Need a cheap practice ship?...The Hobby King EFX Racer

A forum for electric pylon racing discussisons including Electric Formula 1.
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Dave Yost
Super Contributor
Posts: 291
Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 1:49 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

Need a cheap practice ship?...The Hobby King EFX Racer

Post by Dave Yost »

So, I am not really a fan of injected molded foam anything........But we have a problem down here in San Diego. There is no real suitable flying sites that will allow a nitro powered pylon plane. The only real option is a two hour drive to Riverside or Whittier.

A gentleman that I fly electric park fliers with showed up with an EFX. It does not come with gear, it is intended to be hand launched. After trimming it on 3S for my friend, he decided it was a little too much for his skill level, a hundred dollar bill changed hands, and it landed on my bench.

The airplane was difficult to launch with consistency, so I decided it needed landing gear. I bought a hand full APC 5" and 6" props, and started experimenting. After adding the gear, the drag was increased substantially, so I stepped it up to 4S.

The results were quite surprising: It's Fast! and handles like it is on rails.

It is at lease as fast as a well prepared EF1, but looks faster because it is smaller.

Here is the list of modifications:

1. Aluminum Gear brackets, attached with shoe Goo. (Home Depot)
2. Speed wheels (a little big, but looks really cool!!)
3. Cut the skids (foam bumps) off of the bottom of the wing.
4. Opened up the belly scoop for ESC cooling, but closed the nose scoop
5. Sealed every gap with speed tape and used small plastic strips to seal the massive aileron gaps on the bottom of the wing.
6. 1350 4S pack (timer set for 1:40)
7. 5.5 X 4.5 APC prop.

Lands and takes off just like a pylon racer should, and grooves around the course shockingly well for a chew-toy! I have around 200 bucks tied up in the thing, have flown more practice flights in the last week then I have in the last 5 years! If you need to do allot of practicing but don't want to put time on your primary gear, I would say give this thing a try! I am sure there are other motors and ESC combos out here that would perform better, but for price, you can't go wrong!

Cheers, Dave
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lmotv1
Super Contributor
Posts: 76
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:31 pm
Location: north carolina

Re: Need a cheap practice ship?...The Hobby King EFX Racer

Post by lmotv1 »

Cool!
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