Nitroholic

Actually, I have a spare tin in the shed. Willing to part with it for

Thanks Mr Terminator, that makes things clear for me. My XT2 is about ready for a new set of wheels, so this info will come in handy for me as well

I must admit, I am also somehwat confused about the actual measurements and such like. The hex diameter is easy enough...this is the size of the cutout in the wheel where the hub actually fits in to drive the wheel. Both my cars have 17mm which for a 1/8th scale seems pretty standard. Offset...this is the one I don't know for sure. Is it the distance from the inner edge of the rim to the point where the hex is? If so, then a 1" or 1/2" would affect the amount of clearance available on full lock for the steering and also on the overall width of the buggy. Have I got this right? Wider is better for stability in the turns. Also, when it comes to wheel diameter, is this pretty much the same for most after market wheels? Quite often this is not listed and would obviously depend also on the tyres fitted. Make too much of a change here and it will affect final gearing. As long as you don't buy monster truck wheels for a buggy..... is it pretty much all down to personal taste?

Cleaning hte air filter can't hurt. If it is clogged up it will reduce the airflow through the carb, leading to richer running. On it's own, though, it would have to be pretty bad to stop a motor running...but combined with all the other issues you are having, it is a quick and simple job that will add one more thing to the list of what is DEFINITELY NOT wrong!

Wd40 is king. Cleans, degreases, lubricates....and smells nice I would consider binning old fuel and getting fresh. The largest portion of the fuel is methanol (alcohol). Methanol is hygroscopic meaning it attracts moisture. This can cause your fuel to be contaminated with water, which will cause poor engine performance. Also, the UV rays in sunlight will eventually break down the nitro methane if the fuel is stored in sunlight for long periods of time. 'Bad' fuel will make your engine run poorly or not at all, which you don't want if you are trying to bring it back to life!

Best advice I can give is read the manual carefully, take special note of the instructions it gives for breaking in, and follow them carefully. While you wai for the car to arrive, read how many variations there are on the best way to break in and tune a nitro engine It'll help to pass the time! Also, before you run the car, give it a good check over to make sure everything is bolted up tight, and where it should be. Check things like fuel pipes are not kinked orin the way of moving parts etc. It's also a good chance to get to grips with what is where under the bodyshell! Also look at the wonderful extras just waiting to lighten your wallet If you haven't already, budget to replace the servo power supply with a rechargable hump-pack and buy a failsafe. These things are pretty much essential. Tuning wise, there is a pretty neat flowchart stickied on the forum....it is fairly simple to follow and looks pretty easy to follow if you are new to all this. Carb setting is a bit of a confusing subject to begin with, but you will soon begin to realise what does what. Complete the break-in before you think about tuning. Also, expect to have to set things like the idle so that the carb is open 1mm when the throttle is closed. This is not always set right out of the box. Same applies to the other carb settings. Make sure you know what the baseline settings are, and which screw does what on your buggy before tweaking. If you get lost in tweaking, you may need to return to the stock settings as a baseline. Make small changes when tuning and see what effect it has. Avoid making big changes to the carburation in one go, as you are aiming The Savage is a pretty good piece of kit, and should perform well once setup and sorted.

Personally, I wouldn't run the car until the cause is identified and sorted. You are running the risk of causing more damage. It may not be a major issue.....but are you prepared to take the risk? I would advise caution until you know the nature of the problem. If a bearing is giving out, then it's just a question of replacing it. If a bearing disintegrates at 20,000rpm then it will make a bit of a mess.

Bearings that have collapsed would be obvious, as should any serious play in them. Any broken springs would also be obvious. The gears and clutch bell should not be showing obvious signs of wear or scoring...you will see marked wear on the gears if they are worn. The gear on the clutch bell tends to wear more as it is smaller...you will see the marks where it meshes with the larger gear on the transmission. If your engine mounts were loose, this will cause wear here prematurely. You will see the teeth thinned out or chipped. The manual should show the clutch assembly .... make sure the shoes look like the picture, and are not missing bits! Lastly, make sure the engine shaft is OK, not scored or bent where the clutch shoes fit. Wear here will follow according to the way this all works together. The engine shaft spins at high revs, forcing the clutch shoes out until they meet the inside of the clutch bell. Then friction builds until the clutch bell spins. The springs pull the shoes back and control the amount of centrifugal force needed to bring hte shoes into contact with the clutch bell. Look for anything that might indicate metal to metal contact somewhere it shouldn't be happening!

