8IGHT-T 2.0 Started and engine heated up to 330°F!

[Rolex]

By hot, they mean TOO hot, like the 330 you hit.
Running it cool only strains it. You HAVE to hit temps in the 200s to break it in.


I didn't write this. I copied it here. It's by a world class nitro racer.

https://www.rcnitrotalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=600523&postcount=5

they said the richer the fuel and the cooler the engine the better, so a little confused

I don't know who you spoke to there, but that info is just TOTALLY wrong.

I don't have over 20,000 posts here because I'm a newbie. You're getting advise from experienced members who have broken in and tuned hundreds of engines through the years.
If I have to keep proving to you that we know what we're talking about, and you keep going to other sources and getting bogus info, then I don't want to follow this thread any more. I've spent a LOT of time trying to get you broken in the right way, and the jackass at Losi is not worth the minimum wage they pay him to pack and label boxes. Do it his way and ruin the engine.

Okay? No wonder you keep doing everything wrong. You're just not listening to us. We, at RCNT take a great deal of pride in giving out only the proper information. If ANY member gives out incorrect or misleading info, we correct it in that thread.

 

[tomyknoker]

By hot, they mean TOO hot, like the 330 you hit.
Running it cool only strains it. You HAVE to hit temps in the 200s to break it in.


I didn't write this. I copied it here. It's by a world class nitro racer.

https://www.rcnitrotalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=600523&postcount=5



I don't know who you spoke to there, but that info is just TOTALLY wrong.

I don't have over 20,000 posts here because I'm a newbie. You're getting advise from experienced members who have broken in and tuned hundreds of engines through the years.
If I have to keep proving to you that we know what we're talking about, and you keep going to other sources and getting bogus info, then I don't want to follow this thread any more. I've spent a LOT of time trying to get you broken in the right way, and the jackass at Losi is not worth the minimum wage they pay him to pack and label boxes. Do it his way and ruin the engine.

Okay? No wonder you keep doing everything wrong. You're just not listening to us. We, at RCNT take a great deal of pride in giving out only the proper information. If ANY member gives out incorrect or misleading info, we correct it in that thread.

I didn't post that to offend you it was more of a statement that LOSI is giving out incorrect information which is quite concerning... and the reason I ask many questions is because I'm interested... you must agree that saying 'Yes, that's correct' to every body offering opinions would be a little naive on my part... I question because often I don't fully understand and then when I get a response I know much more than I did the 10 mins before that,

I appreciate this thread, currently it's like my bible and it's gotten my car atleast started so I am pretty happy about that...

Oh and Rolex if I haven't already I would like to thank you. I hope that you will still follow this thread and occasionaly (maybe more) put up with my questioning, it just helps me learn. I like to know reasons behind things, this (https://www.rcnitrotalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=600523&postcount=5) is a great help, what I didn't know a few minutes ago is there are two methods an old and a new, all I knew a few minutes ago was two methods that people are telling me are the ONLY options... I will go by your method.

 

[Rolex]

The link I gave you on heat cycling is a race proven professionally used method of breaking in ANY companies engines.
If the engine is not run at the proper temps over 200 degrees, then the metals never get to the point of proper expansion and contraction to mate to a good fit. Running it rich and cold will actually ruin an engine, and the strain will cause the rod to fail from the excess stress.
It's ALL about the temperature. It's ONLY about the temperature. Even after it's broken in, the temperature determines the optimum performance of the engine.

By the way, I checked your location and saw that it was 68 degrees today. That's absolutely perfect for the break in.

It's 11 PM here, so I'm out for the night. I'm sure you'll have other members backing me up and following your thread by tomorrow.
Good luck. Take your time and do it right. I'll check back.

 

[tomyknoker]

The link I gave you on heat cycling is a race proven professionally used method of breaking in ANY companies engines.
If the engine is not run at the proper temps over 200 degrees, then the metals never get to the point of proper expansion and contraction to mate to a good fit. Running it rich and cold will actually ruin an engine, and the strain will cause the rod to fail from the excess stress.
It's ALL about the temperature. It's ONLY about the temperature. Even after it's broken in, the temperature determines the optimum performance of the engine.

