Nitroholic

Rechargable batteries only have a certain lifespan, and then they fail in exactly this way. It is possible it has expired. Do you have any idea how old the battery is?

Is it one of these? http://www.rcmodscars.co.uk/hsp-rapido-18-scale-rtr-on-road-nitro-car-p-2972.html If so...you could do a lot better for the money.

The idle screw should just screw back into the hole you took it out of! When checking the idle though, there are a couple of things you will need to look at before you move on to tuning the needles. 1) Check that with the throttle closed teh linkage does not hold it open. There should be a tiny amount of play there. 2) Check the carb opening is around 1mm at idle. You have to remove the air-filter to do this, and refit afterwards with a fresh cable-tie so there are no air leaks. 3) Adjust the idle screw so you can see a 1mm gap and then leave this alone. The rest of the idle behaviour will be down to the high or low speed needles. Right...assuming you have a 1mm gap, the next thing is to check that the LSN and HSN are set to factory settings. To do this, check your manual and make sure you know what they should be for your car. GENTLY screw in the HSN/LSN until they are fully seated. You will feel a slight resistance. DO NOT TIGHTEN THEM or you will ruin them. Then wind them out the stated number of turns. These settings are always described in turns, and always from fully in. So...3 turns out is 3 complete rotations from fully in. With these settings, your car should run...though probably like a pile of poo...but that is normal. Now you can start tuning the needles properly. If you still do not have a proper idle, then there are other things to check. The revving up is a symptom of a weak mixture, which can be down to needle settings or due to an air leak.

Sounds fine. The idea being the brakes are applied and the throttle back to idle should the signal fail for any reason. Had that happen on mine when I let the RX battery get a bit lower than it ought, and the rnage dropped right back. as the car drove away from me, I lost signal. No drama...it slowed up as the brake went on, and I walked forward until I had a signal again and drove it back towards me. The red light, as you said, tells you the failsafe has activated.

They do a combined clutch and waterpump ... so in theory, all you need is a small radiator and a header tank. There are some fairly small oil-coolers fitted to some bikes that could be used, or something along those lines. Rear mount it in place of ...say...a buggy rear wing. Use a 1/8th buggy fuel tank as the header tank to allow for expansion and to make for easy coolant filling. No reason why it couldn't be done..... All you need is the machine tools to fabricate the mounts and mate the clutch to the car drive gears, and it's a go. Any crazy rich people fancy a go at this?

Best bet with an issue like this is to go back to the absolute basics. First off, have you still got the original 4AA pack for the servos? If so...consider firstly getting rid and buying a hump-pack and charger. While doing so, I put in a switch with a seperate lead to charge the hump-pack in situ. All in this will cost you around

That's a brilliant idea .... I could rig a towbar on my ST1 and use it to transport the RaceRunner

Have to agree with CarlCurtis on that. Not saying you have wrecked hte thing and are trying to shift it on, but all things considered, we have all read about the problems you have had. The thing may be perfect, but using the old pictures will make peoplethink you are hiding something. Doubly so as you are now asking for more money than you paid for it. If you do your own pictures then there would be no doubt, and no need for anyone to worry.

top of my 'Santa' list is a set of Uber wheel adaptors for Baja wheels...seen your MCD and Hoss' with Baja wheels, and I love the look! With the colour schemes I have in mind a set of stock Baja wheels in gunmetal with silver beadlocks would go well. I know Hoss put rear rims on the front for his.....has your MCD got that or front rims on th efornt in the pic you posted? That and an alloy server plate are the main things I want. Might go for a pipe later on once I get used to the 'slight' performance hop up from a 1/8th buggy..... I'm not a big jump fanatic, so having 4WD handling and grip swung it for me. Just not a big fan of the stock wheels. Busy sketching out paint scheme ideas while I wait for it to get here

Would probably be worth your while picking up something like this: http://www.rcdemon.co.uk/shop/product/nitro_starter_pack/ Got it all in there for under

Normally, a failsafe is fitted to close the throttle and apply full brakes when the signal is lost. The alternative is your car heading off at full speed until it comes to a crashing halt on something solid exploding into a mess of tangled plastic and metal. I won't run any of my cars without one...it's just not worth the risk. Dobly so as the range and signal strength may end up affected by a low charge in your receiver or transmitter batteries, and isn't something you can easily judge ..... until it's too late. They just plug in between the RX and the servo and sit inside the receiver box. Usually it's a simple hold TX in desired position and press a button job to set it up. Switch off the TX to confirm it operated as desired, and then forget all about it. Then..when your car loses signal you can stroll casually towards it until the thing starts to respond and drive it back towards you.

