Break in problem from experienced owner.

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verticalavenue

verticalavenue

Member
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6
Just bought a new Savage 4.6 RTR and i got wood from the excitement of getting it home and breaking it in. Now this is my first HPI Truck and I have only seen them run before. I have been a Traxxas Tmaxx owner and still own an Smaxx. I have broke small bore engines in and the 2.5 Traxxas motor in with very little problems. I understand the basic principles of breaking in motors and why it is done.

Now my problems are:
Running very rich through the first tank
Only way I could started is with the GP lose
After I finally got it to start idle it stripped my spur gear! This is why it started.
Makes a horendous clanking sound (metal on metal) when I crank it.
NO BRAKES. THE LINKAGE ISN'T SET UP AT ALL!
IF I apply the trigger out for the brake it shuts the motor off.(I adjusted the trim)


My questions are:

Are the wheels supposed to be off the ground the first tank? (my spur gear was stripped anyway so it is too late because I let it idle through a tank.)
How and I going to start it without it taking off? I have the Trim set out and the Idle leaned out but it wants to take off. I idle or trim it back any it stalls the floods. Whats up with that clanking sound? Sounds like the tin man masturbating! Are the spur gears that crappy? I been reading other posts on forums of folks with similar problems.

Well I can say that I have always gone right with RC trucks buying Traxxas but I got some serious bad luck on this one or the HPI is supposed to be challenging. I honestly think they should take the RTR off the box though. RTR w/some tweaking would be better.

Thanks for reading and looking forward to your help.
 
The Savage is definetly a thinking mans RC. I had my buddy at the LHS walk me through the whole thing in the beginning. He is a driver for Kyosho, Castle, and a few others so his word is gold to me. We ran mine wheels off the first tank very fat with the idle turned up to compensate. The remaining tanks were spent driving it around in figure 8's increasing speed each tank. As far as loosening the GP, I know that the pinch in the F4.6 is very tight to begin with, it will take a while to loosen up but watch out when it does! You may need to run it with the idle picked up for a while to feep it going. As far as the spurs, if your mesh is off you will suffer! Took me a while to figure it out but once I did I have had no problems.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Welcome to the site!

Sorry your having a few "hic up's" we all have them .. The Savage CANNOT compare to Traxxas You will find this out once you dial that savage in.

As far as your ?'s go...

During breakin I don't have the wheels off the ground (don't think its a big deal) . Put something in front of the tires if it wants to run away from you.

It probably stalls b/c it's too rich on the low speed needle. lean it out in 1/8 turns until you get some throttle control.. (not too much tho)

AS far as the Tin man Masturbating ..
Could be a few things, first thing that comes to my mind is the brake disks (if you have the dual disk setup, that is) sometimes they can just barely touch the clutch-bell and make that sound, could just be the normal sound of a new engine. Or the oneway bearing. No need to panic this is normal

Spur gear mesh..

Its critical you get the mesh right on these things . make sure your clutch shoes are dragging causing excess heat (your spring would be the cause of this)

Good luck and please be patient
 
There was a run of RTR's that left the factory with improper mesh. HPI addresses this on their website.

As far as the break in probs, it took me 20 minutes to get mine started the first time. I am at about 5000' altitude, and I had to turn the HSN in (lean) about 2 1/2 turns from the factory setting to get it to run - not exactly what you would expect at my altitude!

Be patient, I'm sure when you figure it out, you will never go back!

PS - on the brakes, be sure the two screws that hold the brake shoes to the tranny housing are tight, and the discs are not flopping around - the linkage may have been close, but if those screws are loose the brakes will not function well, and if the engine dies at full brake, you simply need to set the throttle stop.

-Moto



|||​
 
preheat the engine to 230 or at least 200 and you wont have the problem of havign to loosen the gp

i never elt mine idle to break in i run them its the way most racers break their engines in and i have never had a problem. just run it slow for a bit then fastr and faster after a cou ple tanks shes good to go

did it this way on my wasp .26 and th thign still runs strong with 17 gallons ran through it and years of abuse from fine dirt (my track has such fine dirt particles they get through the filter and into the engine)
 
just went through the same thing i was ready to give up great info here i leaned the hsn 1 turn and lsn 1 turn just to get it to run then fattend it back up and turned the idle up a bit the biggest help was the blow dryer for 5 mins turned over much better after that. be patient its worth it tmaxx aint got nothin on the savage.
 
Been wanting to reply to all of the good replies but it took some time to get my account activated.

I got the replacement spur gear from Hobbytown today (only place open). Gonna go home and try it out. I did see a tutorial online adjusting the mesh so I am going to follow that to avoid chewing another one up.

As for the HSN I have it in 2 turns now so I am going to mess with it a bit after I get my gear on and I will let you know.

The clanking sound was scaring me because I thought it was internal but SJ did shine a big light on my problem. The brake shoes are just dangling there so I am going to snug them up and take care of that. I am also calling HPI after the holiday and requesting they send me a replacement spur gear. I have chatted with some other folks who state that HPI will send me one for free because of the know issue.

Lastly I want to thank everyone who replied. I must say this has been one of my better community forum experiences. Usually I get some cocky know it all post to "belittle the newbie" but you guys were very kind. I will get a vid of the Savage racing my sons hopped up Smaxx and post it.
 
Something else kind of fuel do you recommend? I am using 20% just because I have a few gallons for the Traxxas
 
rodshemi said:
I'm using hpi power fuel 30% nitro 14% synthetic castor oil seems to work well but I'm fairly new aswell so what do i know
Click to expand...

I think 30 % might run me a little hot in the summer when I do most of my driving. I went and got 20% HPI today. I ran one tank of Traxxas 20% through it but I heard that Traxxas fuel was a bit dirty and could cause problems.
 
rodshemi said:
i could be wrong and i would ask here but i believe more nitro cooler temp
Click to expand...


My bad. Your right. Lower the number the hotter it gets. I ran into that problem last year with an older Traxxas 1.5 pro. It would overheat running the 20% and I put 30% in and it stayed stable.
 
30% runs cooler than 20% due to the fact that with the higher percentage of nitro the engine needs less air so it runs a richer setting but because fo the higher nitro % the engine will run faster even though it is richer then if it was running 20%
 
Got my savage broke in finally.
:FarleyParty:



I ran a cool break-in because of the weather though. The brakes had to be set up with spacers that were included in the box (no instructions that indicated this needed to be done). I also leaned it out some more to make the idle a little stable.
 
verticalavenue said:
Got my savage broke in finally.
:FarleyParty:



I ran a cool break-in because of the weather though. The brakes had to be set up with spacers that were included in the box (no instructions that indicated this needed to be done). I also leaned it out some more to make the idle a little stable.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update .. That's awesome
 
odonnel fuel 30% only on the bigblocks. 20% will work but if you haven't tuned it yet i'd put it on 30% before you do. they also say not to switch percentages after the engine is broke in so if ya change do it soon.
 
myth you can change nitro % just have to change tune, don't give advise if you are not sure could end up messing someones expensive equipment up
 
I didnt say u couldnt change % but i have been told by people who have20+ years of high dollar racing expeirence that what u use to break in a motor is what u should stay with.Not trying to lead any one in the wrong direction as i have changed many motors from one to another but only a couple have done well. Not really sure why they have told me this but have had a motor rebuilt by one and it has ran perfectly without any problems.
 
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