ok so ive been flying whoops and some prebuilt stuff for about a year and finally decided to just bite the bullet and do a proper 5inch freestyle build. im not totally lost but the motor and ESC pairing is where i keep second guessing myself.

right now im looking at the Xing2 2207 1855kv motors with a 45amp 4in1 ESC, probably the Mamba F722 stack. running 6S. my buddy said the 1855kv might be too low for freestyle on 6S and i should go 1755kv or even lower but that just sounds backwards from everything ive read. higher kv = more rpm = more snappy response right? or am i thinking about this wrong

also not sure if 45amp is overkill or if i should just grab a 60amp stack to have headroom. dont want to be replacing ESCs every month. frame is a Apex HD if that matters

your buddy is actually right and the kv thing does seem counterintuitive at first. on 6S you want lower kv because the voltage is already giving you more rpm per volt, so if you go too high kv you end up over-propping or just dumping too much heat into the motors. 1755kv or even 1700kv on 6S with like a 5148 or similar prop is a really common sweet spot for freestyle. 1855kv isnt wrong exactly but youll probably feel like the motors are working harder than they need to.

the 45amp ESC should be fine for freestyle honestly. you'd have to be doing some pretty aggressive racing or long sustained full throttle to actually saturate a 45amp on 5inch. the Mamba stack is solid, ive had two of them and only killed one because i crashed into concrete and the FC took a hit, not the ESC. just make sure youre setting your motor timing and RPM filter stuff right in betaflight or youll wonder why it feels sluggish regardless of what parts you picked

i went through almost this exact same thing a few months ago lol. ended up going with 1800kv on 6S and its been fine for me but im not doing super aggressive stuff. the ESC headroom question is real though ? i cheaped out and got a 35amp and smoked one of the corners first week. just get the 45amp minimum, the price difference isnt worth the risk