If you have the money, then the 2.4Ghz systems are so much better than FM or AM sets. Better signal and far less chance on interference or glitching. I don't have an Annsman, so can't comment directly, but they are quite popular. The cheaper Acoms unit is ...cheaper...but not as good. The 3rd channel can be used for an assortment of things, from telemetry through to kill switches etc. Also...with a modern unit like the Annsman you can usually buy additional receivers and use the same controller for more than one car ( though not at the same time obviously!!! )

Ahh..the other joy of kiting. Too old for boarding, but I do like a nice big kite. Play about with a Radsails 3.2m for fun, and I used to make my own parafoils from rip-stop. Found some plans on the net to make a huge aircraft shaped one that kept me happy for several seasons until teh salt water started to rot the thread I used. Since I got properly into RC though, it never comes out of the cupboard. I have been lucky so far in terms of 'moaners' but I know they exist. I am sure they just don't like seeing other people having fun. Also, they would rather challenge a kid with an RC car than moan at the local hoodies or 10000Dba car steroes rattling the window panes. Such is life. Can't blame anyone for firing a salvo back if they were being sensible and safe and STILL got grief! It's not like you were ripping through a kids playground weaving in and out of toddlers or spraying sand in peoples picnics!

The crankcase doesn't need cooling as much because that's not where the fire happens! It is the piston crown and cyliner head/barrel that need the cooling. Also...as I mentioned earlier, fuel can only cool when it actually evaporates...not when it is a vapour. If fuel is not in a vapour mist when it enters the engine, it won't burn and wont actually make it through the motor very well. The oil, being a heavier component of the mixture will tend to be deposited on the bearings etc. as it passes. Undeposited oil will burn off in the engine mostly. The only contribution this makes to 'cooling' is by preventing excessive friction in the bearings, reducing heat build up. If the bearings overheat...they will sieze. It also prevents corrosion to an extent...though not completely...as the need for after-run oil demonstrates. It's not a heavy enough oil to do that. The temperature of burn is, however, affected by the chemical composition of what you burn. Allow me to indulge in a bit of a history lesson During the bulk of WW2, combat fighters were all piston engined. As with our little tiny nitro engines, they had a tendancy to suffer from heat problems. The bigger you made the radiators, the more drag...so the more power needed. This usually meant a bigger engine burning more fuel, requiring more power to lift the fuel or accept a really short range etc. Air cooled radial engines also suffered, as the bigger they got, the more frontal area they had...and so the circle began again. What they did do was experiment with ways of producing more power from the available engine capcity. The Germans tried N2O ... but this only worked for short bursts. They also tried Methanol Injection. Again...this was only usable in short bursts, but Methanol burns slightly cooler than the plain fuel mixture, allowing them to inject a richer petrol mixture without overheating. This..note ..does NOT mean methanol cooled the engine. It doesn't. They also tried water injection. This was a clever one, and counter-intuitive. What it was aimed at doing was to cool the intake charge by spraying a fine mist into the inlet. Cooling the charge increases the air density ( Boyles Law and all that) meaning there was more air in a given volume..thus more oxygen to support combustion, and more fuel could be added to get more power. Even then...this is not about cooling the engine....it's about cooling the intake gasses. This, also, could not be run for extended periods of time without your motor turning into a messy fireball of expanding scrap. Collected these were known as WEP...War Emergency Power. Sadly, the Allies were largely running carburettors, which were far less able to deal with this exoctic stuff, unlikethe Germans who used fuel injection. Still..we just invented the Spitfire and kicked their butts anyway...so there you go. Anyways...the long and the short of it is, fuel doesn't cool the engine. It's there to make heat. Lots of very clever people have spent lots of time trying to make engines better, and if they could use a fuel to cool a motor, we would all be burning it. Now..I'm off to the park to go burn some nitro, and I am not going to worry about the chemistry of it

Definitely clutch ... pop the clutch bell off, and have a look and it ought to be clear enough.

