp $100 swordfish. Not 100 amp

Rick,

As you know from running nitro there is a cost involved. Actually FE is a bit more operator error than a piston and rod that are destined to blow, Like a grenade with the pin pulled, not "if" just how long. I and a few others have had very good luck with the 200amp Swordfish in our tunnel applications. They fit in narrow boxes and program easily. For $100 you can afford a spare just like you carry spare nitro parts. Adding a couple capacitors is cheap and extar protection. The 240 has not justified the extra cost as several of us have had programming issues with them. WATER is the big killer here and I have learned ($500 also) to take extra time waterproofing a radio box.You can also waterproof with CorrosionX or coat the speedy with epoxy or spray coating. There are several threads on OSE with some great info and ideas.http://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/showthread.php?33776-elecrical-spray-to-seal-esc-ect

Buy your speedys from them also and he backs up reasonable things.

Mic

 

[SeanKewley]

It sounds like it was a successful event. Has anyone put together a FE Tunnel guide for P and Q tunnels? Anything that can be emailed, downloaded, or handed out at events would help to lesson the learning curve for those interested in those classes. Possibly list some of the popular hulls for P and Q, suggested motors and KV ratings, ESCs, batteries, props, etc. Links to suppliers along with links to specific FE related articles would be helpful too.

Here is an example D Peterson and I did a few years back for the P-Ltd classes... needs to be updated now.

P-LIMITED SPEC CLASS INFO.pdf

 

[HTV Boats]

http://forums.offsho...d-Used-Plus-esc

Just saw this and these are perfect P & Q outboard motors. 1515 2200kv for P and the 1521 and 1520, 1577 & 1600KV's for Q.

Sean we don't have any downloads like that but there are threads here and in the OB section on P&Q tunnels. It is a shame the blanket 34" rule affects many good hulls that could be run as a "P". You have the option to cut off sponson tips which should not affect performance. I feel 14.8v (4S) P tunnel equipment are a better match for .45 size hulls which are plentiful. Because of the 34" thing a lot of guys are building "Q" powered boats and may get discouraged as the power will make them difficult to set up. I spent a month on my own "Q" hull which I have years of setup time and till a week before the race wasn't sure it as going to work. Made a major leverage change in steering and it took the oversteer out and the boat really handled well at up to 60mph. Could run faster but would have lost cornering. A couple guys are starting on 5S to get setup and will go to 6S later which is not a bad idea. On the west coast they seem to be having success with lower KV's on outrunners (1250) and turning more pitch and diameter. 1500-1800kv with smaller props has beeen the range from what I saw fot "Q's" at Charleston. The LeeCrafts, Hoppers HTB, Vision, Aerotect , Hornet, Woodstuff and MLBoats plus Carls Warhead & Shaman work well as P & Q boats. Some 21 size hulls will take a full P like a Lynx or TS3 but are very touchy in anything above clam water or heta race conditions. Just my opinion but I have seen or run all these in competition.

Mic

 

[Don Ferrette]

This was my first serious shot at FE Tunnels and I had a blast and was impressed as well. Although I did not design my hull I did assemble it, set up the electrics and set it up for heat racing, even picked my own prop and it was not a big-name guy prop. My hornet drove like it was on rails and would corner at full speed with no bad habbits at all. I think I will play with FE some more, but nitro will always be my favorite. Once you get everything matched up for proper amperge and heat avoidance, these boats are quite pleasant to run, all except for that unerving "pop" when you make the battery connection! Some techno-electro-geek needs to develop and compact high amperage opto-electrical switch that we can use and activate magnetically or mechanically to fix this issue. Voltage spikes that leave black buirn marks are not comforting. Beasley

Yo Beaz, all you need to do is add a pigtail lead to the negative side of your ESC and one of your packs (if it's a 2P set up) with cheap shielded male/female bullet connectors you can get at any auto parts store. You connect your positive side like normal but connect the pigtail negatives first, the cheap bullets take the "hit" and your good negative connector doesn't when you connect it after the pigtails. Once the cheap crimp on bullets are "burned up" just cut them off and crimp on 2 new ones. You should be around when I connect my 10S stuff.............. :lol: B)