RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Ok this is the engineer in me thinking outloud and yes i understand exactly why electric motors are used.

however has anyone successfully modified a RC tank so that they are driven by a pair of single cylinder micro diesel/oil plants and a reverse selector box into the existing metal gear boxes to give alternating drive trains

i accept that the unit would need alot of cooling and the hull protecting from thermal damage and not using plastics

Certainly lots of people have powered their r/c Tanks with single cylinder 2 stroke aircooled "Dope" fuelled engines but apart from the excessive heat generated by the engine the noise is so un-tank like that it drives people away from them,
Even a lowly Heng Long Tiger 1 with a Version 6.0 MFU is far more attractive a proposition with its sound chip doing the job of emulating the Maybach V12 that a single cylinder aircooled "Dope" Fueled 2 stroke engine could never do.

All sorts of powerplants have been tried, including steam, nitro , large 22cc and above two strokes, a working V12 and other variations, including single electric . All have things in common - over complicated and sound naff. There's a very good reason why 2 electric motors are the most common. Having said that there's no reason why 2 diesel motors won't work but I can see a lot of trial error involved.

With enough time and money anything is possible. Go for it...it's your money.

Heh. If You don’t mind the tank sounding like a (aggravatingly loud) gnat on steroids, or a chainsaw, diesels work fine with a bit of tinkering for the clutch/brake mechanism.

From a usability standpoint, heat will be Your biggest problem.

There's a guy on the other forum that is fixing up and old Maier Panther 1:10 scale. It's powered by a nitro engine hooked up to a couple generators. So, it is possible.

Yep.

That 1/5th Tiger is super cool, but way to complicated for it's own good. The guy never gets it running right in the vid. Electric drivetrain is much simpler and more reliable.

Yes Far too complicated just like the real one . Must keep him busy on the maintenance front

Hi there! New to the forum, signed up because this thread popped up on the net. I am currently building an E-100 based tank out of steel, and it is going to be powered by a 1966 Hatz E671 Single cylinder diesel engine, as it has lots of torque. Here is a link to the engine running, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oJ6ettYnsk
The latest photo of the build is on my insta - The hull is complete and has surface rust due to it sitting outside when I had family issues and could not work on it.

I update progress of this build on social media @dirty_d2_aus if you are interested and want to follow along
cheers!