dartmouth01

When I broke in my motor last weekend, I borrowed a trick from someone at my LHS. I preheated my motor to help get the motor to turn over, esp since I was using the stock EZstart on my revo. The guy at the LHS uses his tailpipe exhaust to heat his engine up, but I found my exhaust was not nearly hot enough at idle, and contains alot of water vapor too. So I used my car's heater to help warm up the engine. Just heating it up to 80 degrees helped get my motor started, when trying it cold just locked up the motor. It was awesome. Since then, I've decided to always preheat my motor if the weather is less than 80 degrees, since I figure the less I rotate the motor when cold, the better. But since holding the truck over my leather seats worried me, I found this gem at Kmart. Its a heater that will work off the 12V power from your car. I also have a portable jump starter with 12 power, so I can use this away from my car. I'll let you all know how it goes!

Timmahh

unless the temp drops below 40, maybe 35 degrees F... then a properly tuned engine should start right up. i ve got 2 T-maxx's a 2.5 and a Picco 21 on another. i live in Michigan, we just got a foot of snow 4 days ago, today, it was 38 most the day, and down to 20 tonight, i ran 5 tanks out today playing around in the yard and drive with the mud and slush, and 6 inches of now heavy wet snow... had a riot. later on. about 8pm, when it was dark and 20 degrees, my neighbor and i both went out for an evening spin, i ran another 3 tanks before my nips were ready to cut glass, so i headed in... the only time i had to warm the engine was tonight i used my Other T-Maxx the 2.5, i had not ran the truck in a week, and was hard to rollover, it was a bit doggy, i set up outside and headed back in for 15 minute to do a few things, so when i came back out the truck was pretty cold and rolled slow, i put it in the house on my heating register for about 15 seconds, put the ez start to it, got it rolling, tossed it back on the front porch, filled my coffee mug, and went out for another 1hr after that... TO MUCH FUN!!!!! is all i can say with 3 to 5 feet of snow banks from plowing, YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

a well tuned engine should start pretty easily even at 20F.
Tim

dartmouth01

I dont know about that. I think it depends on what kind of pinch you're getting, and an engine wears over time, so my guess is that the beginning of the engine's life cycle the pinch will be higher than at the end of its life. If there's alot of pinch, anything that is done to relieve the stress of a cold piston smacking against the sleeve should help lifespan? The benefit might be negligble, but it'll be cool to try. Also, since I did the heat cycle method on this last engine, (which is supposed to help preserve the tight pinch), I noticed that the pinch of the engine is really tight, tighter than on the original 2.5R. I probably will need the heater for the next few tanks at the very least, if I run in the cold.....

sprocket226

I agree with both of you actually. I heated my Revo engine with a heat gun when breaking it in, it was really tight. (Didn't want to kill a one-way, or the starter motor). But now that it's broke in, it will fire right up with no heat. I've read alot of people don't really care for the 2.5 in the Revo, but I've had nothing but good times with this motor, and it's staying in the truck until it dies.

dustin7837

My Feedback: (1)

I think that you are saying that thi piston fit is tighter when the engine is cold? If thats what you are saying... not true. The fit is actuall looser when the engine is cold, and also the piston is slightly(less than 1 thousandth of an inch) oval in shape when it is cold. This is what causes piston slap (slight ticking noise) in some engines until they warm up. It is too hard to hear with an RC but it can be heard with a motorcycle, quad, truck etc... It is harder for the fuel and air to mix in colder weather (thus vehicles getting worse mileage in the winter, that and friction fromice and snow)

I don't know what kind of ambient temps you get in RI, but in alberta here, the coldest i have ever run my RCs is -35 celcius, and i have had no problems with starting with either my stock CEN .16 or my other OS .18. I'm not sure why you would have cold weather starting issues unless your carb is set too rich.


just my 2 cents

RXPAddict

I had my LST with me in Indiana once just in time for about 4" of snow. I had only had about a half gallon of fuel through it (or anything, ever for that matter- Im new) so it took me a little while to get it tuned, but when I did....woot!!! It was big fun!

It was hard to start when it was cold (air temp was 20*F) but after it warmed up and especially after I put a tune on it it was better. I had foil on the head.