Generally speaking, a rechargable battery will last a lot longer if it is discharged before you re-charge it. If you are prepared to accept a shorter life for the battery pack, then charge it when you need to. I find the battery pack lasts pretty well for a couple of sessions and then re-charge it. A worthwhile thing to do is to invest in a spare pack. They are not expensive. Run one right down and then just swap it over. Recharge the first one, and it will be ready to swap back when you need it. Both my buggies have the same size servo battery pack, so I always have a spare to hand. I tend to run the thing until I notice the steering losing it's responsiveness, then swap the battery pack over.

12 tanks through is a bit short time for a major breakdown. First thing to check is that everything is properly tightened down. It's possible the clutch has come apart, but also possible you may have anything from a loose engine mount through to loose clutch bell. If that isn't on properly, the gears will rattle against each other. Check the big bits are all tight first, then start taking the clutch area apart. Dead bearings should be obvious, as should the state of the clutch when you look at it. As a rule of thumb...if bits fall out when you take of the clutch bell, it's time to get out the Visa card....

Ahh..the K&N air-filter. As a long time motorcyclist brought up on a diet of ratty old jap fours, I have had more than my fair share of fun with these beauties. Enough to know I wouldn't want one on a buggy! They don't filter out the dust and grit unless you get an oiled type...then they clog up really quickly. They are also virtually impossible to clean and re-use. If used dry, they allow more air to flow through which would tend to lean off the mixture. Fine if you can tune to suit, but with the limited amount of tuning available on a nitro engines carb, it will always be a compromise between pick up and top end. Both my buggies run oiled foam filters...one a single layer one...the other has a second outer layer. Judging from the fact that they need a good clean after every run, I wouldn't run with anything else. A K&N with a chrome end may look shiny....but when you think of the revs these engines run at, getting grit and dust in will ruin an engine in no time at all. On top of that, I would think the air filter is probably one of the most likely reasons for your motor to be running lean. If you have just fitted the filter, I would swap back and see if the trouble goes away. If not, check it for damage or holes etc.

Looking at the details on that Hyper 7 with the .28Cu motor, that is a lot of buggy for the money, and should go well. The tuned .21 is for those who want to go racing in competition, but would be a bit more temperamental in 'ordinary' use. Though I don't own a HoBoa buggy myself, there are lots here who do, so you should have no probelm getting advice on setup etc. Also, there seems to be a decent spares backup for them too. VERY important for a first buggy. If I wasn't saving my pennies up for a HPI Baja, I might be tempted to add this to my shopping list for next summer

The failsafe should only cut in when the signal is lost to the receiver. When that happens, the failsafe should be set to kill the throttle and return the engine to idel, plus apply the brakes. That has happened in your test ... but more because the thing got confused! If you have normal control and turn off the transmitter, the failsafe should activate and close off throttle and apply brakes. Nothing else should cause that to happen. Double check everything is connected properly and that you have followed the failsafe setup instructions carefully.

Looking at the spec of the buggy, it's a cheap buggy...but you pretty much always get what you pay for! The radio kit that gets supplied with it will be of low quality ( The one Nitrotek include is a low cost 27Mhz AM job ) and the whole thing is advertising 'features' like a single needle carb for ease of tuning ( read: impossible to tune it to run well ) and things like a '2.5mm aluminium chassis ...(read: at least 25% too thin to be any good on the rough ) Aluminium suspension arms ( read: what would you EXPECT them to be made of? cheese? Hit a bump or a jump and they take a beating) and so on. If all you want to do is trundle round the local park, then it will probably be OK. Try to do more and I can see it breaking into little tiny pieces quite a lot. To be honest, buying cheap will not be the best introduction to the hobby and whilst I fully understand that money is hard to come by these days, you really want to get the most from the thing for as long as possible. Look to spend about