Yes..they should have some. Usually they have the 'orange hermetite' or something similar. If they have the clear stuff, get that. It's less horrid to look at...but they don't always have it. Just make sure it's the silicone type instant gasket.

Sport...not rich enough to consider Comp. Already had the missus commenting on the purchase. Apparantly, I have put more effort into sorting this and getting a good deal, and not enough time helping her to shop for a new sofa. Well .. I suppose she will need somewhere comfortable to sit while I'm out enjoying the MCD for hours at a time She already asked me where I was planning to keep it, and I pointed out there is a chest of drawers at the foot of the bed just about the right size. The forum language filters would not allow her reply. And ...no....there is no chance of her reading this One thing I wondered .... do these need the engine 'mesh mod' like a Baja, or does the chassis do a decent job of keeping the debris out of the engine? Don't want rocks and twigs getting in where they aren't wanted! Going to source a decent charger and outerwear filter cover while I wait and see if I can 'borrow' some funds to buy a set of Uber wheel adaptors. Anyone got a spare set of Baja wheels they don't want ?

But I am about to become the proud owner of an MCD Race Runner Thanks to our very own VM, the nice gentlemen at Rossendale Models will be posting me off one brand new MCD. Getting a pair of Rhino's for the steering, the new receiver box so I can out in a nice big hump-pack, but had to settle for a Hitec for brake/throttle for now. Budget wouldn't stretch to that. Plus I got a clear shell...which I wanted...as I will be going for a custom paint scheme. Going to need to source a few other bits and pieces later on to get her where I want her to be, but I have what I want and am VERY happy with the deal I got too. Victor has given me loads of advice on the car and the bits to get, and he put me in touch with the guys at Rossendale who have done the rest. Did a fair bit of shopping around, and considered buying used..but in the end, I just wanted to know the car was solid and wasn't about to break down in an expensive way. Don't expect to be in the position to afford this kind of money on a 'toy' again, so I wanted to be sure I bought the right car in the right condition. Now .... I just need to find a way to wipe the grin off my face..not rofl

There are different sorts of instant gasket depending on the typre of gasket you need. Used all sorts on bikes over the years: 1) Nonsetting. Like 'Red Hermetite'. This is a favourite for old bikes where gasket surfaces are a bit uneven and where you may get a fair degree of expansion/contraction. Non setting gasket never actually sets, and would be hopeless for this sort of application. It won't stay under pressure. 2) Silicon type. Available in a variety of colours, but it is all basically the same deal. Forms a rubbery seal, and IS the sort of stuff that would seal an inlet manifold. You can get it in any motoring shop. Just clean and degrease the surfaces and make sure you got the other stuff cleaned ff before you put it on. A thin layer is all you need, then tighten it up. Put too much on, and it will splurge out the side. The outside stuff you can wipe off .... but it also comes out on the inside too.

The only place you will get cooling from fuel vapour is in the carb. In 'grown up' engines, this leads to problems with carb-icing as teh vapourisation of the fuel as it mists out of the jet causes a cooling that can cause ice to form from water vapour present in the air. This kills the fuel flow and stops it forming a burnable vapour. In a buggy engine, though, the inlet pipe is short, and they are seldom used in sub-zero temps. Once the fuel has formed a vapour, it cannot cool anything. For the scientists, the latent heat of vapourisation is the energy required to change the fuels state from liquid to gas without an increase of temperature. That's why evaporating fuel feels cold. This does not happen in the engine's cylinder though. It is already vapor by the time it passes down the carb inlet. It's not a cooling effect that is at all noticable under normal operating conditions. Also...there is NEVER going to be excess fuel staying around in the cylinder to cool. It comes in as a vapour ( a gas ) and leaves as one. The fuel you see spitting out the end is unburnt fuel condensing out from the unburnt mixture. Liquid fuel won't burn well, and does not compress. Get a load of liquid fuel in your cylinder and you risk getting hydraulic lock which will smash your piston/conrod. The engine compresses the gas to heat it up to the point where the glowplug fires it. Compressing a gas heats it up. Also, evaporation only happens in an 'unsaturated' environment...which the cylinder head isn't. The laws of physics dictate that evaporating fuel will not cool an engine. The 'cooling' effect of fuel comes from influencing the way combustion happens, not from any innate property of the fuel. Oil lubricates to stop your bearings exploding. None of it is the primary source of cooling in an engine.

