Experienced Tips

Traxxas EZ-Start Motor Wires:

To prevent the wires from being tangled between the spur gear or any other moving component around them, snip off the bullet connectors and solder the wires direct to the motor.

Traxxas Ez-Start V1 Starter Bearing Slip Fix:

The One way engine bearing in the starter system slips eventually on every TRX 15 engine. This is because the oil from the fuel flows through the starter shaft bushing and thickens whens its cold.(I've heard the TRX 2.5 engine does not suffer from this as it has a bearing in the backplate instead)The bearing does not grip to the shaft when this happens.

Fix:

Buy a pressure fitting nipel and drill a hole dead central in the back of the EZ-start, where the final gear and bearing sit.

Then thread the pressure fitting in to the hole making sure there is enough clearence for the bearing to sit in. You may have to grind a small amount off the end of the pressure fitting to achieve this. It should look like this:

Then attach some fuel tubing to the pressure fitting and tie the other end of tube up out of the way somewhere (shock tower possibly).

Keep the end plugged with something like a nail/screw until the bearing begins to slip. Then use a spray cleaner eg. Nitro Cleaner, Electronics switch cleaner but not s petroleum based cleaner as it will eventually distroy the one way bearing and plastic casing.

Glow Starter Loose repair:

When your glowstarter "plug grabber" becomes worn and sloppy, solder the outside of the three clips to increase the holding tightness. You may have to file/grind the solder down to the correct size to get a good grip.

Receiver LED light:

If you are like me and occasionally forget to turn your receiver off after using your model between runs or when you finish this will give you an indication it is still on.

Get hold of a 3mm LED, a 300ohm 1/4W Resistor and some wire. Solder the components together like this:

Solder the Led and Resistor as close together as possible. Heat Shrink the Led and Resistor together. Solder the two wires from the led to the RX pack connector along with the original wires from the battery. The stated 300Ohm resistor is required for a 6V Receiver pack and a standard Red Led. So now when the receiver switch is turned on the Led will light!

Shock Balloons:

If you have a model that is not equipted with shock boots then grit can get onto the shock shaft and destroy the sealing rubber rings and lead to oil leakage. The soloution is to place the shock spring inside a balloon.

Clutch Tuning:

Clutch shoes can be tuned to improve low end performance by removing material from the shoes. You can also increase the strength of the springs controlling them by getting heavy weight clutch springs available from model shops.

The best way to remove material or lighten your clutch shoes is to drill holes in each of them in excactly the same place. Shown here:

For 1/8th cars, I have found that a 1/8" Drill bit is the best size to use. Start by marking the same place on each of the shoes to be drilled with a pen. Drill the shoes using a hand drill or Dremel tool (do not use a power drill). Because the shoes are now lighter, if they are installed trailing edge (the contact point of the shoe is facing backwards when the engine is rotated counter clockwise) the shoes will slip and not provide the power to the clutch bell. Turning the shoes round, leading edge; shoes facing forwards when the engine is rotated couter clockwise (see picture above); the shoes will "bite" the clutch bell and engage solidly. As the shoes are lighter they will be forced apart by the centrafugal force of the engine at a later stage in the rpm, so will bite later with more power.

Onboard Temperature Guage:

An onboard temp guage is useful for tuning your engine to make sure it doesn't run too hot. You can buy them for about £30 here in the UK, but you can make your own for about £8 or less. What you need is a Kitchen Meat Temperature probe which you can get from various shops. Make sure the range goes up to 300F or 150C.

Take apart the probe part that houses the thermistor (looks like a glass bead) carefully and de-solder the contacts on the component. You will need to add longer wires to it to allow you to mount the sensor on the head of the engine. Solder and heat shrink it back together and add silicon tubing over the two wires to allow you to tighten the sensor around the head. Mount the unit somewhere out of the way with zip ties (eg. on top of the receiver box).

It should look something like this: