JohnP2

Would love to hear ya'lls experience when you started your first nitro.

Mine was awful. It was a CXP .18. Flooded the crap out of it. Learned to unflood it. Flooded it again, etc. All this jacking with it caused me to unknowingly knock the roto-carb to WOT. Finally got it started and off it took. I did not know how to stop it....but it stopped itself. (See my avatar to the left.)

Only found one placeonline to get the rod.When I received it - wrong rod! Called the place (in California). The owner kept saying it was the right one and gotit from a distributor in China. We ended up contacting the distributor in China - I think it was like his cousin or something. He eventually agreed it was the wrong one. He then wanted to sell me an SMT .15. I asked if it would fit he kept saying "I take care of you. No worries. It will fit. A lot of guys with Forza run these." I got the engine.At first I was like "where the hell is the clutch?" (I thought they were part of the engine). Had to learn to take off theclutch, install it on new engine, etc. Of course the engine did not fit either, but I made it fit! Finally got it started up (and running) and I was proud as can be....andhooked, for sure! ;-)

What was your first engine and how did it go? C'mon Neal....even you hadto start one for the first time! ;-)

rccheech

Mine was an O.S. .12 in a kyosho outlaw rampage, fortunatly everything went smooth for me, been hooked ever since on the nitro line.

Argess

I was 10 years old and had trouble with the Cox 049 in my PT-19 control line airplane. Mine looked like this, but the wings were blue and the fuselage was yellow:



Here's the engine with glowplug and glowplug clip shown as well. What's not shown is the spring around the crankcase for spinning the prop. You wind it backwards and let go and the spring does the rest:



The battery was one of those huge 1.5 volt dry cells that surprisingly, never did last very long:



I used this fuel:



Sometimes I did get the "good stuff", which really didn't make difference that I could tell:



Starting wasn't easy until I discovered that the suggested needle valve adjustment for starting should have been 3.75 to 4 turns out, NOT 3.5.

It was primed by dribbling a little fuel over the cylinder so some would go in the ports. That would cause it to run for a second or two, but I had to richen the needle before it would keep running.

And it was an unnerving experience reaching in to lean the engine out once running. The propeller hurts. I once cut two fingers to the bone when doing that.

But it was that starting/tuning challenge along with the subsequent satisfying thrill of a tuned engine that keeps me with glow-engines and I leave the electric to others who enjoy pistonless RC.

JohnP2

Dang, I hope this thread does not make me look stupid. I read too manyhorror stories like mine. ;-)

Argess: I am not surprised you started your first nitro when you were 10. ;-) I started at 41 and wish I had that background. You are on it though and hope decades from now Istill am into this hobby. I told my kids one or both of them better build me a workshop else I'll be the guy in the old folks home who "builds rc cars". Ha!

nitrosteve22

My first time with a nitro was an old nitrohawk I traded my rc10t3/4 (so long ago dont remember)... Anyways it had a new broken in trx.15 w/ mip stinger which was crazy loud! I fired it up knowing very little about what I was doing and off it went!!! Right down the driveway and straight down the street,finally pinching itself under some lumber. It was running full open when I got to it,for some reason I was flat scared! My neighbor was waiting for me on his side of the fence when I walked back home.... Got a nice little lecture about noise (it was like two in the afternoon!) ,and not being carful,being a young teen at the time he layed in to me pretty good.... Not a good first experience all in all. Looking back on it I cant recall what I did wrong,as always I check for steering/throttle to make sure all goes well..... Course this was so long ago,might have been that crap airtronics am radio.... No failsafe with a glitchy radio... AH-HA!

Scrubb

My first time was horrible too. My brother had just bought one of the Himoto Vipers a few years ago and we both read the manual thoroughly and read how to tune on the internet and we just could NOT get it to run for more than a few seconds.

A few days went on where we would try every evening to get it running because we were so excited about nitro. Until buying the viper we had only seen them in videos on the internet.. So we still couldn't get it started after a few days and the days turned into a couple weeks and a trip to where it was bought from to get it tuned. Got it back from them and it was hardly any better. It was at that point my brother was so frustrated he threw it aside and never bothered with it again.

We then came across this forum (which has some amazing helpful people btw) and some people suggested not to turn the high speed needle as rich as the manual suggests and instantly it fired into live, although a bit bubbly sounding. From that point on I was hooked and I ordered myself one and learned to have it tuned right on the limit. Was pretty fast for a heavy truck with a small engine.

The Viper was the first Nitro RC I've owned and I have since given it away and not had one for a couple years but I'm hoping to buy a new buggy with a .21 engine so will be much more to learn!

NOVAMEGA

Mine was the cox air plane too... I remember busting my fingers many many times starting that thing...one time my mom was like "shoulda bought the damn rockets)
.nitro planes on a string lol good times.

Roscco

I've recently (despite intending to for years) bought a HoBao HyperST with the Macstar .28.
It had been messed about with before so starting it was far from fun, not to mention the starter box kept starting the engine the wrong way so it wanted to go backwards.

A few blips on the throttle(while on the box) and it changes it's mind, puzzles the hell out of me?

Anyways, this has been over a week of trying various HSN/LSN & FSN (the one you're not meant to touch, EVER), and tonight i finally got it running, just.
Its clearly overly rich and is spitting oil somewhere around the head (to be looked into tomorrow).

KEEP your lipo's, I'm for sure not looking back....... This Nitro thing is way too much fun, takes a skill set I'm still learning too. Electric you can just plug and play.

ETA : Just noticed this was 1st time ever, About 15 years ago i got a single engine from my dad, minus the plane. It was an OS MAX .40 which i held while a mate used a starter wheel on the prop. glad it only ran for 2-3 seconds or i'd be missing digits.

flatpickhippster

I was about 12yo and my dad bought me a Cox Baja VW Buggy with a .049.

There was no Tx/Rx. It had settings for small, med, large circles.

You started engine by spinning this big plastic flywheel. Run it rich for slower speed and lean it out for higher speeds.
It started and ran great, but you could develope a huge blister spinning that flywheel.

I got it to haul ass and it jumped outta med loop to large and I couldn't catch it b4 it hit the side of the house.

Those engines would scream!!!