Mechanical friction is a tiny percentage of hte heat generated by an engine. If you attached a motor to the driveshaft and just ran your engine like that, it would not get very hot very quickly. The oil in the fuel is the only way to lubricate the bearings that the piston and conrod rotate on. As a '2-stroke' design, the crank cannot run in an oil-bath as it does with a 4-stroke. You use the crank-case as a means of transferring the mixture into the cylinder through the ports as they are covered/uncovered. Oil has a purpose, but also is 'dead weight' when it comes to combustion. All it will do is gum things up. The nitro does the burning, and therefore makes the power. The more nitro you burn per stroke, the more power you will have..hence the racers using lower oil content to increase the burnable content. Engine life is not such an issue there. A racer trades engine life for performance all the time. Heatwise, this is ( as was mentioned above) a question of chemical equations. If you are running lean, you will get a hotter flame as there is more complete combustion. This is not a good thing, as the engine cannot remove the heat, leading to problems where the fuel is igniting in an uncontrolled fashion. You need a smooth flame front, rather than an explosion. Adding more nitro means a less aggressive 'bang' and a more controlled burn. It is more wasteful of the chemical energy in the fuel, but it means things happen in a more controlled way. So..in short..more nitro makes less heat. None of it cools the engine. Heatsinks and fins and a good airflow cools the engine.

Also...don't trust 'base settings' to be set as the manual says. Check them by carefully screwing in the needles until you feel resistance..DO NOT TIGHTEN THEM. Then unscrew the stated number of turns. Then you KNOW the settings are base settings.

Also do a check over all the fasteners to make sure everything is bolted up tight. High evving nitro engines create a bit of vibration, and bolts can work loose. Not unknown for motor mounts to loosen allowing the spur gear to loose mesh. If left, a stripped gear is the end result. Give the car a good check over just to be on the safe side as part of your 'after run' process. If you end up with burnt fingers...try leaving it until it's all cooled down as well

My understanding is that this is a symptom of an out of tune High Speed Needle. It sounds as though it is running too lean at large throttle openings. Don;t want to sound patronising...but are you adjusting the right needle? If in doubt, set BOTH needles to factory setting by carefully screwing them all the way in and then winding them out the stated number of turns. Then, take off the airfilter and it's rubber manifold and check that your throttle is open about 1mm with the throttle in it's idle position. Also make sure that the throttle linkage is not being pulled open by the servo at this position. There should be a tiny amount of slack there. Adjust the idle screw if necessary to get a 1mm gap and re-assemble with a new cable tie. Air leaks here are going to screw things up, and must be avoided then start the tuning process from scratch and see how you get on. Follow the tuning guides in the forum here, and you won't go far wrong. Never assume that a buggy comes supplied with the correct set-up to run...and the engine may be in any old state and just a coincidence it ran at all. My Thunder Tiger ST! came out of the box brand new in a state that was so far away from runnable it couldn't even be broken in until I had done some basic adjustments to make it run at all. Once you know all this is good, then you can start trying to tune it for real. Always tune in 1/8th of a turn, and make sure you have warmed up the engine before trying to tune. Tune a cold engine, and it will just be out of tune again as soon as it warms up!

Gut instinct would be to have a close look at the carb/throttle linkage. It might be the throttle slide in the carb is not closing properly when the servo releases it's pull. Tapping the throttle would give the throttle linkage a pull or two that is maybe letting it free again.