By the way, I checked your location and saw that it was 68 degrees today. That's absolutely perfect for the break in.

It's 11 PM here, so I'm out for the night. I'm sure you'll have other members backing me up and following your thread by tomorrow.
Good luck. Take your time and do it right. I'll check back.

Rolex! I ran the car as you said, things went very very well... BUT I was having major issues with the car not running straight, it was veering off to the left, do I fix this via the remote?

Anyway that is not the main reason for posting... I crashed the car into a curb, was playing with tweaking getting it straight and got a little confused and boom. The chassis is ok thank god. But I've bent the front driveshaft and also broken the shock cap so I'm determined to fix it myself I'll obviously post more over the next few days...

Any tips on getting it to drive straight would be helpful... this is the remote I have, I think it does this for you? Or is it the norm to fix this on the car and not by the remote? http://www.spektrumrc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=SPM3130

 

[MotoGod]

Rolex! I ran the car as you said, things went very very well... BUT I was having major issues with the car not running straight, it was veering off to the left, do I fix this via the remote?

Anyway that is not the main reason for posting... I crashed the car into a curb, was playing with tweaking getting it straight and got a little confused and boom. The chassis is ok thank god. But I've bent the front driveshaft and also broken the shock cap so I'm determined to fix it myself I'll obviously post more over the next few days...

Any tips on getting it to drive straight would be helpful... this is the remote I have, I think it does this for you? Or is it the norm to fix this on the car and not by the remote? http://www.spektrumrc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=SPM3130

I would check your turnbuckles in the front and make sure they are both adjusted to the same toe angle (looking down on the car from above the angle the wheels are pointing towards or away from the centerline of the car) first. The radio can be used to fix minor issues, but get it right mechanically to save yourself hassles in the future ;-)

A lot of times you will see one wheel angled farther out than the other. That will cause some of your pulling issues (assuming the car is new). Get it as close as you can with your eyes (unelss you have a setup station) and then you can fine tune using trim and sub-trim on your radio.

Same holds true for servo adjustments. Make them mechanically (meaning move the servo arm on the servo) whenever humanly possibly. Also make sure to set your End Point Adjustments (EPAs) for both your steering and throttle servos. Especially on a Losi....if you have them set improperly you WILL burn up servos once you start driving it. If you are unsure how to do this, just ask.....we're usually happy to help ;-)

Oh and Rolex is spot on with his break in advice. It's a topic usually covered 4 million ways, but heat cycling is a pretty safe method and a LOT of guys use it. The general idea is to get the engine heated up to the point that everything inside expands fully....let it run a little.....shut it down....let it cool....then do it again and again to "wear in" the moving parts to each other. If you run it too cold...nothing expands and you just wear out your piston/sleeve prematurely as well as overstress your connecting rod.

Best method is to pre-heat the engine to @ 190-210ish before starting it....then adjust your idle to medium high...and wrap the head (if needed) to get it up to @ the 200 degree mark. Rinse....Repeat....Enjoy long engine life ;-)

 

[Metalhead Matt]

You have to get a new driveshaft.

 

[Rolex]

And so the learning process begins.
The first thing you learn is NOT to hit curbs. It's always curb 1, car zero.
Wrenching on these things is a major part of the hobby, and every time you have to fix something, you learn something.
Correct info from MotoGod on the front end alignment. When the wheels are straight, or about 1 degree toe in, center the servo with the radio and trim knob and reattach the control arm. Any slight corrections left or right can then be done in the menu sub trim or with the trim knob on the radio.

 

[neobart]

You'll want to stay away from trim and use sub trim. Using trim moves the end points as well as the servo position, sub-trim doesn't affect end points.

