magius231

Hello all, I just picked up a Tornado BB, which will be my first Nitro car, and I have a starting problem with it. I got it fired up initially, idle where I wanted it, and did the breaking procedure as detailed for Traxxas .15 motors (similar to most other break in procedures I was reading). On tank #4 I accidentally cranked the motor up with the electronics off, and it immediately went full throttle, so I pinchd the fuel line to kill it (bad idea) and of course it revved even higher before it died because I have it tuned rich for the break in. Turned everything on, restarted it, and it ran fine for another 1 1/2 tanks. Midway through tank 5 it died and wouldn't restart. I turned the throttle trim up some and it finally cranked over and ran, but it won't run lower than the speed required to engage the clutch. I have tried starting it with the wheels off the ground, blowing in the fuel pressure line to get fuel to the carburetor, resetting back to factory tuning (LSN flush, HSN 2 1/2 out, idle leaving ~1mm hole), swapped glow plugs, made sure starter was charged. Its getting good compression, there doesn't appear to be any leaking fuel lines, the car will crank and almost catch with it on the ground without pulling at all so the clutch spring should be good, I let it sit for a few hours, reprimed and tried restarting (no deal), nothing is loose so I don't think the heat sink screws are coming out, no leaking exhaust when it does run (at high idle, pulling the entire time)...is there anything else I should be checking? I'm out of ideas even after going though the troubleshooting sticky here. The only thing I haven't done is check the backplate yet as I don't want to tear down this brand new motor unless I absolutely have to...

Thanks for any advice...
Gary

MiniCwik

Are you sure your clutch spring is not bad? I had very similar issues last night (after it broke), I could only start it with the wheels off of the ground. Did you re-check that?

Also, test rolling it in neutral/while off to see if it will even roll forward without making any noises or locking up? Mine always made a little noise (cbh out of round) but now that the spring went, it locks up at times.

magius231

I'll check it again to make sure when I get home tonight...

magius231

well it passed all the tests, but I took it apart anyway and yep - broken and missing on top of that. I have a feeling based on the way it sounds now and what it sounded like when I got it that it has always been missing and just now caused a problem (or something...) guess I should have made sure first

Thanks!

Connormon

Buy a couple of those springs. Matter of fact get the traxxas spring, i cant remember the number of the spring, ehroof knows though, hopefully he can pick this up. But definetly order a couple springs at a time, they go fast, atleast the redcat ones do.

The traxxas ones have been holding up better so say the other members.

MiniCwik

The Traxxas one's are 4146 and 4146X, but I have read not to use the clutch shoes.

magius231

yeah thinking ahead I had already ordered a 2 pack of springs made for the traxxas from Tower Hobbies, they got here yesterday morning so i was ready for it Only problem I had was how to connect the ends together. i threaded one side into the end of the other, then bent both ends around the other side's end, like two rings inside each other. Hope that holds...if not maybe I'll try the kit linked here that eliminates the spring around the clutches, although I haven't read about many people doing it.

MiniCwik

Can't you just hook the two L - ends together?

I am going out at lunch hopefully to my LHS to pickup the Traxxas 4146 or 4146X and that is what my buddy did when he replaced his, just hooked em together and spread them around the shoes.

ehroof

i did it and i posted it, it works good, just a higher stall rate, takes more rpm's until it moves so it lunches quicker