'BK Select' Brian Kinwald Reedy motor

[dinglem]

I am gathering this motor i have is pretty rare. I have hunted down quite a bit of information, which points to this having been almost released then prevented from being so due to Brian Kinwald defecting over to Losi/Trinity some 4 months after the '93 Basildon Worlds win. The idea for this motor was conceived after his win and each unit was supposedly a direct replica of the spec he used to win the WC. Just as it was about to be released to the public Trinity stepped in and prevented them from going on sale, so they were rumoured to have been sent out to the team drivers and production ceased. I sourced this directly from an ex-team Reedy driver who backed up this story. Looks barely used.

I am told there were a couple of mag articles on this motor at the time over in the US, so if anybody has anything on this I would really appreciate seeing a copy. I would guess RCCA editions from late '93 into early '94 perhaps? If anybody knows more accurate info then I would love to have your input.

Either way it is a very rare and cool piece of RC history. I have discussed it with Jamie Booth and Craig Drescher over the past week and neither have seen or heard of it before, so that says rare to me!

[RC10th]

Very cool looking motor.

[scr8p]

Asso_man! has one in one of his builds. Can't remember which one though....

[Lonestar]

is there anything outstanding that asso_man doesn't have in one of his builds?!?

Love the sticker on this baby!

[dinglem]

Yeah, the sticker is pretty cool. I am tempted to strip it and have a nose inside to see what they actually did. Not much (virtually zero) info on the web about this motor so i am guessing few people actually know anything about it.

[Lonestar]

Unless they did some crazy stuff like flat wires or whatever, what you have here is probably a very carefully wound and balanced arm (hopefully no drilling), just at the right axial position in the stator, with the right brushes, springs, aligned brush holders and the comm trued down to the exact perfect diameter !

Would love to see if there any markings, tho

[Timmahhh]

Those are very cool motors. I believe as far as construction, it would essentially be a 12x2 Reedy Mr. motor, with the commemorative label (since Brian used a 12x2 Mr at the worlds). If course if they were provided to only team drivers, there might have been a few not-intended-for-production tricks applied either before or after sending them out too.

[dinglem]

It is interesting in the advert above that is says 'the same wind and set up as used by Brian Kinwald...' so makes me wonder what else was involved. I spoke to the original owner yesterday and he told me he ran it 2 or 3 times and that the cut brushes were original and came with it. You can see looking at the comm it has never been run with full brushes.

I will have to get it on the dyno first - if it puts out good numbers I will be reluctant to open it up, but if not i will have a nose inside. Any of the other owners opened theirs?

I am hoping somebody can dig out the RCCA articles on this motor to throw some light onto it....

[RC10th]

I would say it's just the same wind, spring, brush and timing combo Brian used, nothing else special otherwise the price would likely reflect that as it's the same price as all the others. Now the actual motor Brian used, that could be a different story

[DaveM]

Nice score!

[Asso_man!]

This motor was never released to the public although Reedy intended to. The Dirtynator had actually just signed with Losi and Trinity at the time and the BK Reedy motor was never sold to the public, at least not with this label. The very few ones that were produced were only given to sponsored drivers and that was the end of the short story. I've had mine for like 8-10 years now and this is the second I have ever seen. It was given to me by a Belgian Team AE driver together with a late "worlds" Graphite Team Car he was still running in vintage class early 2000. He told me he received it from AE back in '93-'94 and actually never used the motor.
Most definitely one of the most elusive Reedy motors. I would be curious to see the results of the dyno and I might crack it open next time I get it out of storage. I also sent pictures and questions about it to BK himself but he still hasn't replied.

[dinglem]

Thanks for posting the pics and information mate. Nice to see another one, especially like mine, in such good condition too. The more i have looked into these the rarer they appear to be. Mine was sourced directly from British Team-Reedy driver Jimmy Davis, who i know from back in the day as he was fairly local to me. He won the 1/12th Euros in 82 and was in the top few at the Worlds that same year. In his own words, 'the great man just posted it out to me' and he didn't even know the spec or too many details about it when he let me have it, apart from that he knew it was incredibly rare. I would still love to read the mag article which discusses these and details the story behind them.

[Asso_man!]

Was there ever an article about this very motor and if so do you know which magazine and issue number?

[dinglem]

I had another guy contact me a few weeks ago about my post on a Fb group, and he also sent me a photo of his BK below. So that makes 3. In his message he told me he 'had a few magazine articles relating to this motor' and then promised to dig them out for me. Nothing yet though.....

BK003.jpg (78.3 KiB) Viewed 2131 times

BK003.jpg (78.3 KiB) Viewed 2131 times

[Lowgear]

I also sent pictures and questions about it to BK himself but he still hasn't replied.

I can't remember for sure but I thought Kinwald was a member here? It would be cool if he could chime in more often on some of these topics that could use his input.