 

[tomyknoker]

And so the learning process begins.
The first thing you learn is NOT to hit curbs. It's always curb 1, car zero.
Wrenching on these things is a major part of the hobby, and every time you have to fix something, you learn something.
Correct info from MotoGod on the front end alignment. When the wheels are straight, or about 1 degree toe in, center the servo with the radio and trim knob and reattach the control arm. Any slight corrections left or right can then be done in the menu sub trim or with the trim knob on the radio.

Haha yep I figured curbs are always going to win It was me getting used to the remote control actually and then having a mental block about argh breaking ;-)

Yep great info from MotoGod... and you are correct, looking down over the top of the car the right wheel was always pointing out on a bit of an angle. To adjust the wheel I assume the top turnbuckle is for camber and it't the turnbuckle towards the back end of the wheel I adjust to work on angles?

I have Q's about the servo but thought I would cover one topic at a time!

 

[MotoGod]

There will be 2 adujustable shafts up front. 1 will be hooked to your steering setup. This one will adjust the toe angle. The other (solid mount) shaft will adjust your camber angle. If one wheel is pointing outward more than the other...you'll want to adjust your toe. It's usually a smaller shaft. One way brings the wheel in...the other way brings it out.

Glad I could help ;-)

 

[neobart]

Just remember to make sure both steering arms are equal length, or you will get some wacky steering problems where it will turn better to one side than the other.

 

[PaulC]

The Losi Factory setup has about 2 degrees toe OUT at the front and about 3 degrees toe in at the rear. If one wheel is pointing out more than the other, just adjust the centre trim.

But, yes, you should check the steering arms are equal length as compensating for unequal steering will effect other areas of the suspension geometry.

To be honest, I'd use the remote trim for now and ignore the suspension set up for now. When you have the engine sorted and are having fun with the buggy and know how it handles now you can tune the suspension. Fiddling with it now you'll just make something worse and you probably won't notice any difference.

Toe out by the way gives you a much more agile turn in and responsive front end, but sacrifices straight line stability, depends on your school of thought as to whether this is a good beginner set up or not. My race roller came with a full on oversteer setup from the Losi Factory.

Toe'd out front.
Stiff centre diff.
Huge rear bias on the brakes.
High and stiff rear,
Low and soft front.
High front camber
Low Rear camber.

Makes it very darty and snappy, probably not the fastest set up on a longer track, but should be a load of fun for a beginner, if you manage not to hit anything

But, I'm still new to this myself. The only part I adjusted was a little more front brake. I like my car oversteering, both on power and on brakes, cause I like drifting around on gravel and or grass and doing tail slide 180s on the brakes. I'm just bashing it about, not racing and tunning for a track and I find it much more fun with an oversteer set up.

If the car veers left, trim it right and vice versa.

If it veers left on power and veers right on brake or freewheeling and stuff like that, THEN your going to have to take a look.

Paul

 

[tomyknoker]

Hi all... ok well I fixed the car, was pretty proud of myself, not so proud of how many pieces were bent out of shape. Was a harder hit than I thought. Anyway I ran the car today properly for the first time and after all the advice I adjusted the toe angle on the right wheel and the car even drove straight!! I have a few things/questions/points that I wanted to post here (this thread would be good for any beginner I think, can I rename it to something more useful?)

• The car get's pretty dirty but I guess that is expected, a few scracthes also. Should I worry about these? Also someone suggested some kind of cleaner for the car, someone mentioned a product to me which I can't remember but I am assuming it was some kind of aerosol that had a high powered gas?
• I have added my after run oil, around the glow plug is very dirty, little bits of dirt which I just can't clean... should I pull the engine apart?
• MotoGod mentioned "Also make sure to set your End Point Adjustments (EPAs) for both your steering and throttle servos. Especially on a Losi....if you have them set improperly you WILL burn up servos once you start driving it." where are these adjustments made? I am not sure what is meant by the term 'End Point'
• The car idles a little rich which I need to adjust, the wheels currently don't move... if I put the car on the ground and accelerate too quickly it just stalls, what does this mean?
• When running the car at top speed I am getting a fair bit of white smoke, am I running too rich or too lean?

