make it simple....

"POWER IS NOTHING WITHOUT CONTROL"

if anyone want to come and say so and so engine not good... why dun u go make your own engine..

which team in F1 never had a faulty engine? perform or reliablity thats all

You can never buy an engine as Fantini, Collari etc are using, even if they are saying it is an replica it is not the same.

Just out of my curiosity - Is an engine from a top modder (e.g. Murnan) comparable to a factory mill? Our engines don't have many parts that can be modified. It's not like a 4-stroke engine where we have camshafts, valves, heavy conrods and all that stuff. So the is basically not much left to "tune". The timings can be changed and components like piston, crankshaft and conrod can be machined in a way to save mass.
Those things can be changed from the factory or from a top modder. What Do you think?

The biggest difference between what we can buy and the factory guys is the piston to liner fit. All the factory guys have there pistons and liners all hand picked then we get the rest.

I am really not all that convinced that it really matters though. I'm not saying the pros don't have special parts or hand matched stuff, they probably do but it doesn't look like that big a difference to me. Sure I've been to big races where I was out-powered but I was running old worn out motors at those. I have also been to big races where I had just as much power as anyone else there. In fact, the first time I went to the Winternats I swear my TQ modded R1WC (with a little extra work by me ) was THE fastest thing there. Well, maybe Swauger and his factory JP could match it but definitely not superior. Four years later I ran that same motor at 301 and people were still coming up to me wanting to know what it was and how I got it to run that well. Broke my heart when the sleeve broke

I guess the real difference is that the pros always have a motor like that while we may get lucky with the occasional missile.

Im not saying that they have any more work done, what i am saying with the hand matching that they will sit there with say 100 pistons and 100 liners and they will match each piston and liner to get the best fitting ones. That is why sometimes you will jag and absolute rocket and the rest are all about the same. I had the same case with a tourer engine a few years ago. It was a missile, could run down a factory Sirio drivers engine on the striaght.

Yeah that's kind of what I was saying. It's not that they have more power than we CAN get, but that they always have that 1 in 5 missile from hell that we only sometimes get.

But then, even the motors I have had that weren't one of those missiles was still good enough to win the show with better driving and/or set-up. I have never had an outright dud from Nova, Picco and even the one Sirio based motor that I hate with a passion was a missile, just wouldn't stay together.

Yeah i think that some of the crank work is slightly different to. But now that there all sealed we will never know.

And i will never buy another sirio as long as my arse points to the ground!

It makes all good sense what you guys are saying. One thing - How does matching pistons and sleeves help? In new condition, those parts are not fitting togehter well. We have to wear them in (or match them togehter) during break in, don't we?

Yep, that is basicly the point. With some tight engines it can take 10 liters before the pinch is gone and with others the pinch is gone after 2 tanks. Both situations do not give an optimum fit of the piston/sleeve and so no maximum performance.

I do not think matching is done, that is from the old days. With current machines it is possible to enter some numbers of the sleeve in the program and take out a piston with almost a perfect match. I know this because my sponsor can do this.

And really the biggest part comes from there, simply the skills....

Jilles Groskamp ran a club race at the MACH in 2007, It was the 1st or 2nd time he ran 8th scale, he borrowed a car, which was powered by an 4 gallon old standard engine, got familiar with it and 1 day later he ran top times. Even if it would be the nationals he would compete for the TQ spot.... (I know this, because I missed a top 4 spot due to Jilles... )

I know it is easy to always say that the top drivers can only run so fast because they have top equipment, but really you also need the skills...
Look at F1, last race Raikonnen won, and the same car/engine combination driven by Badoer finished last in the same race!

Yep, studying laptimes at my first big race many years ago was a big wake up call for me. Despite being in the D main, my best laptimes were just as fast as Josh Cyrul's (who went on to win the title). So to me, that meant my equipment was fine. The problem was consistency. ALL of his laps were that fast while only a few of mine were. Ever since then I have put less stock in the HP wins theory and worked more on set-up and driving.

Before this years BumodGP, I always thought that factory drivers have enormous engine power to win those races... But when I saw the pace setters at the race, I understood that its not about the fastest engine, even on a very big track. Pace setters were Jilles, Surikarn, and Wischnewski, and they were making 19.6s easily with a best time of 19.3s.

I think Jilles was using a factory Max XXL3, and Dirk was using a Orcan Modified Novarossi LL3 or something like that!! I talked to Surikarn and he said he just bought an OS Speed XZ and Max XXL3, and chosed the XZ to use, but he didnt even have the matching pipe for it, he was using 2602 pipe from his Max engine!

Finally an interesting thread makes you think or just at the end of the day what to buy

at the end of the day all the factors get us with the eye candy that's why the prices are the way they are ! remember the rc market works on supply and what the people want