Le Mans motor restorations

[Coelacanth]

I'd be interested to know, too. The official Le Mans motor specs don't seem to line up with your findings. Maybe you did something extra to spice up some of your non-240SB motors...or something isn't quite running optimally with your 240SB?

Back in the day when I was racing (quite haplessly, I might add), guys had Trinity Monster motors, the 240S, and others, and I saw the 240SB on 8.4V NiCad and that was one of the fastest cars at the track.

[coxbros1]

How do you do the testing between them? Top speed, accel, etc?

Yes top speed and acceleration

[coxbros1]

The official Le Mans motor specs don't seem to line up with your findings. Maybe you did something extra to spice up some of your non-240SB motors...or something isn't quite running optimally with your 240SB?

I agree, i was shocked to see the two 480's run as well as they did. I wanted the SB and the 240Spa to be the fastest...on my motor machine (no load) the 240spa is by far the fastest with the SB in 2nd...but in the car was a different story...they werent bad at all but the 480's had better acceleration with as much or a tick more top speed. Nothing is done special to any of the motors and they all spec out at the rpm's they are advertised as...except the SB is not quite hitting the 29k mark, getn about 27,500 out of it at 0 degrees....the 240 spa getn about 29,000 not the 31,000rpm it advertised as....all in all a great test day and had a blast running all of them in that vintage Salute, ran the dog piss out of it all day without a single problem with the car. the 1060esc gave up at the end of the day tho, and the armature quit working on the 360pt☹....I tested it with an ohm meter and its definitely bad

[TheDiamondOne]

I couldnt believe what we saw during the testing. Always thought the 480 motors were just pretty. But after testing they were unbelievable and performance exceeded all expectations. My favorite motor, the 240s has been replaced by the 480 Gold!

[Coelacanth]

I had the 480 Gold in my Optima back in the day. It was purchased new, I had to save up a lot of money to order that from Tower Hobbies back then. And I can say it was nowhere even CLOSE to the 240SB...or even the 240S, for that matter. Weird. I don't know how an 8-minute motor could outperform a 4-minute motor. I have a mystery black-can motor I installed in my Zebra Optima way back in the day...I don't know what's inside but it has 14 scratched on it. That motor is a total beast. I bought it from a racing enthusiast back in the day. I don't know how it might compare to the 240SB--as I've never installed my new/restored 240SB in a car--but it would wipe the floor with any 480 motor I've used.

EDIT: I also have used a few 360 Golds back in the day and those would blow the doors off my 480 Gold, too...but those were 550-size cans, 6-minute motors, so totally expected.

[R6cowboy]

The results get me little more excited to put the 480 Gold in one of the FXT's. The other one is getting a Speed Gems Ruby 16x3 because that's what I had in my old one in the '90s. Waiting on a response from RCScrewz at the moment because I sent them the info needed to create screw and bearing kits.

[TheDiamondOne]

Also, when testing 480SPA, 480G, 480s, 480t they performed how you would think. Spa was best speed and torque overall with gold very close 2nd. The S just a tick lower in speed and alot lower in torque, T lowest in speed but more torque than the S. Great test.

[coxbros1]

Me and David bought a NIB 240sb about 10 or 15 yrs ago....cant quite remember, put it in a Hotshot i believe, and ran it because we wanted one real bad in the late 80s....anyway it ran just like the 240sb we have now. By far the most secretive motor, but real world testing it just doesnt have what the 480gold has. "480Gold Life---->"

[juicedcoupe]

the armature quit working on the 360pt☹....I tested it with an ohm meter and its definitely bad

Do any of the crawler places like Team Brood or Holmes rewind armatures? Or they might just do a custom armature for you.

[Coelacanth]

How many 480 Golds do you have? I still really have my doubts. Is the 240SB you tested new-in-box? It might have another armature in it...or so could the 480 Gold. I've mixed & matched armatures in different Le Mans cans in the past. I'm happy for your testing guys, totally appreciate the time you invested...but something doesn't add up here. How can a motor that drains a battery twice as fast be slower than a comparable motor that drains the battery half as fast? A 360 Gold is a bigger, stouter motor physically and drains a battery 25% faster electrically than the 480 Gold. I clearly have seen the performance difference between these 2 motors alone. Is your 480 Gold faster and torquier than your 360 Gold?? It can't see it. I remember putting a 360 Gold in my Optima briefly to do a bit of a test run in my carpeted basement all those years ago, and it would immediately pull wheelies off a start, but my 480 Gold wouldn't.

EDIT: There's some discussion on vintage motors and the Tamiya TechniGold over at TamiyaClub, it touches on comparable performance for some of the Le Mans motors, and a few racers whom I respect chimed in...Mad Racer for one, he used to be a big member here but disappeared some years ago. Like I said, a motor designed to run for 8 minutes on a 1200 mAh battery simply cannot be faster than a motor that runs for 4 minutes on that same battery pack. I don't doubt your testing results but I do wonder if somehow internals got mixed up or were purchased unknowingly already mixed up to skew the results.

https://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?/topic/51670-technigold/

[juicedcoupe]

I suspect that it has more to do with the testing procedure. There are multiple variables that could be changed to skew the results in favor of any motor. If there was "one top performing" motor, there simply wouldn't be a need for most of the others.

[GeneralZod]

I have a mystery black-can motor I installed in my Zebra Optima way back in the day...I don't know what's inside but it has 14 scratched on it. That motor is a total beast. I bought it from a racing enthusiast back in the day. I don't know how it might compare to the 240SB--as I've never installed my new/restored 240SB in a car--but it would wipe the floor with any 480 motor I've used.

Yep- every time I saw those black can no label mystery motors installed in fellow racers cars always made me nervous! They were heavily tuned and were usually in the lead by a full lap or more. No way to catch up to them.

With those LeMans motors, I noticed they all have the crimped eyelets on the brush shunts. That is an added connection which will have voltage and current loss across it. With a motor checker, you can see the difference between the eyelet shunts vs soldering the shunt to the brush hoods. Also, there are different brush compounds that can alter performance. Another is the way a brush is cut can degrade or enhance overall power and speed. Spring tension can be tuned using a spring kit and even adding bends to them can give more speed. I have experimented with a dud B&R Magnum stock motor that could barely eek out 1000 rpm at 7.2V due to all the mismatched springs, brush compounds, cuts, and voltage loss across those eyelets. I went from a dud stock motor to an absolute screamer just by tuning it. It takes time but it can be done. There was a book written many years ago about tuning brushed motors and it had a wealth of information on how its done but I can't remember the name of it now.

[juicedcoupe]

There was a book written many years ago about tuning brushed motors and it had a wealth of information on how its done but I can't remember the name of it now.

Big Jim's RC motor black book.

Originals are hard to find but I think there are some PDF versions out there.

[GeneralZod]

There was a book written many years ago about tuning brushed motors and it had a wealth of information on how its done but I can't remember the name of it now.

Big Jim's RC motor black book.

Originals are hard to find but I think there are some PDF versions out there.

That's the one! Thanks for clearing my cobwebs! I'll need to see if I can find it again. The best by far on the art of tuning!

773840-L.jpg (30.98 KiB) Viewed 1591 times

773840-L.jpg (30.98 KiB) Viewed 1591 times

[Coelacanth]

I have that file, it's a 46-page Word document. If anybody wants a copy, PM me your email addy.