I'm new to nitro cars, I had numerous electric cars many years ago, and I've dabbled in nitro powered aircraft over the years.

My new tornado just arrived this week and I've been screwing around with it all day. Tried for over an hour to get it to start and stay running. (it was starting on the raw fuel I squirted in the carb, but thats it) I tried blowing in the pressure pipe and it was extremely difficult. I tried taking the fuel tank out to look at it closer, but I couldn't get the lock nut off the bottom of the bolts. I got it to run for about 10 minutes when I ran a long line right from the fuel bottle to the carb, so I knew it was a problem with the tank. Turns out it was a manufacturing defect in the plastic tank, the 90 bend at the top where the nipple is was nearly completely sealed over. A deft application of some brute strength with a mini screwdriver did the trick.
Then when I was idling it around, I found that the brakes would lock up and the servos would start spazzing out when the car got about 20 feet away from me. Same distance every time, it'd just sit there. Was thinking of getting a whole new set of batteries, but i took the controller apart and saw the problem. This morning when I was screwing the antenna in the first time it met some resistance, but then finally went all the way in. Well apparently the resistance was on of the leads from the battery pack to the circuit board. The shaved wire was making contact with the antenna inside the handle, causing interference.
Ok, so two problems solved, and I'm feeling much better.
THEN, I had gotten another tank full run through at idle or nearly so, and was working on another tank, when the engine just up and quits. It had quit similarly at the end of the last tank but I didnt think much of it. It's got half a tank full of gas, and it won't restart now. It does have compression, I can feel it in the pull start. Is it possible it's overheated? I was running it at factory settings, it was idling pretty fast and wasn't bogging down, but it seemed pretty smokey to me, so I was getting conflicting symptoms.
Would overheating cause it to quit suddenly like that and not want to restart? I dont have a infrared gun, so I have no idea how hot it's getting. The top of the heat sink is too hot to touch immediately after running, but cools down pretty fast...
Lastly, if the concensus is that it is in fact too hot, am I correct in thinking that it's too lean, and I could turn the low screw counter-clockwise a bit?
Thanks for bearing with me and my longwindedness.....ness. :-)
-J-