Novak Ballistic 8 2D Review
 

First impression was excellent when I opened up the packaging. Once you have the motor in your hand, you know why it cost so much. Built quality, fitment and final assembly is top notch. Dare I say Hacker, Lehner, Pletty, LRP quality? I looked hard for any fault and couldn’t see any.

Well you guys should know me by now. I had to open up the motor and see for myself were my money went. It was easy to disassemble. There were 2 shimmies in the front and a fiber shield to protect the windings from long screws. The sensor board was easily removed as well. The sensor wire/port shield was the only plastic part. When I unscrewed it, one ear broke. Upon reassembly the second ear broke. Pretty crappy plastic if you ask me. It should have been made out of metal instead. A small sensor wire was included.

The winding on the stator were nice. It’s listed as 12 slot, 4 pole motor. The rear of the stator has some sort epoxy. I’m assuming high temp stuff.

The 4 pole motor is Kevlar wrapped and drill balanced like some other high end motors. The wrapping didn’t go all the way through the rear of the rotor though. I figure you don’t need to do the whole rotor, as the damage usually happens from the front.

My test vehicle is the GTP geared 47-19, with the diffs being 44-14. Batteries were my best GenAce 4s1p 40C pack that I had. This battery had only seen light duty in my ebike since it was new. So it basically had the proper cycling and 4.1V per cell max. ESC is the RX8, EC5 connectors, and 6mm motor connectors. Tires were GRP’s.
I only ran it for half a pack up and down the street. Did some burnouts, speed runs, simulated a race on a track and got the motor to 178F when I was done. Temps would have been lower if had used the current limiter when doing the hard stop and go scenarios.
I’ve used 2343mah. Peak 2336W@12.7V. Contiuous power was 952W, 61.03A, 15.6V. I calculated the speed to be in the mid 50’s and it sure looked like it.

So far Novak has only two windings available. But in their little booklet thingy in the box, more windings are listed. I hope they get to those quickly. I really like this motor and it's worth the high price.

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That looks like a healthy motor. thanks for the review and opening it up. Any info on the temp?

I listed the temp above. The motor temp was at 178F with me jabbing on the throttle like a monkey and gearing. Temps would've been lower with a 18T pinion.

Snell- Thank you for the review. I always know your reviews will be thorough and that you will really push the motor to see it's true capabilities. You are a great asset to this community.

And the one shot of hand porn will get me through the weekend:lol::na:

:lol::lol: Glad too help:lol:

so quick question, how does it compare to the viper motor?

Viper doesn't even come close. Remember that the viper is just a oversized 1/10 roar motor. Anyways, the Viper had been recalled and they are doing a 4 pole version.

I always enjoy a motor review from you Snell. I used to love collecting motors and comparing them, but you go all the way with the data logging and have some great test vehicles. Nice to see novak catching up...

All we need now are some sensored outrunners...

Thanks James. I like messing with new stuff when the budget allows.

Novak is the only one that really brought something new to the 1/8 motor world recently. They gave you the choice of swapping out stators, which keeps the cost down when wanting to experiment with different kv's. The motor noise is also unique with this one.

I'm going to buy me a small 60fps hd camera, so I record my tests.

Thanks Sellemin for the nice review. You did a very professional job. I personally did a lot of work on this project. We wanted to follow our Ballistic pattern of completely rebuildable motors. It is not an easy task hand winding 12 slot stators. I had to design a lot of tooling to do the winding, compressing, resin impregnating and soldering of these motors. The rotor was also a challenge to make sure it would survive the rigors of 1/8 scale racing. As you can see by looking at the rotor the alluminum end caps are keyed to the shaft and the magnet segments are keyed to the end caps so that there is no possibility of slippage. The magnets are then magnetized in house and then wound with Kevlar thread on another piece of machinery that we designed here. This whole assembly is then epoxied and drill balanced on both ends (if necessary). The Ballistic 8 motor then goes thru a series of extensive test to assure the best quality that we can.

Bob Novak

Thanks Bob, for adding more info regarding the rotor. When will the other stators be available?

I hope Monster Mike adds these to the store.

I always thought 178f was way too high, and that a good motor shouldn't approach that no matter what you do, but then again a few racers say that LRP X12 17.5's like to be run hot (180-195f), is this a trend with new motors now, higher heat tolerance?

Novak list a max of 175F for the Ballistic 8.

Vid of the Novak motor in action. I got the motor up to 206F when the vid was done.

[youtube]8y2MxgMZ1Us&feature=feedu[/youtube]

Nice! Looks like it definately has some go, been looking at this motor for my GTP but a 206f reading after that run is a concern for me, just seems way too hot!

I was going nuts with the motor as you can see. A few speed runs and drag racing will not see those temps. I was mostly on/off with the throttle, which pulls a lot of amps, which also create a lot of heat.

..but would a Castle Neu 1512 2650kv get to that temp in the same circumstance?

I've gotten a 1515 2700kv Neu motor pretty hot in the same manner.

During destructive testing we have got them a lot hotter than that. I am not going to say how hot before they failed because we don't want customers to think this is OK. At the resent 1/8 nationals in Omaha I measured motor temps higher than 220 F in ours and other brands of motors and they still worked fine. As a general rule you should keep the motor under 175 F for longevity of the motor.
Bob Novak

Did you drop back to the 18 tooth pinion to see if dropped temps any?

My 4s lipo packs are back into my Ebike now. I'll be running the Novak again once the "65C" GensAce become available.

so quick question, how does it compare to the tekin t8 motor?

I only have two buggy Tekin motors that I use(1400kv+1900kv). Owned the truggy motor once but never used it. The Tekin feels like a Neu motor, with a bit less power that is hardly noticable. The Novak is a smoother feeling motor over the Tekin, both being run with the Tekin Rx8 and sensor cable.

But you can't really compare the Novak too the Tekin, as they are different in rotor size and stator size to begin with. The Novak use bigger gangster Hall sensors. Novak can interchange stators, while the Tekin can't. Novak is easy to repair/rebuild, compared to the Tekin.

Naah, I'm not going to use GensAce anymore. I did however get four cheaper 6s1p sky lipos. I was planning on getting eight 6s1p FMA 60c lipo's, but funds are tight right now. I'll upgrade lipo's again after 1000 miles or so.

Did you have a problem with the GensAce batteries Romano?

I was planning on buying a few soon.

Thanks,
Nick

I don't have issues with the Gensace that I have. The new ones just don't add up. They actually use 2s2p format for their 7.4V packs. Price increased a bit too.