If you are looking for a starter buggy, you could do a lot worse than an XTM XT2 ... it was my first buggy, and still gives me hours of fun. Spares are easy to get and the thing is pretty robust and tolerant of novices. The engine started and ran out of the box, and with a .247 motor, it's plenty quick enough. Realistically, expect to pay a little over

Thanks for the help and advice folks! One Spektrum DS3.0 with bonus free receiver is on it's way and due to arrive some time next week For the price, the deal is as good as the lower priced kit, and all the reviews rate Spektrum as good quality trouble free kit. This works out as cheap as buying an Ansmann or Acom kit plus an extra receiver, and whilst the basic DX3.0 doesn't have all the fancy features and telemetry etc. for a general bit of thrashing and bashing, it's more than good enough for me. I'm no serious racer! The benefits of 2.4Ghz plus built in failsafe means I will have no more glitching and some free space in the RX compartment too!

Hmm...I understand Spektrum kit is one of the well thought of RX/TX makers.... and I found this with the help of my old friend 'google': http://www.lstshop.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=2875&osCsid=bde753dbcb3d3bf8b20c653d96deb9ea If they have stock, then this could be the best bet. 1 TX, 2 RX all in one hit. From what I can gather, there is a more fancy featured model out, which would make this either old stock or low end for Spektrum, but it's the quality of the radio I want more than anything else. If they are out, then I think the Ansmann will be the one I get. Now to talk sweetly to the wife about spending money we can't afford and how I might actually get around to doing some of those household jobs I keep putting off in my extreme happiness at owning some lovely new RC toys

If you return it to stock settings and it STILL won't run, then there is a problem somewhere else that tuning just isn't going to solve. If the motor is running lean, then the most likely problem is an air leak somewhere. Check all the fuel pipes are well xonnected and nothing is leaking. Make sure the exhaust is properly attached and that the air filter is on properly and the connections are properly sealed. As has been mentioned above, a buggy on stock settings out of the box is usually set up to be a 'safe' runner, just not optimised for power. Mind you....the stock settings as listed in the manual isn't always what you get on the buggy. I have had idle screws setup with no gap at all from the factory right through to wide enough open to cause 'issues' if the wheels had been on the ground.... Carefully wind the HSN in all the way, and then back it off the specified number of turns to get your baseline, check the idle leaves about 1mm opening on a closed throttle and put the LSN to stock the same way. Don't trust it to have been right out of the box. Then look for a physical issue. I must admit, if there is a quantity of raw fuel building up in the exhaust, that is not a good sign. There will always be a small quantity of unburnt fuel coming out, but not much.

A while back I picked up a Thunder Tiger ST1 for silly money, after it had sat at the back of the shop unloved and unwanted. It's a great Truggy, and runs well...but the radio that came with it is shocking kit. It is very glitch prone, and hates running with a failsafe fitted. All the kit 'works' just not when it's all put into the ST1. So, no refund there from the shop ( they're actually pretty helpful overall, so I don't blame them really! ) So, what to do. I want to replace the cruddy 27Mhz AM radio with something good....but cheap. The budget is around £100 and I am windering what you guys would recommend. I have seen cheap 2.4Ghz kit from ACOM and Ansmann on Modelsport that comes into that price range, but are they worth it? Would I be better off getting a better quality FM unit? The XTM buggy came with a pretty fair FM TX/RX unit that has never given trouble. It's just the ST1 that seems marginal. Sometimes it's fine, others the failsafe cuts in every few seconds and the thing kangaroos like a crazy thing. I am not keen on running it without the failsafe, though, as it's a pretty quick mover! I also want to be able to get a second RX unit to put in my XTM XT2 to cut down on the number of TX's I have knocking about the place.... the damn things breed and eat batteries, so having 1 unit I can use with both cars would be ideal. Any thoughts?