jscarlata

i was pleasantly surprised tonight when i came home to see that UPS delivered the car from tower a day early, thats a FIRST for me...anyway, the car is for me and my son who's a little young to do this by himself, but will be fun for us together...anyway upon opening the car we were pretty psyched, the blue paint job is flawless and they did a nice job with the few decals that are applied. i was however disappointed that the top of the body became scuffed from the packaging, not enough to return it or anything, but they should have put something there to protect it...anyway, moving onto the chassis. overall it was pretty sweet, i didnt see any flaws, all the screws were tight and there was nothing binding. a more detailed observation left me a bit perplexed. why on earth did they cheap out on the pipe setup and not put a 75 cent pressure nipple on the pipe? instead, they simply drilled a hole in the pipe and pushed the pressure line into the pipe???? makes no sense, they already made the hole, and its a 2 piece pipe, so why not put the dumb fitting on??? oh well, it was a quick fix, but i was still ticked that on a 309 dollar car that the cheaped out here...the next thing that bugged me was the fuel tank...no embedded filter in the tank? and the location of the fuel hose coming off the tank to the carb goes right in front of the 2 speed clutch...doesnt seem like a good location to me, i guess we'll see...i need to get some airfilpter oil, batteriesd all around and see if i can score a head gasket from the LHS so i can run 30%, otherwise i'll suck it up and by some 20 or 25%...hopefully i'll be firing it up tomorrow night for the break in, which should be interesting, how do you explain to a 4 year old that you cant drive the car right away you have to let it sit there and idle thru a tank first!!! LOL...

iexion

FIRST OF ALL. yeah the rs4 3 have a bad location where the fuel line goes. we've all talk about that a few trends ago and the best thing u can do is by a racing fuel tank. it is another 14 bucks or so but you wont get your fuel line stuck and/or have it ripped out. (has happen to me plenty of times)

2ND i have no idea why they would not just have a nipple for the exhaust line to the fuel tank. but like u said. its a quick fix.

For any nitro vehicle you need to have a fuel filter plain and simple. Plus they are like 3-4 bucks or. If your comfortable taking apart the engine you might want to take off the head and CAREFULLY take off the back plate and pull start. The reason for this is to clean out the engine with WD-40... YES I KNOW ITS A BRAND NEW ENGINE! but there can be (prolly is) micro shaving from with the mill/drill/tap the engine.

I just got a brand spanking new engine for my truck and just about crapped myself when i saw how much crap i flushed out of it when i used some old slightly old fuel and WD-40. just use an old white whipped cream bowl.. " Thank you Fuelman "

Oh and tell you son its like giving the car muscle so it will be stronger and so the engine wont break

hpi apollo

read this before doing anything please, i wrote it for new people http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_5517128/tm.htm

jscarlata

HPI Apollo
thats a good guide, i'm sure many have benefitted from it...i'm not new, i'm an oldie and have been running nitro cars and trucks since i was a little older than my son is now, but thank you for pointing me to the guide, i got some good info about the plugs, i always forget the heat ranges...

iexion
thanks dude, i'll take the motor out tonight and check it over...

jscarlata

ok cleaned out the motor, nothing to report, i didnt see any shavings or anything...gosh darn philips screws though, figured one of the motor mount screws would stip on my...so who makes good quality screw kits for these cars, flat headed hex scrws would be much better than the philips IMHO...also, where do i get the "racing" fuel tank from, is it the hpi one or another vendor?>

iexion

yeah hpi has a racing fuel tank

http://cgi.ebay.com/HPI-Racing-Fuel-...QQcmdZViewItem

also hpi have a racing clutch set up and that wouldnt hurt to change those either. but the fuel tank will move the fuel line to another location so you wound thvae to worry about getting it stuck in the clutch gears

magnus213

I have a full stainless screw set, I think it's from RC Screwz. Hex heads, I was also tired of stripping the stock screws. It won't have replacements for the engine backplate and pullstart/rotostart screws, though.

jscarlata

thanks, i just ordered a set from them...

what about cool upgrades like alum threaded shocks and other goodies? who makes nice stuff for these cars?