Well, i had the weather today and the time to finish breaking in the engine, I have 7 tanks thru it now, and WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAHT A RIDE!!!!!
Still running it quite rich, and only in my buddies yard, but man..........I gunned it coming srt8 towards me, and I could SEE the front tires go OVAL!!!!!!!!

I have a couple questions for the wizards here though.

1)What is the purpose of the diff lock?

2) More of an issue than a question....... I had NO brakes.......... had to drift to a stop, so i adjusted them a bit, and it SEEMED fine..................after a tank or so of running, it began to bog down, and sounded funny, so i killed it, and noticed smoke....more than normal. HEad temp read 366 degrees........ I have to figure the brakes were set too tight and making the motor struggle, and causing it to overheat... So my question is, how do you find the RIGHT spot for the brakes? I find that if i back them off even SLIGHTLY, i have none, but if i try to take them up SLIGHTLY, it's too much. Is there some sort of measurment somewhere, or a guage?

It locks the differential so all of the power goes to the rear wheels, making the truck RWD. This will help your truck to wheelies but at the cost of your drivetrain. Locking the center diff will put stress on your drive train and might lead to parts breaking.

Well Darkfire your partially right.. The center diff locked will make your truck full time 4 wheel drive or better yet send equal power to both front and rear diffs. The effect of doing this is very dramatic in the ability to do wheelies!! As well as improve performance IMHO. With the center diff "open" as it comes out of the box, when you squeeze the trigger to full power and the front end lifts your center diff will "Unload" and cuase the front tires to spin more than the rear tires because they are not making as good of contact as the rear. When your center diff "unloads" you will actually lose accelleration until the front tires settle down again, good for racing, but not as much fun. IMHO the wear is not that much more than open than an open diff, and what little eccessive wear is well worth the fun factor.. Now when you are cornering and the inside tire front tire lifts it will spin faster than the other tires, again good for racing but not as much fun bashing, that is your front open diff "unloading". I have my front and rear diffs open and the center locked. a good balance for fun and track time.

As for the heat I think you may be too lean and do you have adequet air flow over the head??(a hole cut in the windsheild) your engine will burn up if you continue to run it that hot, you should be closer 240*. Check your tune and your airflow. If the brakes were dragging enough to cause overheating you wouldn't be having as much fun as you were. When you adjust your brake linkages, your levelrs should be able to rotate about 15* lock to lock if you can rotate them more then check the screws that hold the brake assembly to the tranny. They could be looser than desired. Take a pic of the brakes from the bottom so we could see....

Let us know

Hey TRD, and DarkFire, thx for the info. Looks like i will be locking my center diff if the difference is that much, and the added wear is nominal.

As for the heat issue, i used a heat gun alll day on the motor, and I had no overheating issues at all.(temps were near 240 as mentioned and slightly higher, maybe 260ish.) At least not until i adjusted the brakes. But thinking back, i believe i adjusted the brakes, AND started running with the body ON at the same time (tanks #5 AND 6 I ran with no body, since I was running so slow.) As for too lean???, if that is the trouble then i have a leak somewhere, cause all through break-in my temps were around the 240 mark, and i havent touched HSN since....... the only adj i made was the Idle since, as the engine broke in, the idle went up considerably and i had to back it off now and then.

I'll double check the brakes today AND cut out my windshield. If i can't figger it out, i will indeed post pics as requested. Man this thing is as much fun to work on as it is to run. Not at all like my WarHead that thing runs ofr 1/2 tank and breaks, I have yet to get a full day bashing with it, and it's not a month old.