ORIGINAL: taylor152806
ic.... well i hate to spend the cash on a cylnd. and piston and cont. rod I just need to get it running... I just spent so much on exhuast i wanna hear it.. its not far to pay 100 bucks for a motor... I know redcat should help me. I sent my info to them. but its strange that my order is not on there site. I love my truck.. but i never even made it through a gal of fuel.. and yes i did the traxxas break-in it seems to be the best it took about 41/2 hrs to complete. I think i just got a bad motor.
A Newbs Essay......
Im a nitro newb and I KNOW I abused my first motor. I didnt do it on purpose,,I was just clueless. I had only seen one other nitro up close. Never Heard one run, so I didnt know what it was supposed to sound like. Didnt have any experience of how it should idle or how High it should idle.
My engine fired right up the first time. Ran a tank through it on a box (wheels in the air). Idle was too high and wheels started spinning FAST as it warmed up. So.......I put the Brake on....Lol....wheels stopped spinning. Ran out the tank and noticed what looked like smoke comming from truck. Looked closer and saw smoke comming from the clutch. LOL clutch bell turned a nice shade of gun metal ( I heat treated it ! ) blue from overheating cuz the shoes were dragging. Im guessing the engine got pretty HOT. Didnt have a Temp gun yet.
Didnt seem to hurt anything. Clutch still worked fine after it cooled down. I continued the break in process. Runnaway idle went away as soon as I put wheels to cement. Finished break in and tuned as per Forum info. Everything was great for a while. then one day Temps went sky high! +300 deg. (had temp gun by then). Took a while to figure out it wasnt my tuning, but I had air leak. Took a while longer to figure out how to FIX that.
After fixing air leak, Installed a Motor saver and header to go with the tuned pipe that came with the truck. More abuse as I tuned THAT set up. WOW! FASTER now! May have run it lean a few times (not purposely) as I screamed it WOT up and down the parking lot I used as a Drag Strip. ( Didnt really understand how BAD that is for these engines.) This doesnt EVEN take into account all the BAD crashes and abuse that happened as I learned to Control the damn thing.....and drive in a sensible manner. KUPPLER shouldnt be laughin either, cuz he was right there with me Laughin his ass off
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All the while I was reading the forum threads. Do you know that there are AT least 200 PAGES of Volcano threads. Then there are Buggy threads, Parts Mod threads, FAQ threads. I Read em ALL (every single one that had ANYTHING to do with the Volcano). I went all the way back to the first post. Ehroof was PISSED at Redcat on account of the Crappy Spur gears and clutch springs. Remember THAT? I read it 3 months ago even tho the posts are 2 years old.
My point is that even with all that Knowledge (info overload) I still didnt have any EXPERIENCE, and I made rookie mistakes. Im now on my Third Vehicle. 2 Volcanoes and I just got my Monsoon,( Im gonna open the engine and inspect/clean it before I run it) and things are much smoother now.
I have some experience now, and I have even been able to help out a few peeps with problems like I had. And Yeah, that first Volcano engine is still runnin Strong! These little engine are pretty Tough! They Last if you STOP ABUSING them.( Of course I shortened the life of this engine and it s my own Fault).
So...what im sayin is,,,,if you blow your engine after only 1 gallon of Gas, Its not a manufacturing defect, Its not cuz its a cheap engine, Its cuz you DID SOMETHING WRONG. Do some research and get it right the second time around. And dont tell me about all the years of experience you have,Blah Blah Blah, cuz everyone makes mistakes. Heck , I bet even Ehroof has blown an engine or two over the years, but I bet he doesnt make the SAME mistake twice. And neither should we....