RC Hobby Estore

We love our customers, we really we do! So much so we hate to see them making common mistakes that most beginners make when first starting out in RC and especially with Nitro powered engines.

For that reason we've compiled a few notes below that might just save you some hard earned pennies by NOT having to splash out on new nitro engines for the engine you've inadvertently destroyed.

Pulling the Pull Starts out too far bends the return spring so ensuring your pull start fails to retract. Pull the cord no more than 20 centimetres, try easing it out so you know just how far it should be pulled - should save you some hassle!

If you have flooded your RC nitro engine you'll soon know, how? Because the pull cord becomes EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO PULL! The tip here is to remove the RC model glow plug, turn the car upside down and drain the fuel by pulling the pull starter to allow excess fuel to drain out.

MELTING THE NYLON DRIVE GEARS is one of the most common ways to have your RC model out of action in no time. How's it done? By trying to start the car with all the wheels on the ground. Prop the RC car on a brick (or even better a stand, we provide them here), make sure the brake is off (push the car forward with the engine off and with the throttle trim set to idle on your transmitter).

Trying to start the car without the wheels off the ground will ensure the aluminium clutch will overheat in under 30 seconds, melting the nylon drive gear.

PLEASE PLEASE MAKE SURE THE CAR'S WHEELS ARE ALWAYS ALLOWED TO SPIN FREELY AT ALL TIMES!

NEVER restrain the wheels from spinning by holding the car back by hand, an object or using the RC car's brake!

Make sure the brake is off before starting the car's engine, a way to check (as above really) is to push the car forward (never backwards!) with the engine OFF. If the car is hard to push forward then the brake is ON. Running the car like this will cause the clutch to overheat and melt the nylon gears so ruining your nitro engine.

You may need to adjust the brake linkage as well as the idle trim speed on the transmitter. Make a note of where the brake starts to engage. You want the engine carburetor to go back to idle without the brake engaging - to see how open the carburetor is remove the foam air cleaner and observe the carburetor settings. Once set up reinsert the foam air cleaner back in to your car.

Running the car with the wheels restrained by either the cars brake or holding the stationary and applying power to the wheels will burn out the clutch shoes and disintegrate the aluminium clutch bell as well as melting the nylon drive gear (as mentioned previously above!)

It can be tempting for some to replace the nylon drive gear with metal gear - FOR YOUR SAFETY WE DO NOT ENDORSE THIS!

Here's why:

The nylon gear will melt at 220 degrees Celsius and the aluminium clutch bell disintegrates at 280 degrees, this way there is an inbuilt 60 degree safety margin. If the clutch disintegrates under load this is EXTREMELY dangerous as bits of it will FLY EVERYWHERE. Under normal and even race conditions the clutch bell with never normally get over 80 degrees allowing a ton of margin.

Metal on metal wears out very quickly when not lubricated - it is impossible to lubricate the gears as this would just attract more dirt and dust increasing wear even more.

Metal drive gears are much heavier when compared to nylon versions, so it will make your car heavier and slow its performance down. "Keeping it light, gets the power right" as a wise RC hobbyist once told us!

In our next post we will cover the steps in VERY detailed instructions on how to start your nitro engine - these steps have come from years of racing and handling RC cars so it should be a handy point of reference for when you are starting out.