I just made a couple of discoveries last night.
1. The problem with going faster in reverse than forward may not be the motor at all. I didn't check my X Speed, but all my other motors run the same speed in both directions, which indicates "neutral" timing. The problem lies in the mechanics of the car, causing more friction going forward than reverse. With one of the motors I was testing, I
swore there was a timing problem, but there really wasn't. It's the drivetrain.
2. Timing
can be advanced, yielding nice gains. I have a stage 2 motor that runs just as fast as my X Speed now. Maybe faster. How did I do it? By adjusting the commutator on the armature. Not a new trick by any means, but one I hadn't ever tried before.
So, the only thing I have left to do is to test my X Speed in an unloaded condition and see if it indeed runs differently in one direction than the other. If it does, I now know how to fix it.