 

[MotoGod]

Let's see what I can answer based on my experience here:

1. When I clean my race rigs, I take out the engine and electronics and then the wheels. I spray the rig down with water. Soak it in a Simple Green mixture (50/50 pretty much). Let it sit for @ 5 minutes or so. Spray it all off good again, then I blow it down with my air compressor to get all the water off of it and then finally give the entire rig a good coat of WD-40 to dissipate any remaining water or it WILL rust. Just avoid the brake discs with WD-40 for obvious reasons. I then clean the radio tray and engine by hand with rags and brushes and finish it all off with a coat of Kal-gard "Prep n Shine". Comes out near perfect every time. Every 3rd race or so I will take the front and rear clip off as well and inspect everything a little closer and clean under them and such.

2. I don't run after run oil. My fuel has enough oil in it to keep things decently lubed. Only if I let the engines sit for awhile will I treat them with after run. If your glow plug hole is filthy and you drip oil into the engine from there....you can imagine where some of that dirt will go. Pull the head off and clean it all up when it gets dirty. Only 4 bolts....

3. EPA Adjustment is pretty simple. Turn on the rig with everything hooked up. Pull full throttle (car off!) and adjust your throttle endpoint while lookign down inside your carb opening. Full throttle should open the carb slide (or rotary) all the way and no further. You do not want your servo yanking your engine side to side as you pull full throttle or apply full brakes. Adjust the EPA accordingly so you get full travel without the extra stress. Then do the same for full brakes. The chassis should not be moving when you apply full brakes or throttle.

Steering EPA should also be set. Same manner really. Steer full left and adjust the EPA to stop pulling when the wheel stops rotating left. So I typically adjust mine way down....then adjust it back out until the wheel no longer moves and then back it off a few clicks to be safe. Do the same for left and right sides.

When I first mentioned servo setup for your Losi I was mainly referring to the throttle linkage that connects the servo to the engine. You need to set this up in a manner so that it will not bind as you sweep through the throttle range. This is EXTREMELY important on a Losi and very important on other rigs. I have burned up servos in a single race due to linkage binding. It's not a fun ordeal. Speak to a Losi guy about the specifics on where to put the linkage. There are some good locations to keep the servo functioning and some bad locations that will help burn them up. neobart should be able to help here.

4. Sounds like your low speed is too rich. Check the tuning guide and see if that helps. In a nutshell, you want to be able to start your car and warm it up....then from a dead stop pull full throttle and have it launch with good authority and keep pulling until it revs out. No bogs or chugs along the way....and good smoke and temps.

5. You should get a good puff of smoke every time you hop on the throttle and a decent stream while running a fast pass. You really shouldn't have too too much smoke, but a decent amount. You can put the back of your hand (or a paper towel) near the exhaust whiel it idles and see how much unburnt fuel is coming out of the exhaust. If it's quite a bit, then you will want to lean it out, but if it's just a faint spray you'll be just fine. Just listen to the engine as you drive around, watch the smoke and finally check the temps. Everything will fall in line as you get better with tuning.

Hope that helped?

 

[Lgeisz]

The rev up is fuel starvation, it is perfectly safe. I turn off my engine by pinching the fuel line, which makes that happen every time.

 

[tomyknoker]

Let's see what I can answer based on my experience here:

1. When I clean my race rigs, I take out the engine and electronics and then the wheels. I spray the rig down with water. Soak it in a Simple Green mixture (50/50 pretty much). Let it sit for @ 5 minutes or so. Spray it all off good again, then I blow it down with my air compressor to get all the water off of it and then finally give the entire rig a good coat of WD-40 to dissipate any remaining water or it WILL rust. Just avoid the brake discs with WD-40 for obvious reasons. I then clean the radio tray and engine by hand with rags and brushes and finish it all off with a coat of Kal-gard "Prep n Shine". Comes out near perfect every time. Every 3rd race or so I will take the front and rear clip off as well and inspect everything a little closer and clean under them and such.

