On the stock Elite 5 you can remove the 0.2 mm shim and it should still run nicely and make a huge gain in power with the added benefit that when the engine starts to lose its piston fit it will maintain its idle better.....May lose a little bit of mileage but the power increase will be off the charts...by comparison to a OS these Novarossi have much more conservative head clearances OS run 0.4 mm and these Nova's are 0.6 mm , this makes a huge difference in how they act and how strongly they perform and how wide the tuning window becomes...Higher compression engines tend to come up onto power easier with a richer needle setting which IMO makes them a little more forgiving to tune...

my pipe recommendations 9853/41033 9886/41001 2096/41033 9901/41001 9901/41033 and if you get onto a bigger track or want to do speed runs and looking for the absolute best top end and peak power then try a 9886/41032 .. you will lose some of your low speed trigger power but the engine will scream like a monster when you open up the trigger....

Maximo is truly an asset to the nitro community! Thank you!

Interesting that Drake's engine only has 0.5mm head clearance. So he must have been looking for some power (which I think is similar to the Elite 5).

nope Drakes engine is standard Novarossi shimming ..its actually a RB BX engine brought back to life with the oversize RB connecting rod and all.........

edit ...You are right the shim stack is different but the head clearances are standard stock Nova

So then is head clearance why some of these guys get away with running tiny carb inserts on the OS engines? It seems like the Novas prefer larger inserts compared to OS and a lot of other engines.

Interesting find on the Drake engine too... kinda curious what he does shim-wise on his other engines.

They all lose power the same way from the small inserts, just the OS has more power to begin with so the loss isn't noticed as much... actually many Speed owners have never seen their engines full potential as most have them choked back pretty good...

So all those RB guys in search for a rod need to get a Drake rod?

Yes !!!!!

delete

Can anyone give opinion on this?

I have a keep off 7xls but only have one race weekend on it. Seems to be a decent motor

I had a Bonito in my truck. It is a beast. Almost too much motor for small to medium size tracks sometimes. It has a good linear power band and never runs out of legs. I think the RPM limit is around 43K which is awesome if you have a large track, long straights or spend a lot of time in the mid to upper RPM range. It now sits as my trusty back up unless I got to one specific track.


The Keep Off is really close to the Bonito. A little softer on the bottom, but more mid to top (slow to start but the power curve is almost vertical when she gets going), but it maxes out RPM wise a little sooner. I had it before my Bonito.


Haven't used the Mito. Don't really have any plans too either. Not that its a bad motor, I just have 4 sitting and don't need another one:D

Thanks, I'll get the keep off then for buggy use

Anyone know off hand the rear bearing size of the lucky 7 motor ?

Was awhile back when I replaced mine but pretty sure it was the standard Nova 14x25.8x6

Tested my keep off today, felt very soft on bottom but power delivery is very linear... Doesn't feel the pop of my paloma so i think is a more buggy engine