Sounds like u have an air leak somewhere, some type of fuel delivery issue.

soooooo many things James

i would start by checking compression seal,glow plug, listening to the engine once warmed up , if those check out good then go drive it around a bit , put a load on the fuel system and clutch and determine what the prob may be

just a few thing to reiterate from the tuning bible

How to “READ” your glow plug:

OS and Turbo glow plugs go gray sooner [easier] than McCoy plugs; this is not necessarily bad. Actually when A new plug wire just goes slightly gray after
a 5 or 10 minute hard run it means your very close to an optimal horsepower tune, but be careful the next step is TOO LEAN!
My rule of thumb.
1} Wire and surrounding bottom of plug wet, with like new shiny wire = rich side of optimum power 85%
2} Wire and surrounding bottom of plug starting to dry and wire starting to gray = Very close to optimum power 95%
3} Wire and surrounding bottom of plug dry, wire totally gray but not distorted optimum power 100%
4} Wire and surrounding bottom of plug dry, wire distorted = slightly lean DANGER!
5} Wire and surrounding bottom of plug dry, wire broken and distorted or burnt up = extremely lean possible engine damage!
Note: You can only “Read” your plug in a nearly new state [Wire like new and shiny] A gray plug can still operate well. After it has totally gone gray,
performance can start to fall off. To test just put in a new plug and if there is no difference in performance save the gray one or put it back in. If your engine does not feel or run right try a new plug before making major tune changes


What is the best Fuel?

. Castor oil is simply the best lube available for model engines [Alberto Picco and Mario Rossi agree] but not all castors are the same! We use the finest ultra Pure Triple A refined castor. Then we add a synthetic supplement package,
which includes anti foaming and rust properties. There is also a wetting agent to aid in Lubricity and reduce storage dry out. The fuel is manufactured with
the latest high tech computer controlled mixing equipment; using the freshest lab tested and certified USA made nitro and methanol by the largest manufacture of model fuel in the world.

Monty- I ended up with a cracked fuel tank this last weekend and I think I have my idle air gap a little off now. What do you suggest as a good starting point on the gap on my +4 Team Nova that you did? I've read between .5mm and .7?

EDIT: Well duh. If I would just read what came in the box I wouldn't have to ask. Looks like .6mm it is!

der dad derrrr

best thing to do on nova is warm it up , clear it out a few times , listen to the idle , if it revs high then comes down without being "tingy" its still rich (richen hsn before doing this) , lean lsn until comes down and stays consistent , then adjust idle gap until you get the desired idle , it usually ends up very close to .6mm but there are alot of determining factors

hope no damage to the engine

Our X3 lighting with Full Monty is shipping out tomorrow........ weeeeeeeee ah weeeeeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeeee!

Thank you very much, I put both of your recommended items in my wish list. Thanks again!

I'm pretty sure the engine didn't suffer any damage, it never got hot. Just had a couple of ghost flameouts that started me looking for a problem. Ended up being a very tiny crack in the seam of the 8.2 tank.

hey what are you guy getting on your .25 roma for runtimes. I could not find much looking for it yet. Im really not sure if i want a 21 in truggy i like power so this 25 might fit better for me. I also want to know how much claimed hp is in this one too i cant find the specs cause next week im gonna order one of these from you. just dont know which yet.

actually the mileage that i have seen from the roma is much better than i originally expected

verdict is not completely decided yep but upon early reviews , looks good

A main I was pitting at 8 minutes but due to corner marshal putting his hand on exhaust, left me pitting at 9 minutes the last 2 fuel stops, First stop at 8:45 pit man yelled up and said nothing left in tank, ended up taking it a little easy on the last 2 laps and finished 2nd. Checked fuel after race and there was hardly any thing left in the tank after 9 minutes. Temped at 203 degrees, I was only on 9th tank of fuel on engine after HES break-in. Running mbx6t,41029 header and 9853SS pipe. Hope this helps, will be leaning her out in 2 weeks and will update mileage.

thats not too bad for a .25 with 7.5mm restrictor running blubbery rich colby and still breaking in


i am speculating fairly decent runtimes from this engine , colbys is bone stock

my personal one should be here soon , gonna be reeeeeeeeaaaaaal hard for me to replace my X7 though , that engine is the awesomest truck engine i have ever ran , no joke

Forgot to mention stock, my bad. Motor was so rich, i had no top end, but still kept up with ninja's speed down the straight.

So you really dont have it made for power run time yet so i should wait on that a little bit and just buy a stock one. Or should i buy a moded from you really dont know what way to go yet but i do want some run time. I got 9 minutes out of my 28 i run. The os guy get like 11 i think

Monty- while I was resetting the air gap I decided to go ahead and reset the needles to the factory settings as well. What I found when doing that was that I was over a quarter turn richer on the HSN and a 1/8 turn richer on the LSN than what the factory spec's are, does that sound right?

Keep in mind that the engine ran well, minus the ghost flame-outs that prodded me to find that crack in the tank. I replaced that and re-tuned for my last qualifier and the main in which I had no more issues. A temp check at the end of the last qualifier showed a temp in the mid 240's, but since the nova still is pretty tight that didn't seem out of place. But now that I see where my needles were, I'm a little concerned as I thought the factory spec's were almost always on the rich side?