Tuning your TRX Engine

[Double G]

Hope a mod sees this and will update the first post of this thread.

Good post and yes I did.

[blunts4m3]

The unfortunate part of this is, here is the only place where I can find the information I need to reset my carb etc etc, and that link on the first page, doesnt work, apparently again. Perhaps if I pm this Double G fella he will fix it again.

[cherokee77]

I bought the 2.5 T-Maxx from an attorney in the box, he said he drove it for a few mins and it died and did not want to start,so he shelved it, men I was really happy the thing was brand new ITB, anyways Itried to run the motor, and believe me i have been into these Nitro engines for a lots of years and own a performance shop, to make a long story short, I went out and bought the 3.3 and thought breaking it in by the books,I would have a good truck,I dont know if I got a bad motor cause the thing ran like crap out of the box..I live in So. Cal,weather similar to texas, why cant these motors be like our airplane motors, that runs every time,without all the break in crap, I was so frustrated and seen this guy driving a TA 4.6 MGT, and I bought it from him...thing starts and runs perfect, I'm not putting Traxxas down, as I bought an e-maxx and love it except I am a Engine noise type of guy..just my 2 cents about The 2.5 and 3.3, just too much to deal with and getting a bad rap, hopefully traxxas will come up with some kind of breaking in their engines so everybody could have a good time with their product...Tnx

You didn't follow break-in, and then you drove it in sub-zero temps (and I'm assuming made no provisions to keep heat in the motor since you didn't mention it). So to me, it looks like you're piston and sleeve wore out early, based upon your symptoms. I imagine you leaned it way out to get the temps up.

So then because you didn't follow directions, and wore your motor out early it's the fault of the motor?


No, most people don't abuse their equipment as you have. If you drained the oil from a Ford Taurus and then locked the motor up running it without oil, would it be the fault of Ford? No, of course not. You were the reason.

The same thing applies here, as it sounds like you starved the motor for oil. Then you complain as if it's not your fault...

gonna be exactly the same pretty much!! play with it and keep on playing(tuning) it

[Nitronaught]

I bought the 2.5 T-Maxx from an attorney in the box, he said he drove it for a few mins and it died and did not want to start,so he shelved it, men I was really happy the thing was brand new ITB, anyways Itried to run the motor, and believe me i have been into these Nitro engines for a lots of years and own a performance shop, to make a long story short, I went out and bought the 3.3 and thought breaking it in by the books,I would have a good truck,I dont know if I got a bad motor cause the thing ran like crap out of the box..I live in So. Cal,weather similar to texas, why cant these motors be like our airplane motors, that runs every time,without all the break in crap, I was so frustrated and seen this guy driving a TA 4.6 MGT, and I bought it from him...thing starts and runs perfect, I'm not putting Traxxas down, as I bought an e-maxx and love it except I am a Engine noise type of guy..just my 2 cents about The 2.5 and 3.3, just too much to deal with and getting a bad rap, hopefully traxxas will come up with some kind of breaking in their engines so everybody could have a good time with their product...Tnx
gonna be exactly the same pretty much!! play with it and keep on playing(tuning) it

You can't compare a large block Nitro airplane engine to a land vehicle Nitro engine. They are not designed for the same things... For one thing thei discplacement makes them much more forgiving on needle settings, so is the amount of toque required... Airplanes require HP more than torque and land vehicles require more torque then HP... So they are going to run and tune differently........ Simple.

I own 3 TRX engines. my first engine was the TRX 2.5, I was new to nitro , didn't know how to tune, but I followed the instructions had my learning curve and it went 4 gallons. I rebuilt it with a new piston and sleeve, even added the 2.5r cooling head and it went 8 gallons before it starting losing perfomance but I still ran it for another 4 gallons to see if it would finally die,,, it would still run but needed a new piston sleeve and front bearing... It's shelved for now...
Engine 2 is a 3.3. Went 7-8 gallons and I just rebuilt that one and broke it in... HAs about 1/3 of a gallon through it and it's starting to wake up.....
Engine #3 is on it's 5th gallon and running fine...

I race at a track with a bunch of Traxxas RC's (mainly short course trucks now)... I've rebuilt engines for others at the track and helped some of the newbies.... Lost count after 20 odd of them... They get ran every weekend at the track with quite bit of run time on them and the only times I see issues there is physical evidence that it was ran too lean or too rich... Now the causes of those mixtures to be off can range from a leak, to just poor tuning....

Just my experience with these engines....

That previous owner could have already damaged the engine prior to you touching it... Just by running it without breaking it in could have stressed the internals enough for them to fail no matter how you may have treated it....

I find your post not exactly very fair to Traxxas since you have no clue what the previous owner did... 30,000 rpms without being broken in would do the trick perfectly...

Your quote of Misbehavin' seems in respons to something he had seen, like in a picture... And if that previous owner ran his RC without tuning he would be correct in his observation, but I think you forgot to include that tidbit of information in your post....

This thread was designed to help people with tuning, not to complain of a bad experince you had buying a used Nitro RC.