been lurking on the site for a while and it has been a great help in my new found nitro powered hobby !!!!

anyway today i was in my local car park bashing when i hit a curb at high speed. I thought there was no damage until i pulled the pull starter and it wasnt turning the motor DOH !!!! so being a keen mountain biker and having my bike there i turned my bike upside down spun the wheel pushed my car on to it and surprisingly it started first time!!!!!! so i wont be needing a starter box now !! and this was with a nobbly mountain bike tyre it would work even better with a road bike or bmx !!!!
it wont be convinient for everybody but im sure it will be for a few


anyway great site keep up the good work !!!!!

Jim

some how i dont believe this

Yeah, lol, same here.

*slaps his forehead* damn why didnt i think of that lol

dang how big is your flywheel opening on your chassis??

hehehehe he must have a 1/5 or bigger lmao

yeah, a bike tire wouldn't fit in my opening, and does your bike tire stay spinning?

yea i was just thinking how a bike tire could reach the flywheel.....

Maybe he tied the pullstarter to the bike tire and then pushed the tire.

maybe he wanted to ask if it would work, but figured it would sound better if he said he did it
i mean i guess you could make a hand powered starter box if you wanted to. it could even be done in a 1'x1' box prolly.
the same basis as a bicycle crank and just gear it to use a smaller wheel that will actually fit in the chassis.

id just buy one before i went through all that trouble. you can get a used one cheap on ebay or even in the rcu forums.

lol, now how can I make a hand powered starter?? Might come in handy.

Hey, it sounds funny, but it does work. That is how it was done a LONG time ago!
Woody

a hand powered starter box could be made but If someone were to do it that way they might aswell get a pullstart.

a guy I know made one with a tower starter and a roller-blade wheel. works every time!

we are talking about a hand cranked starter not a electric hand held. I use the electric tower hobbies starter aswell but I use the rubber wheel that is made for it.

believe me it works thanks for the abuse anyway my car is 1/10 hpi and it works trust me

Might as well just buy a starter box, they aren't that expensive. I paid about $70 bucks for mine.

I would think having to take a bike with you to start it would be a pain in the butt, I just load everything in my truck and take it out.

rs4 3 and i love it bought it for 50pounds off my mate who never used it and have been addicted ever since
and i ride my bike to my local spot anyway so its not really a problem. Gotta keep fit and sweat off the weekend beer binges
Still love the sport even though theres a lack of anybody else in the area who run nitro cars

Now explain exactly how it starts it. That mountain bike tire would never fit in your flywheel slot so I find this very hard to believe.

To all you neophytes!! Using an upturned bicycle was the way we used to start our nitro cars before the starterbox was invented!!! I'm talking about the late '60s early '70s time frame. It was real easy! One person would crank the pedals, and another person would touch the engine flywheel to the spinning bicycle tire. Started first time everytime. It is funny to think of starting that way as something new.

krusty, how thin of a bicycle tire are we talking about???? And most of the cars these days have small flywheel openings. The street bike tires are super thin but mountain bike tires are wide.

Way back when, there weren't any mountain bikes! There were only "ten speeds" and "cruisers". Most of the nitro cars were pan chassis without suspensions (and we used model airplane engines!). Some had springs on the front wheels (no shock absorbers); a very basic suspension. The cutout, in the chassis (pan), for the flywheel was made large enough to allow starting with an upturned bicycle wheel. Many times the cutout went right through the edge of the pan. There was plenty of room for the bicycle tire.

Yes, I understand that. I was saying that this guy suposedly used a mountain bike tire which is alot wider then the old school bike tires, And he was not starting a old school car either.

Maybe he just got lucky (lol).

maybe it wasnt true either