Hello All and CEN Racing.

I need some help. I got a CT4S car from a freind not to long ago for doing about 100 dollars worth of work and customization to his LST. The car for the most part was in great shape and it even came with a brand new painted Ridez Body and eight ball wheeels and spinners. The only thing that was broken was both stingers on the stock pipe and it being out of tune. He had a tiger drive starter which was a joke. It would start every time, but it hung so low underneath through the cut out chassis and any sized pebble would send it tumbling. I took it off and found my stock hpi s-25 roto start worked nicely.

Now that I could start and drive it with ease it was time to start tuning. That night I could never get it to pull off the line at all and top speed was maybe in the 20's. It only shifted maybe twice and when it did, it didn't make much of a difference. It idled real well and now matter how much I leaned out the bottom end it didn't do much and the temps never got over 110. I never had a car before and dealt with belts so I basically took the whole car apart minus the engine to not only learn about the car, but to see if there was something holding everything up. I got the car back together and the same thing was happening again. I thought hmmm, what the heck could it be? The only conclusion that I could come up with was the clutch. I took the engine off and the clutch shoes were not in the best of shape. They were a little worn and some of the teflon was melted onto the clutch bell. I lightly sanded the shoes and inside the clutch bell and then cleaned everything off. Judging from the pictures the shoes seemed to still have some good life to them, but I could be wrong.

That night I took the car back out into the parking lot and now I finially started getting someplace. Everything was the same on the first tank, but on the second tanks it started coming to life without me having to turn a needle yet. Acceleration was a little better, it was shifting and I was reaching in the upper 40's range. It still took forever and a day to get there, but soon as it hit second it moved pretty rapidly with a good amount of smoke. I knew the high had to be set right and the bottom end still needed a great deal of adjustment as ton's of smoke was blowing through the exhaust on the start. I started leaning the bottom end little by little. It made a great improvement over what it was, but it never got perfect and I soon found myself going as far as the needle would go. The temps remained constantly at 130. This is hard to describe in a letter, but the engine sounds about right. Starts every time, idles and purres like a kitten, lift the car up and it roars and sounds wonderful, put the car down and it take nearly a second for the car to start moving and then it slow going until it hit's second and even then it's not coming remotely close to 60 let alone 70. I am going to buy new clutch shoes and I am sure thats part of the problem and the broken stingers are hurting the performance. I am sorry for the full length letter, but my question to CEN and your guys are. Would getting new shoes and pipe solved my low end needle problem? My car is so close to being where it should, but I can't lean it out anymore. I know I need those two things, but I am afraid that I may have to also get new needles. I never have encountered a problem like this before and would a clutch bell and shoes do something like this?

Replacing the clutch shoes couldn't hurt, but have you checked to see if the clutch springs are weak? Do you have the clutch shoes trailing?
Also the stingers being broken off the car will cause it to not tune right.
you say you keep leaning out the bottom end. If the top end is too rich it will cause you not to be able to lean out the bottom. The top end needle or (Main neelde) also controls the bottom end to a point. Remember that the 2 needles work together. If you change one the other will be effected as well. Just not as much as the one you made that change to. However the bottom needle could be your problem with having to adjust it in so far. IE: bent needle, worn out neelde seat.

The first thing I would do would to be replace the broken pipe. These pipes are tuned and the stinger has a lot to do with tuning.

I hope this helps.

Thanks Demon Alchohol for your suggestions. That car has a two shoe clutch and I am not sure how to tell if the spring is bad or not. They are definitely trailoring and pointing in the right direction. When I would tune I would bo back and forth compensating for both needles. I know my problem has got to be one of the three and I just hope it's only the pipe and clutch. I will surely start there. I would think broken stingers would hurt performance, but wasn't sure if it would jack with the tuning that much. Thanks for you info and help : )

Hey Demon Alcohol,

I thought I would let you know how my car is doing and thanks for your comments. I found out that having a broken stinger will make your engine run extremelly rich so thats why all the leaning to the low speed needle didn't do to much. This is my play toy so I didn't want to spend a ton of money on a exotic pipe. I found a cheap New Era pipe for seventeen dollars that looked nice. Anything had to be better than the cheap plastic broken one that I had. While I was there I bought a motor saver air filter and got my clutch shoes in. The very first thing I did was install my new pipe and had to make a new pipe holder out of wire hanger. That worked out real well. I just had to go take her for a spin before I did anything else to see what would happen. What a difference that made. It took me about ten minutes to richen the needles back as now it was running way to lean. My low end needle is not even close to bottoming out now : ) I love the sound of the pipe that I bought and plus it's doing every bit of 70 now with a perfect tune and it doesn't take that long to reach top speed.

I then went back home as I have had a clear pro-line ridez hummer body that I haven't painted until now. The next time I was going to take it out it was going to look sharp. I like the stock Mercedes body, but I am not to fond of the dumb CK Man and Girly stickers that were on it. I can take them off, but don't know what I want to put back on there yet and beside's, this is my little cheap G-ride project. I spent this evening painting my hummer and while I was waiting for all the coats of paint to dry I put on the new clutch shoes and new air filter. At about 2:00am I figured it was ok to head back out for another test drive. I had to richen the high speed needle a little due to the new large air filter and boy am I loving this car. I don't care to race a car and for parkinglot bashing it's all the car I will ever need. I smacked a curb again tonight around between 40 and 50 miles an hour. One thing I will say about this car that I am very impressed with is how durable and strong it is. A parking lot basher like me loves that and thank god I didn't have my new body on when it happened as the paint is not fully cured yet. I love the 24 series wheels by pro-line as I don't have to be bothered by rocks or small debri and they look sharp. The only thing left is to get the new drivetrain for quicker excelleration, but as of now it's doing pretty darn good even with the big wheels. When the paint is good and ready tomorrow I will put my light kit's on it and finally get some spinners for the wheels and I am all set. By the time I buy the spinners I will have a total of 220 dollars invested for the whole car. Some of it I already had, but I got a slightly used super strong car, two new bodies, two sets of new wheels, two light kit's, spinners, new pipe, new shoes, roto start converstion, drivetrain kit and a tiger drive system that will probably just lay around as I hate that thing. Most of all got a kick butt night of fun, woke up some neighbors near the school, got asked to leave by the cops at 3:30am, but not without them wanting to watch a couple of runs, and left with a big smile on my face. Knowing that Monday Night my car will be back on the lot at a much earlier time at 100% completion. I didn't mean to be out so late tonight <lol> but I couldn't help it.

Slingdirt, Out of the box the car is setup for high top speed. You can get more bottom end by cutting about 3mm off the clutch spring and then bending a new loop and reattaching the spring. This will allow the engine to engage at a slightly higher R.P.M. This will give you a slight increase in bottom end power. If you want a big difference in bottom end CEN Racing also offers a Competition Drive Train kit which reduced the overall drive ratio of the drive train for more bottom end. This kit will reduce the top speed of the car slightly.

just put a decent engine in with good top and bottom power with quite abit of torque