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Hot Bodies Brushless Stadium Pro 2V Truggy

<IMG1.JPG>[MAIN IMAGE]
Hot Bodies Brushless Stadium Pro 2V Truggy

Tony Arnold - StampedeProject.com

V for Voltage - Introducing the new factory brushless Stadium Pro 2V Truggy from Hot Bodies ready for your favorite low turn motor, ESC, and LiPo pack.  Pause, pause, just kidding.  This is yet another creation from yours truly built as a test and torture platform for the latest in brushless power.  Let's face it with 1/8^th scale capable systems from Novak, Castle, Tekin, and others in the works, the 1/8^th brushless segment will continue to grow. Judging from the number of brushless buggies we have seen on tracks this year, the segment is only going to get hotter.  Additionally with noise complaints being a primary reason for US track closures, quiet electric just might be the next best way to assure the future of our tracks.  For our brushless Stadium Pro 2, we are planning on testing everything we can get our hands on, but first we need a couple test vehicles and a Truggy was first on the list.

<IMG6.JPG>[FULL CHASSIS SHOT]

--------Call Out------------
Tech Tips - Recommended Equipment
- 2200-2500Kv motor with 5MM shaft
- High voltage ESC's like Tekin's R1Pro & Castle's Mamba Max
- Target 5000Mh+ 3S 11.1V Lipo packs for plenty of runtime & power.
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Although it would take a few moments to realize the pictured Stadium Pro didn't roll out of Hot Bodies, the critical parts were pretty simple with the help of parts from RCMonster.com.  

<IMG7.JPG>[SHOWING MOTOR CONVERSION PLATE AND ESC MOUNT]

Step 1
Pull the nitro parts, rear brakes, and swap the rear diff tower with a RCMonster.com Hot Bodies Electric Conversion Plate, bolt up your favorite 5mm shafted, low KV motor and attach one of RC Monster's 5mm shaft MOD1 pinions to the motor.

<IMG3.JPG>[SHOWING ATLERATIONS TO SERVO MOUNT]

Step 2
Cut and Dremel the dual servo carbon fiber mount to make room for the motor mount by removing the braking servo mount.  On other buggies/truggies with aluminum or plastic servo mounts, a little Dremeling with one of Dremel's EX Lock plastic or metal cutters can get you to a factory look.

GROUP THESE TWO
<IMG2.JPG [SHOWING FABRICATED BATTERY TRAY]>
<IMG4.JPG & IMG8.JPG [SHOWING ESC MOUNT]>

Step 3
At this point you could finish the conversion by mounting ESC/RX and batter pack with double-stick tape and Velcro. Since I like details, I went further and fabricated a battery tray and custom ESC mount for the fan cooled Tekin R1 Pro ESC.  I even machined a grill into the ESC mount for the mini-industrial 12V fan with my Proxxon mini-mill - I love my mini-mill. 

--------Call Out------------
Tech Tip
Always use a fan on large-scale conversions.  Electrics are happiest and will last longer when they are cool.  I use 1” eBay'ed 12V industrial fans to move lots of air.
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Step 4
Remove the center pin from the ESC signal wire plug and use a BEC (Battery Eliminator Circuit) like the Castle BEC I used.  We are throwing a lot of stress at the ESC and offloading BEC duties to a dedicated BEC allow the ESC to run cooler and delivers lots of reliable power to servos.

<IMG5.JPG>[CAPTION - Relocating the RX box to the front to house the front brake servo and electrics made for a super-clean conversion]

Step 5 (optional brake setup)
If you want the ESC to control all braking, you can skip this step, however I recommend retaining servo based brakes on heavier RCs.  I have pulled RPM, runtime, and temperature data via a Medusa Research Oracle Data Recorder in various brushless conversion ranging from buggies to truggies to even 15lb 1/7^th scale monster trucks.  The results were that retaining either the front and/or rear brakes significantly lowered operating temperatures, motor/ESC stress, and extended run times - makes sense the motor and ESC are doing less. Since the motor only braking can produce a unpredictable braking, more control is available by retaining front servo braking and front/rear brake biasing can be adjusted via ESC and brake linkage. Like many of my featured brushless conversions before, a Y-signal splitter was used to control the ESC and braking servo in unison.  I retained the front brake and trimmed and converted the stock battery box to internally mount the stock braking servo and still have room inside for the Spektrum receiver and a Castle BEC.  The stock battery box made for a super clean conversion.  Moving the battery box up front and the crash bar did require some new chassis holes, but the underside looked perfectly factory after the holes were countersunk.

Voltage Powered
For our initial conversion we chose the Tekin Tekin R1 Pro ESC.  As proven in our brushless Techno Revo conversion, Tekin's flagship ESC is plenty powerful to drive big RCs, especially with a fan keeping things cool and BEC duties offloaded to a Castle BEC.  A 5000Mh 11.1V MaxAmps LiPo pack is more than sufficient to make the truggy wheelie especially with a Neu 1515/1Y 2200Kv motor producing the spin.  Should there be a need, the battery tray is engineered to handle all the way up to a 14.4V 12,000Mh MaxAmps lipo pack or 6S of A123 packs.

Initial Performance Testing
The Stadium Pro 2 is one of the best truggy chassis's available and the perfect test platform for brushless testing.  We will spring for the nerdy details from our Medusa Research Oracle Data Recorder on which motor/ESC does what and our top picks in upcoming articles, but for now it was fun just to take a class leading chassis and give it a brushless power boost.  In this brushless form, my Stadium Pro 2V would be a completely unfair racing against the same chassis with nitro power.  A nitro machine can't match this brushless machine's instant torque, near 50MPH top speeds, and acceleration so hard you can lift the front wheels at pretty much any speed.  Toss in one of the 12,000Mh packs and you would never have to pit.  On top of the speed and torque, braking was also excellent once the front braking servo and the ESC braking were dialed in. 

<IMG12.JPG>[CAPTION - To keep things fair in future tests we will use a fresh set of Pro Line Crime Fighters and their new black 17mm wheels in each test.]

Conclusion
The Stadium Pro 2's performance is outstanding and with wheelie-ing acceleration, torque and speed of brushless made it an amazing machine.  The brushless power would be hard to match by any nitro system, however the 1-2 minutes battery swap pit stops would more than make up any difference the brushless setups gained.  Could we get away with less power or even a smaller less torquey motor?  Stay tuned, because we are going to flog every system and motor we can get our dirty little hands on.

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Sources:  Hot Bodies - www.HotBodiesOnline.com, RC Monster - www.RCMonster.com, Neumotor - www.Neumotors.com, Tekin - www.TeamTekin.com,  Novak - www.TeamNovak.com, Medusa Research - www.MedusaResearch.com, MaxAmps - www.MaxAmps.com, Spektrum - www.SpektrumRC.com, Castle Creations - www.CastleCreations.com, Proxxon - www.ProxxonUS.com

Extra Image (IMG10.jpg)