BSRT Gears Tech Info

BSRT Technical Information: Gears and Accessories

Any H.O. car can benefit from a well-chosen, quality after-market gear set. Racers soon learn that changing the gearing to suit a given track is always an important part of tuning the car. Once the car has been assembled, altering the gear ratio is really the only way to make a change in the cars performance without changing major components in the car. Gearing changes can affect the top speed and acceleration of an H.O. race car as well as influence the handling. A taller (more top-speed biased) ratio can smooth the car out, allow it to carry more speed into turns and make it easier to handle. A shorter (low-speed biased) ratio can make the car a real tiger on a tight, twisty track with a short straight because the cars response and acceleration will be quicker.

The plastic pinions that come on cars today (usually 7T) work great for most applications. If you would like to experiment with different gear ratios the easiest way is to change the crown gear. Since all of the cars available today have a snap-in rear axle, changing ratios with the crown gear is a snap.

What gear ratio do we recommend? For just about any type of car, an excellent gear ratio to start with is 7/22 (for BSRT's G-Jet we suggest starting with 7/21). This ratio should work well on just about any track and you can fine tune up or down, gear-wise, from there depending on what characteristic you're looking for (i.e. top speed versus low-end punch).

BSRT offers gears in three different materials; Nylatron, Delrin, and Poly. The Nylatron plastic material was originally developed as a gear material and has a natural lubricant mixed into the material. These gears work best with BSRT G-Jets up through Super Stock cars (ceramic magnets). Delrin is a tough plastic material which shrinks more than other gear materials. This allows you to potentially use a larger crown gear for the same application since it will have more clearance off the track surface. We recommend delrin gears be used with ceramic material magnet cars such as Super Stock and Ceramic Modified cars. BSRT's Poly gears are super tough glass-filled gears designed for use with higher energy magnet cars. These would include any cars using Polymer or Neo magnets.

For all BSRT gears, we recommend they be broken in using Simichrome (available from Scale Auto). Apply a bit of Simichrome to the pinion and crown gear, hook up the car to a power supply and break it in for at least 4-6 hours running at 3 to 4 volts. Once finished, carefully clean off the Simichrome, oil the gears (we recommend using BSRT's G-Lube) and you're ready to hit the track.