This is what happens after hitting a trash can caused by a runaway. Imagine what it would look like after hitting a curb, telephone pole, or a tree! It doesn't have to be this way, there are ways you can protect your valuable RCs from runaways and we're going to show you how!
Charge your batteries
The first step in protecting your RC from runaways is to check your batteries. Before every run check and ensure the batteries in your RC and your transmitter are all fully charged. Time and time again we see people have their runaway RC caused by a drained receiver batteries and their RC goes running off into a curb at full throttle. Invest in a good charger and good batteries.
Throttle return spring
The second step would be to purchase a return spring. If the batteries in your receiver pack dies or you run out of radio range the servo will continue to do the last thing you had it doing which tends to be wide open throttle more times then it is idle. Hitting a tree or curb at WOT, means a costly repair bill for your wallet. A throttle return spring will pull the carburetor closed stopping your vehicle.
Throttle return springs only take less then 5 minutes to install and only costs a few dollars, not a bad price to pay to prevent a costly repair bill.
Failsafe units
A failsafe unit does what a throttle return spring does but only better. Fail safe units plugs in line between your receiver and your throttle servo. While out racing or bashing your RC the failsafe is constantly monitoring the signal received by your transmitter as well as the voltage of your receiver batteries. When a signal is lost or the voltage drops to low the failsafe will automatically return the throttle servo to it's neutral or even brake position!
Most fail safe units can be purchased for under $30 and the two most common fail safes being the Dynamite race guard and the Venom fail safe. Install process is super easy and only takes a few minutes to setup the failsafe to return your servo into the brake or neutral position.
Remote kill switch
For all of your large scale guys that are running CY and Zenoah gas engines has a pretty cool option when it comes to protecting your HPI or FG large scale RCs and that's with a remote kill switch!
The remote kill switch will activate the kill switch found on CY and Zenoah engines when your receiver starts to lose signal or the batter voltage gets to low. You can even manually kill the engine using the 3rd channel on your transmitter. The prices for these range from about $30 for a do it yourself kit and up to $65 for a kit that comes complete with the kill switch already installed on a CY/Zenoah switch.
The end result
So there you have it, for less then $40 and a little bit of your time you can protect your RC and wallet from a runaway that could in turn cost hundreds of dollars and lots of time repairing.
