Do you preheat your engine before every run?

[Kevinb]

taught by guys in the 1970's they always heated a nitro to temp.not a nitro guy just passing on advice

That's strange I raced nitro boats with all the IMPBA record breakers and hall of famers and never once did anyone ever preheat a engine.

 

[EJMOPAR70]

You should always preheat any quality nitro engine example O.S. , REDS, or Novarossi. The punch is super tight in the beginning. Yes after several tanks and heat cycled. At the tracks you may not see people preheating because they are completely broken in. Say you buy a $700 O.S. setup and don't preheat it. One you will be damaging it. Two you will get frustrated because it will die and never idle properly when new. You then get frustrated.

That's strange I raced nitro boats with all the IMPBA record breakers and hall of famers and never once did anyone ever preheat a engine.

Top racers today preheat. Watch Adam Drake or Tebo videos

 

[tudordewolf]

To me, a battery heat gun is the solution.

My $60 Makita-knockoff heat gun from Aliexpress arrived, and I'm very happy with it. Runs a good 12 minutes on the included 3ah battery, which I was surprised to find capacity-tests as marked. Only takes a minute to bring an engine up to temp.

 

[alfredwong2003]

You should always preheat any quality nitro engine example O.S. , REDS, or Novarossi. The punch is super tight in the beginning. Yes after several tanks and heat cycled. At the tracks you may not see people preheating because they are completely broken in. Say you buy a $700 O.S. setup and don't preheat it. One you will be damaging it. Two you will get frustrated because it will die and never idle properly when new. You then get frustrated.

Top racers today preheat. Watch Adam Drake or Tebo videos

It seems to me there are some contradictions. Assuming top racers have broken in their engines and no preheating are necessary. The pinch is not compression. You should be able to spin any new engine freely without any mayor force without the glow plug. Now one you add some fuel and the glow plug, then the compression becomes very high and hard to spin. Pre-heating will reduce tightness. But loosen the glow plug a bit will do the same and still let you start the engine, just tighten the glow plug as it starts.

 

[Greywolf74]

My $60 Makita-knockoff heat gun from Aliexpress arrived, and I'm very happy with it. Runs a good 12 minutes on the included 3ah battery, which I was surprised to find capacity-tests as marked. Only takes a minute to bring an engine up to temp.

Just curious what you're using to test the capacity on the heatgun batteries. it would be cool if I could test my porter cable 20V packs.

 

[tudordewolf]

Just curious what you're using to test the capacity on the heatgun batteries. it would be cool if I could test my porter cable 20V packs.

I use this load tester and this adapter to access the contacts easily / safely. It's a great little gadget; it can do constant current, power, resistance, or voltage - I'm almost always using it in constant current mode with a voltage cutoff. I typically test batteries at 1C, though it can also do up to 20A which is useful to test for voltage sag. This listing has adapters for more brands.

It really highlighted for me the need to break in Nimhs, I saw 50, 75, and then 100% capacity out of the first, second, and third full drain/charge cycles on new packs and even individual cells.

I've seen your work testing lipos and AA's, I'm impressed. I'd like to make that kind of information available about more batteries, it really is criminal how unenforced capacity labeling is, at best you raise a stink with customer support and get a refund.

The (knockoff) Makita batteries I've tested are the included 3AH, tested ~2500mah, which I'll count as a pass.

I bought a $20 "6ah" cheapo, only 2000mah, and a $45 "5ah" that actually delivered 4ah before cutting off at 16V, though its built-in meter still indicated 33% capacity left. I'm not keen on taking these down to 0% because they've got less-than-ideal balance charging solutions, the plug isn't a balance plug like hobby packs have but more of a smart interface for the charger...

The included battery doesn't even use a Makita charger, but a DC adapter that plugs straight into it. Let's see how long the balance lasts...

I've tested my 1600mah Nimh 2/3A Receiver packs and generally gotten 1300mah out of them.

Turnigy's 4200mah cells and Zeee's 4200mah nimh Sub-c's delivered their labelled capacity.

In defense of the cheap packs, they still ran the heat gun fine and even for 10 minutes each, which is enough for me to get use out of, and for below $30 I can't complain about that.

 

[Greywolf74]

I use this load tester and this adapter to access the contacts easily / safely. It's a great little gadget; it can do constant current, power, resistance, or voltage - I'm almost always using it in constant current mode with a voltage cutoff. I typically test batteries at 1C, though it can also do up to 20A which is useful to test for voltage sag. This listing has adapters for more brands.

It really highlighted for me the need to break in Nimhs, I saw 50, 75, and then 100% capacity out of the first, second, and third full drain/charge cycles on new packs and even individual cells.

I've seen your work testing lipos and AA's, I'm impressed. I'd like to make that kind of information available about more batteries, it really is criminal how unenforced capacity labeling is, at best you raise a stink with customer support and get a refund.

The (knockoff) Makita batteries I've tested are the included 3AH, tested ~2500mah, which I'll count as a pass.

I bought a $20 "6ah" cheapo, only 2000mah, and a $45 "5ah" that actually delivered 4ah before cutting off at 16V, though its built-in meter still indicated 33% capacity left. I'm not keen on taking these down to 0% because they've got less-than-ideal balance charging solutions, the plug isn't a balance plug like hobby packs have but more of a smart interface for the charger...

The included battery doesn't even use a Makita charger, but a DC adapter that plugs straight into it. Let's see how long the balance lasts...

I've tested my 1600mah Nimh 2/3A Receiver packs and generally gotten 1300mah out of them.

Turnigy's 4200mah cells and Zeee's 4200mah nimh Sub-c's delivered their labelled capacity.

In defense of the cheap packs, they still ran the heat gun fine and even for 10 minutes each, which is enough for me to get use out of, and for below $30 I can't complain about that.

Thats cool. I've already got a DL24 and a DL24P so I'm good to go there. I found a Porter Cable compatible adapter to test the 6 batteries I have. Granted 4 of the 6 have been in service for quite awhile but 2 of them are fairly new. 4 of the 6 are Chinesium brands which is what I'm really curious about. See if they are living up to the originals or at least worth the money they cost vs other generic replacement brands. Glad you posted that. Right up my alley!

 

[TeknoJ]

I usually preheat it, today I took it out to run and realized I put the front diff in backwards, as the front turned backwards while the rear went forward. Once I corrected that I checked the head,it was 72 degrees. Went outside and it started on the first pull, I let it idle up to about 150 something then drove it lightly till above 200. Once it’s at operating temps I give her the ’s