New to nitro dirt racing? here is some helpful info

Firstly it is important to have some mechanical knowledge or a helper who does. Nitro 2 stroke engines, as with full size vehicles need periodic maintenance and the occasional rebuild. So unless you have deep pockets you need to be able to do this yourself. It's all part of the fun!
Thank you to Graham Pearce, Bradley Young and Chris Haertel for the following info.

 

Wheel Radio

There are many radios to choose from. Most drivers use a wheel type. AM & FM models are available but remember that AM frequency crystals are much cheaper than FM ones. You will need 2 extra sets of crystals to avoid frequency clashes with other drivers in your race.
27Mhz, 29Mhz and 40Mhz are all acceptable in Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vehicle

There are many available (Kyosho, Traxxas, HPI, Shumacher etc) either coming in kit form (unassembled) or RTR (ready to run). I prefer the kit form because there's no better way to learn about your car than assembling it yourself. Any car that meets the criteria is fine for the beginner. We believe the best cars are the Team Associated RC10 GT & the Team Losi XXXNT. Definitely worth the extra cost.

 

Engine

A dirt engine doesn't receive the heavy loads of an on road engine. Dirt offers far less traction than bitumen so a well maintained budget engine can give good service. There are many different makes from cheap Taiwanese to expensive European engines. We recommend the O.S. CV.12 (.56hp). These Japanese engines are well built, reliable and readily available.
Caution: a more powerful engine can make things harder for you and overstress the car.
See Running in the engine

 

 

 

 

Fuel and fuel bottles

The fuel is a mixture of Oil, Methanol & Nitro Methane. The percentage of Nitro effects performance, The higher the percentage the more go! Some guy's run 20% or more, but off the shelf 15% is what I use.
Fuel bottles like this can be purchased like the one pictured, but I use a 1 Litre Metho bottle with a home made copper pipe attached to the lid and bent in the right shape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glow plug starters

3 options from cheapest to dearest.
Glow lead that connects the Glow Plug to a large 1.5v Battery.
Pocket sized Glow Start incorporating a rechargeable battery.
Glow Panel and lead which converts 12v car battery power to 1.5v.
The cheapest does the job nicely.

 

Starter

Most engines can be purchased with or without a pull starter. Although functionally they can be a real pain when your engine is hot or flooded etc. The engine can also be started with a 12v electric starter which you manually push against the flywheel to spin the engine over at high speed. Or you can go for the easy to use starter box pictured.

 

 

 

 

Air cleaner

It's time to learn the most important lesson. One which I learnt the hard way. Dirt is your engine's enemy. These small engines are made to very tight tolerances. The piston is actually a very tight fit in the cylinder liner as there are no piston rings. This means that if your air cleaner is ineffective or falls off your engine can be destroyed in seconds. For some reason most cars (as with the two above) come with ineffective paper air cleaners, We use and recommend a 2 Stage Oiled Foam air-cleaner, O.S. make one which needs to be held on with a cable tie. I use an Anderson (Eagle) single stage with an outer foam sock I cut out myself as the first stage. They are cheap and a really tight fit on the carburetor so they don't need the cable tie. You should be able to pick up the engine by the air-cleaner and give it a gentle shake without signs of movement. Oil the foam with a good quality Filter oil (UniFilter FilterFix is a good one) ensuring that you don’t get any on the carbie spout or on the rubber air-cleaner, Any oil here and it will fall off.

 

Running in the engine

Now your ready to race but before you do, you need to tune and run that engine in. How to tune your engine will be explained in your engine manual but for purposes of running in the engine needs to be run with a rich mixture. A lean mixture will cause the engine to rev too high with very little exhaust smoke, too lean a mixture will cause the engine to overheat and seize. A rich mixture will cause the engine to hesitate on acceleration or even stall, it will not want too reach maximum revs and will blow a lot of exhaust smoke. You need to drive the car gently varying the throttle position for 5 minutes and let it cool for 10 minutes. Repeat this 6 times gradually increasing the amount of throttle you use. Always let your engine warm up for 30 seconds or so before you drive it fast.