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I have purchased several of the Piranha motors and so far they seem to be the equal of motors of the same spec priced over twice as much. I have not had the time to put enough laps on these cars to formulate a personal opinion, however, one racer in our club installed several and has had complaints about them slowing after a fairly short time of competitive racing. Has anybody on this board had any long term experience with these motors and if so what is your opinion as far as performance and lasting performance.

Thanking you in advance for any information

Spencer (Mayberryman) Wilkinson

All teams (5) ran Piranhas in last fall's Area 51 24 HR endurance race in Storrs, CT. There were no motor failures, nor was there a reduction in performance due to any of the motors.

I have been using these motors for over a year now. I have sent 2 proxy cars out with them. As far as I can tell, there has not been any degradation in performance from when the cars were first built.

I have also competed in 3 North American Championship race series from GT Slots in Philadelphia using them as well. They are great motors

Is there any chance the voltage being used could be a factor? In a series I used to race in at a commercial track the guys were constantly asking to have the voltage turned up till we were running at 18 volts.

I only have 2 Piranha motors, in new builds, so I don't have any real experience with them yet.

Slothead

I put one on a bench roller the motor was installed just like it would be set up to run on the track in a chassis with gears and wheels rolling the hole time. I ran it for 24 hours at 12 volts and after the 24 hours the motor was faster than when I started. Also like it was stated above when we ran at the Area 51 24 hour we didn't see any drop off due to motors from any of the teams.
Mike

Been using them since they were released. Our second year using them in the Show-Me Showdown. Not one problem.

I've had no problems with them so far. My cars may not be the fastest, but it's not the fault of the motors.

I have been using them for most of my competitive racing and have found that they just keep getting faster. I had one seize up on me because it ingested copious amounts of tire rubber. After cleaning it out and lubing it the motor runs faster than ever.

Curtis

I break in my motors over a 4 hour period at various rpm bands. After break-in, I have only seen an increase in the rpm output of the Piranha motors and have broken in, probably, a dozen of them.

The best testament to these motors, I think, comes from the results of last year's Area 51 24 hour Enduro race. As has already been said, 24 hours of continuous racing is a long time and no motor failures or drop-offs in performance for any of 5 individual teams over that time period is pretty good evidence for the durability and longevity of the Piranha motor.

Allan

The most likely cause of a motor slowing down is having dust from the brushes causing a short across the commutator. Many motors have had this problem, the first generation of Slot.it orange endbell 21.5K motors are known to suffer from it. If you do a low speed bench breakin of your motors you might be more likely to get the dust stuck in the slots. If you over oil the endbell bearing you might get oil on the commutator and that would make it more likely that the dust would cause a problem.
I have bought quite a few Piranha motors and not had a problem with any of them. The motors will often be a bit faster once they have broken in, but I don't think that there is any advantage to doing a bench breakin VS just putting the motor in the car and running it normally.