Starting A 2-Stroke Nitro RC Engine
Before you can break your RC engine in, you need to start it. Please read the Nitro RC Break-in Guide before you try to start your engine, and always refer to the setting and suggestions in your manual first.
Prime The Engine
This is the process of getting fuel to the place it needs to be, namely the combustion chamber. It's not difficult and the only thing that can go wrong is that you flood your engine. This means that there is too much fuel in the engine and it drowns rather than ignites.
Watch the fuel line, you will be able to see the fuel move towards your engine, when it gets to the carburetor stop. It'll take an extra second of priming before it reaches the combustion chamber, but all engines are different so you'll have to experiment.
A good tip I once read to get the perfect prime is to flood the engine, then remove the glow plug and turn it upside down. This will work every time.
There are two ways to prime your engine:
- Most fuel tanks have a primer pump built in, just push on this.
- Turn the motor over while blocking the exhaust, this will suck fuel into the engine.
But be warned, these break often and when they do they leak air, so there is no back pressure from your exhaust, while a lot of engines will still run with a busted fuel tank they will lose a lot of power and leak fuel all over your RC car.
I shouldn't have to tell you that exhausts get hot, but they do so be careful using this one, unless you want a tiny donut shaped blister
Starting the Engine
Once primed your nitro RC engine is ready to start, attach the glow plug heater and turn the engine over, some have a pull start while other have electric starter boxes.
Make sure you have freshly charged batteries, if they go a flat while your driving your RC car the throttle can get stuck open, there are fail safe devices your can get to prevent this, but a better idea is to always use fresh batteries
After turning the engine over a few times it should ignite, you need to use the throttle to keep it idling, as a well tuned engine often won't idle as well as when you break it in. After a while the engine will warm up and start to idle without stalling.
It's important that you don't try to tune the engine until it's fully warmed up, it's also often includes the chassis temperature as it can hold a lot of heat.
Once you got your nitro RC engine up to temperature it's time to start to Tune for Best Performance.
Return to RC Nitro Engine Tuning Index