Bonito Limited Edition at about 1.5 gallons, been running like a champ for a couple weeks, and I got the race tune dialed in last week during delightful spring temps/humidity here in North Alabama. 2nd race yesterday, and it ran perfect in the morning practice before the heat hit. Then qualifying at lunch, super hot outside, some humidity, and the Bonito kept dying after a couple of laps. Power felt fine though. Race director who was trying to help, bumped the idle screw up, even though I've always kept the idle gap set to 0.6mm and never made adjustments to it. Didn't help.

I swapped to a new Protek T4 plug and retuned before the mains, resetting the idle gap back to 0.6mm recommended by Novarossi, and leaned the low speed down to the point of high idle then back it up a bit to keep a normal single-stage idle. Main starts and after a few laps, the engine dying returned. Hats off to my pit guy for jogging and fetching, but it wouldn't stay running for more than a lap or 2 for the most part. Been running a Buku cap since new that I keep topped off with grease to prevent bearing leak. Fuel lines look good at all connections. No exhaust leak, no sign of a carb leak. It's in a Tekno NB48 2.0 buggy.

Any insight would be appreciated to getting this sorted.

There was an issue in the NB48 2.0 fuel tank. The line that is in the tank is soft and can get kinked very easy cause the engine to run out of fuel even though there is fuel in the tank. Check that line in the tank. Most people replace that line with a better/thicker line or they add longer shrink tube to the line. Hope this makes sense and you understand what I’m talking about.

I have heard of that happening with these new Tekno NB48 2.0's, and I actually experienced it for the first time a week back. When that happened, the engine took a bit longer to start, but once started, I couldn't give it much any throttle without it bogging out / dying / violently popping due to the fuel flow being heavily restricted. I haven't replaced the line inside of the tank yet, but I have been on top of checking it throughout this latest issue to make sure it's not folded back in there.

Something that did cross my mind was that, on race day (day before yesterday) when the engine kept dying during the qualifyers and the main event, it seemed to consistently happen in 2 spots of the track -- both of spots being corners that are tight relative to the approach, requiring getting on the brakes. One of the approaches is a step up jump, and the other is a sweeping off-camber curve. However, the front stretch of our track is a flat straight with no jumps, getting the highest speed on the course, and requires the heaviest braking for the bump at the very end that has a 90 degree turn directly after. So this portion also requires using the brakes, yet I never had the engine die here. Still, maybe something's up with my clutch that's causing it to not disengage before the brakes grab.

1st time I looked at the rally engines. What cars are these used in usually? Would you not recommend this in a buggy?

gt engines are used in 1/8th gt. truggy length chassis, buggy arms, 2 speed where the center diff would be using "offroad" clutch setups.
rally engines are used in rally game which can be buggies onroad or with full body single speed-this class has become 1/8gt.
they would be allot of motor for a buggy. another poster is running the murnan mod GT5 in a buggy so it can be done if you have a high bite or long enough track

Thanks HaulinBass, my local track is so grippy some guys use slicks. I guess I need to try one of those engines😅. There are also 2 long straights

Hey I noticed the carbs are full aluminum on those engines, does that not cause tuning issues in long mains?

I am looking into getting a new engine and I am looking into the Novarossi Bonito, but I found out that Absolute Hobbyz sells a Bonito Limited Edition with an orange head and Novarossi Direct sells a Bonito Limited Edition with a black head with the top fin in white.
Any idea what are the differences between these two engines?

I bet when you order from a website that shows an orange head Bonito, what arrives in the mail is a black head "Limited Edition." NovarossiDirect shows the same purple head version that I believe they originally sold back in 2011 when the Bonito came out, but when I placed my order 2 months ago, I received the black head pictured below.

I don't know what all is different between the 2, but the parts sheet that came with mine doesn't appear to be online anywhere, so I took a picture of it and put it side by side with the one on the Novarossi website to compare part numbers:




So looks like it's a different part number for the piston, carb body, and back plate. What's different about them beyond the part number, I don't know.

Piston is probably cast not milled from billet aluminum probably but not certain, the rest of the parts not sure

063 carb has a smaller diameter throat under the spray bar

Actually I am thinking of getting the Bonito because a friend of mine got one from Absolute and it did came with an orange head.

Does it say "R2" on the graphics on the orange head?

Here is the picture of the explode view of the bonito with the orange head.
I think the Orange and Purple head had the same PSR but different carburetor. From what I see the Novarossi Direct Limited Bonito has a casted piston and the other Bonitos (orange and purple) have the CNC piston.

That orange head looks exactly like my old RB concept blast v20 head😅

So I have an Iealasi tuned .28 engine in my losi lst that I’m having a terrible time getting the low end and idle set properly. My engine has 3 quarts of fuel through it and was broken in correctly. Some more information
Fuel- byrons 20/12
glowplug- novarossi ct06
idle gap - . 6 or .7
outside temps -about 82-85F
high speed needle- slightly in from flush maybe a quarter turn in
low speed- about half a turn in

So my problem is I cant get a steady idle and low speed setting. Basically my truck will not idle for more then 5-10 seconds, I have a high hanging idle, then my revs keep lowering until my engine cuts off. So I go to lean the low speed in small increments and it will still die at idle, and then after maybe leaning the low speed half a turn total in small increments over time, boom my low speed is so lean that it starts doing the high speed chewbaka lean bog so. The whole time my high speed setting seems fine and it runs crisp up top, again at almost a flush setting. Now when my needles are both set close to flush, my low end and high end are both pretty crisp, but because my low speed is too rich at this point it just will not stay idling. Sometimes I’ll bump up the idle a bit and while it does idle a tiny bit longer, then I have high hanging revs after giving it full throttle for few seconds, and it still usually dies after idling again for 5-10 seconds. I know it’s super difficult to help with tuning issues like this, but does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to achieve a clean, crisp low end with a reliable idle? I’ve been chasing my tail the entire time and keep trying, but achieving the same poor results. Any help is appreciated thank you