2. I don't run after run oil. My fuel has enough oil in it to keep things decently lubed. Only if I let the engines sit for awhile will I treat them with after run. If your glow plug hole is filthy and you drip oil into the engine from there....you can imagine where some of that dirt will go. Pull the head off and clean it all up when it gets dirty. Only 4 bolts....

3. EPA Adjustment is pretty simple. Turn on the rig with everything hooked up. Pull full throttle (car off!) and adjust your throttle endpoint while lookign down inside your carb opening. Full throttle should open the carb slide (or rotary) all the way and no further. You do not want your servo yanking your engine side to side as you pull full throttle or apply full brakes. Adjust the EPA accordingly so you get full travel without the extra stress. Then do the same for full brakes. The chassis should not be moving when you apply full brakes or throttle.

Steering EPA should also be set. Same manner really. Steer full left and adjust the EPA to stop pulling when the wheel stops rotating left. So I typically adjust mine way down....then adjust it back out until the wheel no longer moves and then back it off a few clicks to be safe. Do the same for left and right sides.

When I first mentioned servo setup for your Losi I was mainly referring to the throttle linkage that connects the servo to the engine. You need to set this up in a manner so that it will not bind as you sweep through the throttle range. This is EXTREMELY important on a Losi and very important on other rigs. I have burned up servos in a single race due to linkage binding. It's not a fun ordeal. Speak to a Losi guy about the specifics on where to put the linkage. There are some good locations to keep the servo functioning and some bad locations that will help burn them up. neobart should be able to help here.

4. Sounds like your low speed is too rich. Check the tuning guide and see if that helps. In a nutshell, you want to be able to start your car and warm it up....then from a dead stop pull full throttle and have it launch with good authority and keep pulling until it revs out. No bogs or chugs along the way....and good smoke and temps.

5. You should get a good puff of smoke every time you hop on the throttle and a decent stream while running a fast pass. You really shouldn't have too too much smoke, but a decent amount. You can put the back of your hand (or a paper towel) near the exhaust whiel it idles and see how much unburnt fuel is coming out of the exhaust. If it's quite a bit, then you will want to lean it out, but if it's just a faint spray you'll be just fine. Just listen to the engine as you drive around, watch the smoke and finally check the temps. Everything will fall in line as you get better with tuning.

Hope that helped?

Unreal MotoGod, very very helpful... when you say you spray the entire rig so everything is covered in Wd-40 minus discs breaks? Does it not stay greasy? By rig we're talking chassis, shock towers & shocks?

There is a bit of fluid coming out of the exhaust but this has changed alot since I broke it in, seems much less... I'll test the paper towel and get back to you!

For servo's I am confused so I'll post a pic of the rig and point to parts that we are discussing, that way you can tell me what needs changing perhaps...

I assume it's fine to run the car until it completely empties of petrol, that way I don't need to worry about any petrol sitting in the reservoir? I know on a real car it's bad to run it out of petrol but I'm assuming here it's good?

 

[MotoGod]

It will stay a little slick, but if you go light on it (or blow it off again with the air compressor after it sits for 5 min or so) it's generally not much. Makes the plastic pieces look brandy new again too. By rig I mean everything left on the car after I remove the engine and radio tray.

You would notice if it was a TON of fuel coming out. The truck would be covered as well.

As far as the servo's go....EPA adjustment is done via your radio (sometimes called Travel). Not physically. The linkage is just the little arm from the throttle servo to your carb slide. If you notice on the carb there is a ring with a nipple on it. There is also a set screw on the underside of this ring. If you loosen that....it can be spun to adjust the linkage arm angle. On a Losi if this angle is wrong.....the linkage will bind and make the servo work overtime and fry your servo. So take note of it's position now....and do some research on where it needs to be on a Losi. I run a Hot Bodies....so they are all different, but binding is bad on all of them.

You can run your tank dry, but if you have the choice....don't. It actually makes the engine run into a very lean condition right before it shuts down. Generally not too big of a problem, but I usually suck the leftover fuel out of the tank manually instead. You also run the risk of killing a glow plug if it cuts out at the wrong time. Not a huge chance....but might be 70/30 kind of thing.