motoman827

Hey guys – new here. I just got a Hurricane XP with the .28 engine. I started breaking it in trying to heat cycle it. Right out of the box, the original glow plug was bad (not glowing at all) so I put in a Traxxas #3232 which I believe is a long medium range plug. I set the idle at 1.0mm, HSN at 3.5 turns and LSN at 2.5 turns.

I got it started, but was running extremely rich – lots of unburned fuel from the exhaust with a decent amount of blue smoke. The engine temp only made it to 105 degrees sitting on a stand. I wrapped some aluminum foil around the engine and ran another tank on the stand. Still only got up to about 105 degrees. I ran another 2 tanks on the stand leaning out the needles to get it to rev a little, and I got the temps to about 130 degrees. I ran the 5th tank with the car on the ground slowly (up to ¼ throttle) on the rich side (still sounds blubbery). Temp only reached 140. The gauge is accurate because I tested it against another thermometer and they read very close (within a degree or 2).

I understand running it rich is better for break in, but I would like to get the temps a little higher. Here’s the strange part, the HSN is at 2 turns out and the LSN is 1 ¼ turns and it’s still running rich. I live in North Jersey at an altitude I’m guessing 600ft. above sea level. I haven’t read any posts here with needles leaned this much. Most are closer to 3 turns on the HSN and 2.5 on the LSN. I thought maybe the air filter had too much oil and was choking the engine, but it looks O.K. I was going to try running it with the filter plastic cover off to give it a little more air flow on the in take. Should I just run it this way for a few more tanks, then lean it out some more?