Okay, update on the car(s).
In a dry spell over the weekend me and my mate actually got out and did some racing. Recent torential rain mena the ususal woodland spots were too waterlogged so we opted for a road stage in a large carpark. Got some spray chalk, marked out a circuit (about 16mx8m) and got underway.
It was great fun. Even better than I'd expected. My mate's TA04 was a good match against the XV01. Not as easy in the corners but way faster on the straights. It made for some great racing with both cars running at speeds where you could actually choose racing lines and overtake without wiping eachother out.
The XV01 is a great chassis, freshly built shocks with long eyelets gave a bit of extra ground clearance and made it lean really nicely into the corners. All good scale driving stuff.
Only issue was that, after one pack, the torque tuned motor died on me. Now, IIRC the stock piniopn on the XV01 is a 22T which is to be used with the stock silver can motor. Conventional wisdom says you can up the tooth count on tour pinion with a torque tuned (or maybe I've got that wrong?). So, I put 24T pinion on the torque tuned and went racing.
The motor is absolutely toast (I should hae noticed the reducing power) and it may also have taken the ESC with it
Bit surprised it was running so hot is all. The drive train seems to be running freely enough. The only issue I can think of is that I used a fairly heavy (sticky) grease on the gears. I've used it on all my other cars without issue but maybe the extra drag is just too much for a brushed setup?
I'll need to find a bit of time to take a look and see if there are any other sources of friction going on.
Focussing on the positives though, the concept is sound. I mean, it's hardly original, any club will limit motor power for racing but that combined with a budget limit made for really interesting cars and racing.
Also, just taking the 5 minutes to chalk out a proper circuit made all the difference compared to just blasting around a basic oval. Can't believe I've not done that before.