Had some fun testing the speeds of some of my trucks - here's the full report of the findings.

Test Specs:
Speed Build Up distance: 8 m / 26.3 ft
Test distance: 27m / 88.6 ft
Timing Technique: stopwatch on 3PJ controller accurate to 0.1secs. Timer started when truck crosses starting line and stopped when it clears finish line. Each truck was run 3-4 times and the average reading taken.
Special Notes:
accurate readings are always difficult to get, so keep in mind that the results with respect to absolute speed and timings will have some margin of error because of human response time, variances, etc. However, since the whole test was conducted by the same person (me), the margin of error should be almost consistent for all the tests.

Test Results:
Surprisingly, the readings were pretty consistent with very slight variations. The following are the test results I have compiled (I knew Math would be good for something!):

1. TTR Ripper-equipped Clod Truck
Setup:
2 Speedgem2 Sapphires 17 turn Singles, 15 turn pinions, 1x 8.4v 2000mah pack. Full bearings and Super Rooster.

Average Time: 3.39 seconds
Speed: 28.65kmh / 17.8mph

2. TXT-1 with DUAL Battery Pack
Setup:
2 Atlas modified 14 turn Doubles, 15 turn pinions, 2x 8.4v 2000mah pack. Full bearings and Super Rooster.

Average Time: 3.49 seconds
Speed: 27.83kmh / 17.3mph

3. TXT-1 with SINGLE Battery Pack
Setup:
Same as (2) except with 1 pack

Average Time: 3.58 seconds
Speed: 27.13kmh / 16.9mph

Tester's Notes:
RC guys are often quick to estimate the speed of their RCs based on what they 'feel' - e.g. "it felt really fast" or "it's definitely faster than Truck X I saw the other day". While these are sometimes good approximates, it's nothing like actually testing your trucks to see what they can do.

In this test, the Ripper came out tops, probably because of it's lighter graphite bare-bones type chassis. It wasn't even running motors as hot as the TXT was (17 turns vs the TXT's 14 turns). I did gear up from stock which helped without really any noticeable loss in acceleration. It's good to note that even at the higher speed, the Ripper was much easier to control and held it's straight line very much better than the TXT. This can easily be attributed to it's lower centre of gravity and more race-oriented design.

The surprise was that the dual battery TXT was actually faster than the single battery one. Some battery guys have said that adding that second cell in parallel should increase runtime without any change in power or output but these results certainly seem to suggest otherwise. What we have here is a heavier truck running faster than a lighter truck, ceteris paribus. So there must be something in the setup that's giving the truck the extra little push.

To be fair, the single battery setup didn't perform badly at all!

Update!

I just bought a pair of LRP 15x4 mod motors, broke them in and run them in my Ripper.

I did lower the pinion to 14 teeth though.

1. TTR Ripper-equipped Clod Truck
Setup:
2 LRP 15 turn Quads, 14 turn pinions, 1x 8.4v 2000mah pack. Full bearings and Super Rooster.

Average Time: 3.18 seconds
Speed: 30.55kmh / 19.0mph

Runtime suffered though (as expected)... I'll time my run the next time to find out how much.

Torque didn't suffer as much as I had expected... which was nice. I might try running 15T pinions to see what kind of speeds I get with that.

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