RE: Modding 5.9?
I inquired about the same thing and Supertib eventually voiced his honest opinion for us all to see. I will just quote him below. During our conversation, he basically told me the engine life was not going to be as long as the time it took to modify it. With a few cases of broken pistons already showing up, one has to wonder. I think it would be fun to have though. Now, on to the man!
"I will try to explain my veiw on this topic..... engines for RC's are the same as engines for cars..... When a customer comes to us looking for a engine for his car we tell them something very similar to what i tell people about RC car engines..... We can make a stock internal motor very fast very easily, it will make big numbers on a dyno and likely beat out some more expensive motors other guys run.... The issue is if that customer intends to use that motors power frequently its not going to last, its a stock internal production motor that was never engineered to be raced, and even worse engineered to be raced with all the extra power we added.... Even stock nearly all production motors will fail under race conditions, being raced with added power is just asking for problems..... Its much better for a customer for us to build a motor that is engineered for the task they are asking from it, a motor that is engineered to be raced its entire life..with a motor like this we can not only add big HP but we can use that big HP with much less fear of failure..... These HPI RTR engines were never intended for racing, beat on them too much and they will fail even when stock.. to me spending money on modifying one of these engines is pointless as the end result is not really a motor I feel my customers really want....Its not like we can buy a forged piston and after market rod for these engines like we can with 1:1 engines , the inernals they come with are what we are stuck with..... The internal material differences between a K5.9 and a Picco 28 is very substantial... The Picco is a full blown race engine, it come factory with all the goodlies..forged piston, forged crank, oversized harened crankpin, MES exhaust, Swiss bearing ..The 5.9 comes with cast crank,cast piston, basic exhaust, cheap bearings ........... Its almost like comparing a modern fully built 426 race Hemi to a 1981 full emission GMC 454 fleet engine.....and unfortunately unlike the GMC motor we cant buy any upgrade parts for the 5.9...... so consider my engine mods almost like a blower or shot of NOS, which engine would you rather add the power to ? even stock the 5.9 would never survive in a racing environment, so how can I expect it live being beaten on as a modified motor ?"
I do not think I could have said it any better. Bud