high altitude help!
 

ok i just got my brand new hpi mt2 and i live here in albuquerque, nm (elevation 5500 feet). it was running pretty crappily, hardly idling, having regular flame-outs, and just being pretty much unreliable until i put a hotter glow plug it it, which solved all that. is there any other things i should be concerned about running the car at high altitude?? i would really hate to find out too late if you know what i mean.
thanx

-head in the clouds

For higher elevations the needles need to be set leaner than they would need to be set at around sea level for the engine to run properly. Per every 1,000 feet you lose like 3% or so of your power, so your engine has lost 16% or so of it's power that it'd have at sea level, to regain some of that power back there's a few things you can do but do not have to do. One thing would be to run a higher percentage nitro, that will give you more power and better idle quality, usually you need to go to a cooler plug when doing this and unless if you changed the deck height on the engine then it should be ok for up to 30% nitro. Another thing would be to lower the deck height on your engine, for 20% stay between .017-.019", for 30% between .019-.021" for you. For .12's I wouldn't go any colder than a o'donnell 77(use with 30% nitro) plug or same for heat and usually would run something like a mc-59 or think os's hot plug is the A3(might be A5), so if you had something colder than that then that's the root of all your issues.