Originally Posted by
scary_jerry
So, you are saying 'it's breakin time'?
Even though it's 65F I'd use the hair dryer or heat gun to coax the warm-up a bit on a new motor. The first thing I WOULDN'T do is start leaning the motor without a little heat in it. It may take 3 hands to 'spin-it', 'throttle it' and 'tweek it' all at once. Don't burn up your starter!
I've found that adding heat in the early start up moments saves all kinds of trouble. I have an engine that is 'cold blooded' and I even had to use a heat gun in L.A. and it was well above 65F. On a new engine it will help prevent the dreaded 'top dead center pinch stop'.
Back-off the needle a bit to let it have fuel, don't flood it......if need be, pull the plug.......cover the head with a rag and spin it through a few times to get a fresh run at it. Make sure your igniter battery is fully charged!!!!!!!! Check your plug!
Good luck.......
Right on the money. Jerry nailed it when he says to add heat. Makes life so much easier especially on motors with high pinch. You may want to return the needles to the stock setting which can probably be found somewhere on the traxxas site.
Basically your low end needle is tied into your idle and thats where you get smooth idle. Once you have that balanced you go top end and get it set to where the truck does what you want (very very basic tuning it is much more than just this but this will get you going) Also I'd highly reccomend reading through the tuning bible as well as the break in bible which are stickies in the nitro motors portion of the forum. Heat will make your life easier but it sounds like you need to start over tuning wise. Always remember what needle you are adjusting as it will help us get you back going. Also only do 1/16th of a turn at a time when learning to tune. You can watch how the motor reacts which will help you in the long run.
Nitro is my favorite part of RC no doubt. Tuning comes with experience so don't be scared to practice. You can always set it back to stock and retune it in for practice. Something I use to do and I can now look at how a motor is running and have a good idea as to what is out of tune or if its running correctly. Read the stickys and practice you'll get it.