When I begin to break in my Nitro Sport after christmas, should I use my heat gun to heat the engine up to 200 degrees and then begin to start it and do that for each tank? Or should I just leave it inside, heat it up to 70 degrees, start it and let it heat up by idling then continue to break it in? Also, its a Traxxas so theres will be wires feeding to the EZ start and glow plug so how can I prevent melting those while preheating?

Should post in engine forum. Heating the engine gets it to peek operating better, with less tear on the the engine itself.

Remove the body, wrap the motor in aluminum foil and evenly blow the air around the case being cautious to not touch the wires with the heat gun tip.

That will burn thru rubber, plastic, etc. the goal is warm up the engine to get it started an in the "break in recommend range"

The glow starter wire is connected to a engine that gets above 200 so don't worry about melting unless you touch it or leave the gun in one spot for too long.

Also, use the search feature for tons of tips on that engine.

Good luck

If the wires can withstand an engine running at 200 - 240 degrees, hopefully they will withstand a heatgun. One way or another I would preheat. Traxxas engines like to break rods during break in if run cold (and sometimes even after break in).
That's why heavy duty rods were a semi-popular upgrade.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXVHW4

Don't Traxxas have a comprehensive break-in procedure in the manual that comes with their nitro vehicles (like HPI)?

I would just follow that. Pre-heat is good insurance, but there is a helleuva lot less mechanical pinch in RTR-style nitro engines that pre-heating is not such a major issue, but only my opinion.

if your doing a heat cycle break in then after your engine is shut down put piston at bdc and then you let it COOL down 10 to 15 minutes to room temperature so yes you would need to heat it up again to about 200 degrees. not sure how you will properly heat it with all the wires in the way i guess you'll have to be careful.

Also questions having to do with engines belong in the "Offroad Nitro Engine Forum" the moderaters will move it but you have already had several new threads moved just letting you know before they start deleting them on you

I honestly think I might just open it up, prep it for break in and replace it with a pull start. It will give me something to do to burn some time while its cold out for a couple of days taking the engine off the car, taking off the ez start, and installing a pull start. If I want to get more nitro cars down the road, I should learn how to use a pull start and glow ignitor. To me, pull start is more simpler as you dont need the wand, the starter battery. And when I break it in, it wont be as difficult to start it with the pull start if I preheat it before each break in tank.

I think you want a pull start because you've never had a pull start. I think ir. Safe to say everyone hates them

Leave ez start , preheat around the sides of the head and block , not necessarily to 200 but at least 150(ish) , fire it up , run it easy , idle for first 5 min or so with engine at close to 200 as you can maintain ,

best advice on here...