I went to my LHS today to buy a new gallon of fuel and come to find out i have been using the wrong kind. They told me I was using aircraft fuel and it contained too much oil to keep using it, so i bought a gallon of Traxxas Top fuel and my car will not run for nothing now. The only way it will stay running is if i run it very lean, if i try to richen it up the idle will go really low and it will just stall. I have tried richening it but also raising the idle but then it does not run good at all. can anyone help me?

sorry to tell you this , but that traxxas fuel has to much oil to. get some trinity or something copareitve and reset your carb needles and just start over

I bought a gallon of trinity platnium 20%, that didn't work so I bought a quart of the traxxas fuel just to see if it was the fuel. I reset all the carbs also and when I did that it wouldn't start at all. The only way it would stay running is if I tune it real lean to the point where it won't shift gears without stalling. will there be any way to get my engine used to lower fuel content or will i have to switch back?

switching fuel doesn't really do anything harmful to your engine. You most likely have to learn to retune. Make sure you also didn't develop any air leaks or what not during this transition which could make you believe it's the fuel. IMO trinity (blended by wildcat) >>> traxxas blend.

Traxxas fuel? Blech. Good luck with that. What you describe is pretty much what I have seen. The tune window is very narrow on Traxxass fuel.

Are you running the same nitro %, because changing nitro content usually means a new glow plug type is needed.

I am running the same nitro %, but the oil content is alot lower. I believe they said i was using 30%. I also changed the glow plugs before i switched the fuels. I guess I will switch back to using trinity today and see if I can get it to work. It is very hard to tune it to this fuel because I guess my engine is used to having such a high oil content.

Ok first off reset all the needles to the original setting. When switching fuels this is the first thing to do. Secoundly the oil content does matter, but people have run aircraft fuel in there rc's, just there a little down it power and the OWB tend to slip real y bad when using high content oil's. Make sure your using the right kind of glow plug, since your running 30% make sure your using either a medium or cold plug to prevent detenation. Dentenation is bad for the engine, will kill power and eventually prematurely kill your engine. Clean the air filter and the fuel filter, make sure your glow plug igniter is working properly, and make sure the glow plug itself is working. Sometimes you'll get a lemon, when you buy glow plug's. I know the one time I bought 4 glow plugs and used all 4 within 3 days, then switched back to my old glow plug and used that one for another 2 months and didnt have a problem with it at all.

The only thing I can see being wrong is your tuning, maybe it just seems like your running lean. But remember you where using the wrong fuel, and different fuels are different with the needle setting especially when making such a huge jump from aircraft fuel to rc car fuel.

But dont worry, you'll get it. I switched fuels on engine, went form Blue thunder(High oil content fuel) to Fantom fuels(low oil conent fuel) to Trinity(low oil conent) ta several other fuels that I cant even remember anymore to what I'm using now which is O'Donell fuels. But dont worry you'll get it, just sounds like a tunning issue. So you'll have to learn how to retune a little. No Biggie

I'm having similar problems, let me know how it goes.

Ok, so i guess i made a little improvement but now there is another problem. The transmisson is not wanting to shift at full throttle, it will shift at half or 3 quarters but if I use full, it will not shift. Am I running too lean? or maybe it gets stuck in second when I use full throttle? anyone know?

Traxxas Top Fuel [:'(]

We need more info like engine temp, if you are running to lean the engine will be running way to hot. Or your tune might be ok on the top or bottom end but off on the other.

Well, thats another thing, my temp will never go over 200. I think it is running too lean because the only way it would start is if i have the neeldle in real far, and i turn it out to while its running to richen it up and i can tell its running too lean because when i give it full throttle it will want to stall right before it shifts. once i richen it, it starts to shift fine, but this was before it stopped wanting to shift. right now i am pretty much clueless about what i should do next. i am thinking about just switching back to the higher oil content fuel so i can avoid all of this. after all it ran just fine with the other fuel anyway.

Umm... if anything a fuel with less oil content will allow an engine to be able to run richer w/o dying. Basically it should be a wider window of easier tuning. This is also because now the difference in oil is replaced with methanol/nitro which are the power producing agents.

I know all about this I just went through it with my car. I started with a 10% castor, 5% synthetic. I changed to the same percentage of oil except the other way around, and all my problems disappeared. Im reasoning that im probably better off that I did the first part of the break in on that high castor fuel because it may have saved me damaging the engine by protecting it against my rough tuning skills (im new first car).

traxxas anything [:'(] trust me i know. ive had alot of traxxas when i was new and stupid. for those of u with traxxas anything i dont care if its one screw from traxxas u are new and stupid. if ur not new to the hobbie and have anything from traxxas ur down right retarded