Today, I was running my rush evo. I was driving down the road when all of a sudden, my car took of at full throttle. The car went STRAIGHT down the road (loose gravel) 1/8'th of a mile and drove into a ditch and out of it. I ran over to it, and the engine was still running. It was smoking real bad. I found out that I lost contact with the car when My radio crystal in my car fell out. I didn't have a fail safe either. SO tape down those crystals and buy a fail safe. THe smoking came from my spur gear. THe slipper pad, spur gear, and spur had all melted. My car would have kept drivine through the grass too, if the right rear dogbone hadn't fell out. (Don't know how it got out of there). Any way, Buy a failsafe, and tape down those crystals.

Ethan

I do not even crank mine up with out a fail safe. But the other day in my MT Racer the receiver when bad and the failsafe did not do a bit of good. Luckily it did not get away before I caught it.

I had only 1 runaway and that was with a failsafe. I had not switched to hump packs and jarred a battery loose jumping over the landscaping rocks in the back yard. Luckily my yard is fenced and it just burried itself under an evergreen till I got to it. I bought a hump pack immediately.

I agree that a failsafe will not work if the batteries fall out or get disconnected. I use a rubberband on the carb to pull it close if theres a lose of power to the throttle servo or any kind. You can use either a rubberband or a spring to close the throttle.

IMHO:
There are only 2 absolute must haves in nitro RC, a failsafe and an adequately strong throttle return spring.
The failsafe is easy enough, but hooking up a good throttle return spring can take some trial and error. You have to find the right spring and the right mounting location so that it will pull the carb closed if you loose power. You may have to play around a bit but once you do, you have worry free running. Signal loss: no problem the failsafe kicks in and all is well. Power loss: no problem, the throttle return spring closes the carb and the car idles happily away until you get to it and figure out what happened.

Well get this. I had just bought my RC10GT (used) and I was out driving it up and down the driveway trying to tune it up. And well see there is a highway right in front of my house and all of a sudden my GT takes off and runs right into the street and a car ran over it and it made the car jump around facing my driveway and it was still running but it came flying down the driveway at full speed so the only thing I could do is put my foot out there so I could stop it but the force was so hard that when it hit the bottom of my shoe it messed up the front end a litttle. But I live on a farm and I have a barn and the car would have ran straight into the barn and I think it would have messed it up worse. But when the car hit it it knocked the exhause off and that was it. I figured it would have just swallowed up my car and spit it out. All I can say is that thing is DAMN TUFF!!! That same week it took off again but just hit a fence and didnt do anything to it. But I think I fixed the problem.

cchrider

holy crap, thats quite a storry cchrider,, man it sux when u get a run away its like when you see it take off until it stops or hits something u are like, oh crap oh crap!!,, in the 2 weeks i had mine, i had 2 run aways with my evader in the last month,, 1st one was because of a battery fallin out of place,, second,, one of my wires in my battery box let go, *they gotta make thosewires thicker!* and i was in a parkin lot next to a school and it took off and was headin for the school i was like oh shyttttt, and there is a 4 feet wide sidwalk all around the school and it hit the sidwalk and launched up in the air and hit the side of the school, i bet if itwoulda hit right on it woulda bust somehtin, but no breaks or nuthin,, ,bottom line,, runnaways suck,,, and mine is just tickin me off with my problem i am havin keepin it idling

Yea I know what your talking about. I saw it and I was like "o chit,o chit. ***" Then I saw it coming at me full throttle and I was like " O CHIT!!!!" But I will make sure everything is intact when I take it out again. Right now my bearing in the clutch bell are wasted so I havent been able to play with it in like two weeks [&o] because my stupid local hobby shop wasnt open for some reason. O well, have fun.

cchrider

not a run-away story but the wife and i were playing in the yard her on the four wheeler me with my rusty and she tagged the rusty dead center with the front tire only damage was some rod ends and a body we laughed are arses off the thing never died>>>>>>>>>

i found out the hardway to always use a failsafe. a few years ago i had a max ST with a 15 cvx and other crap (was my first truck) and it went out of range and stuck WOT and ran str8 into the main road and got plowed by a black blazer. live and learn i guess