so i binned my 5inch pretty hard into a concrete barrier last week and snapped two motors clean off the frame. the shafts are toast obviously but im not sure which motors were CW and which were CCW before i pull everything apart. i forgot to label them and now i cant remember the layout. running a standard X frame quadcopter btw.

also one of the ESCs looks a little scorched around the pads, not sure if thats from the crash or if something shorted. it powers up fine when i bench test it but should i just replace it anyway or is some discoloration normal after a hit like that? dont really want to find out mid flight that it was actually damaged.

the frame itself is somehow fine which is wild considering how hard i hit. carbon fiber is something else honestly.

for the motor orientation on a standard quad ? if you're looking down at the frame, front-left and rear-right are CCW, front-right and rear-left are CW. thats the typical Betaflight default anyway. you can also just spin each motor by hand and feel which way the threads tighten ? CCW motors have CW threads so they dont unscrew under load, and vice versa. makes it pretty easy to sort out even when you forget to label.

on the ESC thing id lean toward replacing it if theres actual scorching around the solder pads. discoloration from heat during normal use is one thing but if something physically got hot enough to scorch from the impact or a short thats a weak point waiting to fail. bench testing under no load doesnt stress it the same way a full throttle punch does. not worth the risk imo.

yeah had almost the same thing happen to me a few months ago, hit a tree at speed and lost a motor and wasnt sure which replacement to order. the thread direction trick works, just be careful cause sometimes cheaper motors the threads arent super obvious by feel alone.

also just throwing this out there ? when you do replace the motors check the motor screws on the other two that survived. mine looked fine but one screw was barely holding after the crash, wouldve vibrated out eventually. vibrations from an unbalanced or slightly bent prop can work those loose over time anyway but a hard hit makes it worse.