.46 on a buggy???

[Lochie]

so i spotted a CEN Racing .46 engine in my LHS the other day and thought it would be good for my buggy. i'm a basher looking for a bit faster fun but is a .46 TOO big?

 

[frickenjoey]

It is bigger but not faster. They were not very good engines really. A .26 is really about the biggest you wanna go in a buggy. They have thinner tires so they just loose traction. The fastest buggy I have ever seen had a .21 on it. I put a LPR .28 on one and it just could not hook up.

 

[Extreme RC Mods]

Any decent .21 will smoke that engine if they were side by side, the .46 has limited rpm due to it's size, probably half what a .21 can pull. Much over a .21 is overkill, the werks b5 or picco P7 would push that buggy with ease.

 

[PaulC]

My .28 claimed 2.8bhp. It was kinda frighteningly quick, especially the mid range acceleration. Very seldom got it up to full flat out speed and only then in longish grass.

My Picco .21 claims 2.1bhp, but it's far more immediate to respond so sharper at low speed. Still haven't tuned it yet to find out what it's top end is like.

Generally the only reason these tiny engines produce the same kind of horse power as a 50cc motorbike/scooter is the insane RPM they produce (and of course nitro is much more bang per cc)

Power = Torque * RPM * FACTOR <- the factor depends on what units you use.

The more displacement you have, generally, the higher the torque, but at a cost of some RPM.

With a fairly average .21 able to light up the wheels from stand still of a buggy on dry tarmac more torque would be more or less a waste.

.46 is going to weight quite a bit and if the engine is not mounted far enough forward could make it wild tail happy and hard to balance in jumps.

 

[Lochie]

so bigger isn't always better

 

[Extreme RC Mods]

Not at all, that engine would probably kick itself apart if aloud to run at the RPM's it would see pushing a buggy.

 

[frickenjoey]

Oh I am with you Robin....torque is good until it is wasted...then once you loose traction it does not matter how much you have it does you no good.