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hyper valve:D

Um....no that aint relevant...

sorry, just read the title of the thread and thought thats what it might be about. just trying to help

Isn't 1/8th on road dying as it is due to the exhorbidant costs, with engines the most expensive part? Fuel injection, unless it serves to lower costs is some way, would probably be the final nail in the coffin. I know; let's allow injection in gas sedan, make it as expensive as 1/8th scale, and kill it off too. Have any of you looked at the prices of the injected airplane engines? About double that of the carburated ones. Is that what everyone wants?

to be correct yes 1/8th was on a down swing but it's on a upswing now with even more new cars available. and i believe the engines are no more expensive then other high end sedan motors. everthing needs to be compared properly.

If fuel injection became more popular, i'd bet that the price would come down a lot, the problem is making them popular...

I tried a PCRC system, and while it worked, it adds lots of clutter to the layout of your r/c car, and more complex startup procedure. It would work good for bashing, but it's too much more stuff to worry about for racing. I stopped using it because it requires warmup time before it goes out of engine start mode, and I didn't like running my car for 3 minutes before hitting the track and not being able to hear the RD during that time. In the end, it was better to just tune the carb. The little regulator valve also puts a pretty good load on your receiver pack.

I don't doubt if an EFI/EFR system came built into an (r/c car) engine from the factory, it would be much easier to use and the added complexity would be neglegable. I am also sure cost would be crazy, and regular carbureted engines would still be competitive in the right hands. The pros/fast guys probably wouldn't make the switch for that reason.

<2 cents bounce across the table>

Next 2 companies are bringing out digital radios with tranceivers that fit in your car. A transceiver gives you the abilty to send and receive information from your car. With dumb sensors and a very smart radio, you could easily control a fuel injection system. For racing, the fuel injection should mainly act on throttle, rpm and manifold pressure. No need for start up and the complexity of controlling the injection would be in your smart radio which has a LOT more space for a better/faster microprocessor. Only after transceivers are common place, will we have relatively cheap fuel injection.

All this means is that sedan has started down the same path as 1/8 scale; far too expensive for all but the most dedicated. ROAR legal .12's are also restricted enough to allow them to last a great deal longer than the open .21's of 1/8. Of course if the same crowd that forced the issue first on foams and now on turbo plugs gets their way, gas sedan will soon be running open .12's. At that point you will be lucky to get a gallon of fuel through one between $150 piston/sleeve sets, just like open .21's. And more kits does not mean 1/8 is on an upswing; more racers would point towards that. Right now 1/8 participation is a small fraction of what it was in the '80's. An "upswing" to folks that have not been at this for long might mean going from ten or twelve at a club race to twelve or fifteen. In the '80's, there were quite often 30 to 40 at those club races. All the guys I know that ran it then and quit did so because of cost. Keep those costs climbing, and pretty soon there won't be anyone left to race against. For that reason alone fuel injection is a very bad idea.

that is true, cost is why a lot of people quit this hobby, I took breaks because i ran out of money, and came back later. I'm doing the same thing now. I think it's ridiculous to buy a $400 engine, and some people buy a couple of them.

Why would you want anything like that anyway......

There little 12. size engines Make Heaps of people for the size car they go in.....


your only goin to make the car go faster and get harder to drive and use more fuel and wear more tyres and wear more parts on your car.....



its also just one more thing on the car to play up.....:confused:

There are more people that just bash their cars/trucks than race. And for them, tuning an engine maybe difficult for them. EFI would reduce tuning to the point that newbies could just run their nitro vehicles just like an electric. Your reasoning about increasing performance just wears out the car makes no sense to me at all. The very nature of ALL motorsport racing is to win races.
The number one way to win a race is to be faster than anyone else you race against. The number one way to be faster is to have as much horsepower as you are able to legally run. EVERY year, a new engine will come out that will have more hp than last year and yes your car will wear out faster because of this. Like everything else in life, if YOU do not want that product, dont but it. But if people can race within THEIR budget and beat you with a better engine...don't complain. An electric car is WAY easier and cheaper to run than a nitro but a nitro runs more like a real car which everyone likes. It took me over a month to tune and break in my NovaRossi rr12l3. Overpriced? YES. Too much power? YES...
Trade it in for a cheaper, lower performance electric? HELL NO...
Running nitro is damn expensive and gets more expensive every year. But...I want the best nitro car I can afford...

this whole money arguement is the biggest manufactured joke out there. there is no R/C hobby that is cheap to stay in. just because everyone and I mean everyone wants the latest and greatest car, engine ,batterys etc. and it 's not just the cars it's every facet of it helicopters,jets,boats cars mini 1/10th , 1/8th and 1/5th and even larger. if you can't afford it get out but don't sit here and complain about prices.

I don't think you two understand what I'm trying to say. Spiraling costs are hurting racing, both gas and electric. It's all well and good to tell folks that if they can't afford it to just stay away; the problem is it reaches a point where too many of those folks are forced to exercise the "stay away" option. What will you do if the day comes when you have no one to race, or very few to race? This happened to me in full scale racing. The NHRA saw costs in its sportsman classes getting out of control and the resultant down turn in participation. Rather than take the short sighted "if you can't afford it, go do something else" approach, they took positive measures to reduce the costs of sportsman racing. The result has been dramatic. Participation is at an all-time high. Now when you show up to race, there is actually some one else there to race against. Look at other real series. CART and IRL have spec engines and chassis. NASCAR will have spec chassis in a year, and they have some heavily restictive engine rules. F1 is the only series that has none of this, and they cannot fill a whole grid every other week even with the backing of the largest car manufacturers in the world. So, if you guys want to take the position that if the rest of us can't afford it we should just stay home, that's great. Hopefully the rules makers will never adopt that approach. By the way, check out the Serpent site. Even they as a company realize that this attitude is killing their bread and butter 1/8 scale. They are at least trying to do something about it.

I understand your point but I was not suggesting a free for all regarding use of technology at any cost. Specifically can you tell me how fuel injection would be detrimental to the cost ALL of nitro vehicles and not just racing engines. EFI may not be used by NASCAR racing but 99% of full-sized cars have EFI including the cheapest cars from South Korea!!! This thread is about using future fuel injection not banning it before it is in major use just because it may increase the cost of racing. The major manufactures use F1 for marketing and the trickle down of technology to put into their cars. NASCAR which is by far the most successful motorsport today is based on technology from the 60's!!! If you want to run 4-barrel holley carbs, be my guest but if I can get 21st century fuel injection for a reasonable price then I will be a customer. I want my nitor engine to be as cheap as possible but if I can pay a little more so that I do NOT have to tune it (like 99% of car engines) then I would gladly play the difference. EFI automatically adjust to temperature, humidity, air pressure and altitude. Carb engines do not unless you become a master tuner. The first logical place for EFI engine is monster trucks as they are bought by many people (with $$$) who love to bash and do not want to play around with their engines. I just want EFI as an option IF it is affordable.