Is it a good idea to break my engine in during the winter? I live about an hour north of Toronto in Canada so right now our temps are around -10 Celcius which I guess is roughly 14 degress Fahrenheit. I'm gonna be buying a new truck soon and I wanted to break in it and drive it around in the snow.

Does anyone have a link to a guide on how to get your car ready for snow? I know I gotta protect the electronics and heat up the heatsink and let it idle before getting it going. But how about tires? I see lots of people with chains on their tires. How do you usually go about doing that?

Is there anything else I should know?

I live in Nova Scotia and it gets alot colder than -10c around where i live.I got a Duratrax Warhead EVO for Christmas and i broke it in in early January.It works good in the snow and it has lots of tracion for a few inches of snow.There are a few things you should watch out for when it is cold,like dont do any big jumps because the suspention will freeze and never roll your rig over in the snow if you dont have your body on because it could ruin your engine.Anouther thing to watch out for is plastic parts become brittle and they will break easier.Hope you have fun in the snow!

My rigs:Warhead EVO and Nitro Evader ST

Oh nice. so you didnt have any problems getting the engine started in these frigid temps? Right now its about -15 but we just got out of a cold snap that lasted a couple weeks with -25 temps. that was fun. so I figure if I break the engine in during these -10 temps it wont be as bad.

If this is your first nitro I would wait for warmer temps , during break in the engine needs to reach a certain temp and stay there , when its really cold out the engine will have trouble getting hot enough for proper break in .

no this will be the second engine i'll be breaking in. how hot is the engine supposed to get? the last engine i broke in was during the spring so this wasnt really an issue for me

The engine should get to at least 200 to 220 for break in .

also nitro fuel starts to gel in really cold temps, if you get the gel into your engine its NOT good at all.

not sure what temp but its worth looking in to...

Yeah the engine supposed to get around those temps. In the winter the engine doesnt get up to those temps. You could try wrapping the heat sink or part of the ehat simk with tim foil. This will help bring up the temp of the engine. But fif you do this I would get a hand held temp gauge just to be safe. Cause if you wrap to much the heat will accumulate and be to hot and if you dont have enough it will not get warm enough. If you decide to break it in just be careful and check your temps.

Alright well that works. I guess I'll wait till the warmer temps to break it in, which gives me some time to save my money too :s

So how about the tires? Anyone have a quick howto for making chains for tires? Or suggestions as to what I should use for studs if I was going to make studded tires. I was thinking thumb tacks, but I dont know.

Maybe some small bolts with some nuts to fit and small washers. You could take a tire, drill a hole in the tires, then take a bolt put the washer on, then put the bolt through the tire. Then take the other washer and put it on, then tighten the nut and there you go. If you just place the bolt through the tire without the use of the washers I am afraid it will tear through the tire and ruin the tire's.

This is how I would do it but I'm sure there is a better way though.

I made some snow chains for my Warhead (see "Snow Chains, No Snow" in the MT section) and I used some pretty stout chain and I would not recomend doing that. I trashed my trans and i think it was do to the extra weight from the chains. I would suggest to try studding the tires. It really doesn't take much to get that little extra bite. As far as breaking it in in those below 0 temps... its not worth it, really. I know you have the itch to get a new truck broke in but, between keeping it warm enough, getting it to start, and the brittle plastic parts, its more of a hassle than its worth. Just wait till it gets above freezing and you will be happy you did.

If you decide to break your rig in you should either start it inside or start it fast out side(like having eveything ready before it gets your engine cold).If your engine gets cold outside it is nearly inpossibe to start intil it warms up again.I have never had my fuel gone bad(like gel or frozen).



My rigs: Nitro Evader and Warhead EVO

The way I see it, why even take a chance? Bad idea in my opinion. Why not wait until its warm and you can enjoy the break in process. Break ins are a big enough pain in the ass, might as well make it as delightful as possible.

Yeah thats the way I started looking at it. I'm not really gonna enjoy sitting outside in the cold freezing my ass off waiting for a couple tanks of fuel to go through the engine lol. I'll wait until I ca sit outside and enjoy the weather a bit without worrying about getting frostbite.

I was thinking about tire chains and say some chain down at the Hardware store that would do the trick. The links were about 1/4" and look to be easy enought to make them. As far as tire studs, I myself wouldn't try it because then you'd have to get them ballanced too and it would be hard to get them even.

thats why I was thinking of using thumb tacks. I'd place them in the same locations on the left and right tires, simply punch them through the tire from the inside. Then put a bit of silicone glue to hold them in there. then just put the foam like normal and the rims. I think using studded tires on snow, you probably wouldnt have to worry about them being 100% perfectly even, they're gonna be digging into the snow anyway. maybe im wrong though, i've obviously never done this before. but I have a whole year to worry about it because I wont be using the truck in the snow this season. unless it gets warm enough to break the engine in and then snows again all of a sudden. lol.

i'd go for 1/2in bolts with washers on both sides and a nut holding them down...