maccauley

ok so i have 6 tanks through my new Go 3R. I have some questions about tuning the engine though, i have watched the movies on you tube and they have been very helpful but just i want to check and make sure that i have not screwed up my engine already. the first thing that i need help with is when i was idling through the 6 tanks i noticed that the factory needle setting didnt create a very rich setting, it wasnt spitting out any fuel at all, so i turn the hsn till i saw fuel coming out of the exhaust. i had to turn it about one turn out. now that i have the needle setting so rich i cant build up any temperature i get it to about 150F(with foil on). i went ahead and leaned it our some more to get the temp up to about 195F. is this ok? that i changed the factory settings? after the 5th tank i checked my glow plug for signs of a rich or lean engine, i noticed a few burn marks on the plug(p3). the engine couldnt have been that lean it was spitting fuel everywhere. my second question is, now that i have 6 tanks through am i ready to start driving it around a bit? i am very new to engine tuning and i want to learn it so i dont have to bother other people at the track asking them what they think of my mixtures. thank you for your time, i am determined to understand engine tuning.

jonnymac

Well its sounds a bit of a mix of break in methods but I would imagine you will be fine.
I usually use the [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=397]heat cycle[/link] method which you do not idle tanks through.
I usually find that even wrapping the head you need to lean it a bit to get the temps up to where you want them to be. Factory settings I think are far too rich (normally).
As a general rule though remember the engine will not want to rev out cleanly and therefore will not be getting too hot if it is slightly rich. As you are new you will not know what a well tuned engine sounds (and goes) like, but when you do, you will know that you probably haven't damaged your engine. You could try a temp gauge too. I don't actually recommend them for tuning but they are good for break ins and for getting a ball park idea of what your engine / fuel is behaving like and if there are potential problems (air leaks etc)
I also recommend that you stick with budget engines until you have the whole tuning/break in nailed. Its one thing winging it with a Go 3 port and another winging it with a Novarossi P5

maccauley

well today I tried running the car on the street in a figure eight pattern at low speed, I checked the temp and it was about 194F, the exhaust was spitting out fuel but i noticed when i went to about half throttle i began to get a little bit of a lean bog, so i checked the temp at the glow plug and it was still at 194F i tried checking the temp on the side of the engine where the cooling head meets the crankcase and got a reading of 260F!!! so i quickly richened up my hsn till i got the temp at the head to 180 and the side to about 200. should i open the engine up and check for damage? what would i be looking for? is it normal to have that much of a difference between temps? thank you for your time. hopefully i didnt do to much damage, and if i did it can be fixed.