Fyrstormer's RC Blog

back to Fyrstormer's Garage I've had lots of RCs that took me a long time to finish. This one took me a long time to start. Three years ago, I bought this car as a ready-to-build kit, including the 4-stroke engine and the conversion kit , on eBay from someone who I guess never got around to actually building it themself. I already had some experience with 4-stroke engine conversions from my HPI Bullet MT 4-Stroke , so this one looked like it would be fairly easy by comparison, having all the required parts in a nice little factory-sealed bag. I had other projects to finish up first, though, so I chipped away at those while this one sat on the floor of my office, though I did take apart the engine and send the crankshaft to a machinist to be turned-down to fit a standard 7mm flywheel collet. (I ended up using the factory-conversion clutch instead, but it's nice to have the option to put a brass BuKu clutch on there someday if I need to.) Before I finished chipping aw...

back to Fyrstormer's Garage The Jato always appealed to me, ever since I got into this hobby back in 2013. It took me long enough to get one. For some reason I convinced myself I would have nowhere to drive it. Based on my previous experiences with Traxxas RCs, I anticipated it would be loud as hell, overpowered, and not particularly graceful to control. I was right about the loud and overpowered part, anyway. In stock form the Jato runs the TRX 3.3 engine, which is...frankly, deafening. The porting on the TRX3.3 prioritizes exhaust blowdown duration rather than exhaust blowdown rate , and while that is an effective strategy for generating a stupid amount of power in a small space, it's also an effective strategy for generating a stupid amount of heat and noise in a small space. I suppose that doesn't bother the boys down in McKinney, but I actually have neighbors. So I put a different engine in. The obvious choice, a nearly direct swap, would've been the OS ...