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hkopium
05-09-2005, 02:37 PM
I read some RC magazine and noted there are 2 type of gas powered car, Gas Power and Nitro Power. What are their differences? Which is better?

Hawk
05-09-2005, 03:29 PM
Nitro - Methanol and Nitromethane fuel most often in 2stroke engines
Gas - Gasoline, usually in 23cc two stroke engines . These are usually 1/6, 1/5 cars. larger as the engine is much bigger than typical 3.49cc nitro engines.

I haven't seen an example of a Gasoline powered buggy. There might be some but I haven't seen it nor heard of it.

To switch the subject a little, I am hearing more and more talk of 540 sized brushless motors and lipo pack power for 1/8 buggies. Anybody know anything about this?
:confused:

TNB
05-09-2005, 04:30 PM
I read some RC magazine and noted there are 2 type of gas powered car, Gas Power and Nitro Power. What are their differences? Which is better?
The "Gas" powered R/Cs run off of a gasoline/oil mix and use a spark plug like a weedeater unlike the "Nitro" powered R/Cs which use a glow plug and that expensive 20-30% nitro pre-mixed fuel most people purchase from the hobby store. This also makes the gasoline powered R/Cs easier to tune, to run, and less tempremental than the nitro engines which are easily affected by the ambient weather conditions. The gasoline powered engines also don't make that high pitched whine.

Gasoline buggies: FG, Traxxas, Duratrax, XTM.
For more engine information, visit: http://www.zenoah.net/

hkopium
05-09-2005, 04:30 PM
Nitro - Methanol and Nitromethane fuel most often in 2stroke engines
Gas - Gasoline, usually in 23cc two stroke engines . These are usually 1/6, 1/5 cars. larger as the engine is much bigger than typical 3.49cc nitro engines.

I haven't seen an example of a Gasoline powered buggy. There might be some but I haven't seen it nor heard of it.

To switch the subject a little, I am hearing more and more talk of 540 sized brushless motors and lipo pack power for 1/8 buggies. Anybody know anything about this?
:confused:

Thanks. So most RC cars (Buggy or Onroad) are Nitro?

540 motor has been used in 1/10 buggies, I think... Tamiya ones are 540?

hkopium
05-09-2005, 04:33 PM
The "Gas" powered R/Cs run off of a gasoline/oil mix and use a spark plug like a weedeater unlike the "Nitro" powered R/Cs which uses a glow plug and that expensive 20-30% nitro pre-mixed fuel most people purchase from the hobby store. This also makes the gasoline powered R/Cs easier to tune, to run, and less tempremental than the nitro engines which are easily affected by the ambient weather conditions. The gasoline powered engines also don't make that high pitched whine.

Gasoline buggies: FG, Traxxas, Duratrax, XTM.

In simpler words, gas-powered is better? And I suppose gas ones are faster also?

TNB
05-09-2005, 04:46 PM
In simpler words, gas-powered is better? And I suppose gas ones are faster also?
I wouldn't really say better since they both have their pros and cons. For example, the gasoline powered ones are larger so they take up more room and not as many people seem to run them since there are not as many tracks. Speed wise, the gasoline/oil mix go around 50mph but can also be modified. Some of the nitro on-road R/Cs are faster because of the different gearing, but the electrics have the speed record. The last I knew, it was 111mph. One nice thing about the gasoline/oil cars is that you can run them for a very, very long time. At the 1/4 scale NASCAR type races, there are even mandatory pits for fuel and that is only because they limit the size of the gas tank.

Hawk
05-09-2005, 08:58 PM
Thanks. So most RC cars (Buggy or Onroad) are Nitro?

540 motor has been used in 1/10 buggies, I think... Tamiya ones are 540?
If you are talking about 1/8 scale buggies, I have never seen a gasline powered nor electric powered version. Especially if you are talking about racing, the sanctioning bodies have very specific limits as to motors, wheelbase etc. 3.49 CC or less motors that use Methanol/Nitromethane/oil mixture. There are several power boosters (if you can believe that) that are not allowed, some are VERY exposive if mishandled.

As far as speed, 1/8 buggies are offroad which is totally uncontrolled jumping and bumping around a track. That is half the fun. They are restricted to one speed transmission only. There are 2 and 3 speeds that are commercially available for bashing. I have seen a monster truck made by Thundertiger with a helicopter engine (a .70 I believe) and a two speed transmission. It was incredibly fast even with those great big tires.

This is only about 1/8 scale buggies though, 1/8 onroad I am not that familiar with but many of the guys that race off road also race off road and they use nitro engines too.

mOOsE
05-09-2005, 09:52 PM
Most of the time, when a magazine is talking about "gas" powered, they actually mean nitro. Gas is not that common because 1/6-1/4 scales are not that common. Its mostly just the usage of the word in mags, and on the forums. I know some people that have used 540 brushless in their 1/8th savages and buggies. I don't believe they use lipo because their isn't a high enough capacity lipo to deal with moving a 10+ pound truck.

CableMan
05-23-2005, 09:37 PM
One large issue in deciding between gas & nitro is the horsepower. The gas-powered engines (23cc - 27cc) only put out 3-4 horsepower. While the nitro-powered engines in 1/8 scale buggies (3.5cc-4.0cc) are almost as powerful (2-3+ horsepower on average). The biggest disadvantage is that the horsepower to weight ratio is horrible for gas-powered car.

Here are links to gas powered cars:
http://shutmykidsup.co.uk/carson_attack_petrol_buggy_2wd.html
http://www.duratrax.com/cars/dtxd97.html
http://fg-cars.com/cart/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=36

Here is a link to the largest producer of gas-powered engines:
http://www.zenoah.net/

Also, consider price. You can get a 3.5cc nitro engine for about $100-120 with about 1.9hp (http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXBZ33&P=ML), but a 23cc gasoline engine is going to cost at least $250 for just a little more horsepower, a lot more space and a lot more weight (http://www.rchobbies.org/zenoah.htm).

By the way here is a video to watch with large scale gas cars:
http://www.duratrax.com/gallery/dtxd97-large.mpg

Of course there are HUGE positives to gas-powered cars.

1. Easy to start, engine is a regular 2 cycle weed eater engine.
2. Engine sounds more "realistic" than nitro.
3. Just leave the gasoline in the car for months and doesn't hurt the engine. Nitro has to remove or could damage the engine.
4. Life of the engine is like 1000 times longer for gasoline. A gasoline engine will just go and go and go and go. The nitro engine has to be rebuilt after about 2-3 gallons of fuel (maybe more if you take extremely good care of your engine).
5. One tank of fuel lasts 30-45 minutes for a gasoline engine, while nitro is closer to 10-15 minutes.
6. Even though the horsepower is week, you still can get the gasoline car to go almost as fast as the nitro in top speed. You just lose on the acceleration.

TNB
05-25-2005, 06:06 AM
One large issue in deciding between gas & nitro is the horsepower.
The "larger" issue is the track. Earlier today, I was at one of the 1/5th scale tracks in the Los Angles area. Here are a couple of photos I took.

http://www2.mini-zracer.com/albums/album670/SVMS_1.jpg

http://www2.mini-zracer.com/albums/album670/SVMS_9.jpg