From someone else who has been into RC cars for 25 years and some change.

That's weird you say you get less drive time with a nitro, is your electric motor small and not very powerful? One tank of nitro always out lasts my friends Electrics and my old Electric, even with custom 7 and 8 cell packs and i dont have some stock nitro motor either. Thats one of the reasons i stopped messing with E cars. As for having to keep spare batteries with you for a nitro car, you need to have more sprares for an Electric Rc. When my RC runs out of gas i refill it, fire it back up and im on my way till the next refil or i pull it up while its running and i refill it (some will say thats not a good idea). with a nitro car you can run it till your out of fuel with minimal down time between refils vs an electric that you have to have multiple spare packs that are pre charged and if you want to wait for a quick charge to do its job ill have gone through a couple tanks easy had a few bears and took a nap. ;-) Nitro cars do need to have air flow across the head but same with a hopped up e car motor.
if you have an electric you should have multiple bat packs and all fully charged. speaking of charging you didn't mention how long it takes to charge one batt pack let alone multiple packs that you will need so you can drive for more than say 30 minutes (if your lucky) Yes a nitro needs a glow plug and you want to make sure its charged or you wont be firing up your nitro rig. But really that glow plug charge should last the entire day with no problems. I have used one glow plug for 4 cars and still had enough charge to go out the next day and do it all over..
Im not sure why you would need to tune it all the time either. I never mess with my needle settings. I set them and left them alone.

All RC cars require cleaning and maintenance.Even Electric motors unless you have some sort of cover over yours and still you want to clean the contacts inside. one thing i experience is my nitro car would eat tires up faster than my electric. (mostly because of how much faster it goes compared to the electric.)

I have been messing with RC cars since the 80s, Grasshopper WHAT? I used to race an RC10 custom, had a few custom made Quad 4 motors back in the day, when that was unheard of.

RC cars be it nitro or gas are lots of fun!!

 

Lol dont start talking about Tamia...My first was a frog and my buddy had a fox, and my other friend a hornet but this was in like 1988.

I have always been an associated guy so RC10-T was the last thing I had.

Once you get used to tinkering with the carb you will be fine. Most people just cant grasp this part of it. If you follow the instructions out of the box you willl be fine. Most people run thier engines too lean and burn out thier motors really fast. Once I brak in and make my final adjustment I have never had to mess with it after.

I always ran mine a little fat. Yeah granted it may not have been as fast but my motors lasted forever. I think over the course of the 5 years I was racing Gas trucks I went through 2 motors, and the first one was used when I got it.

I will say it again you cant go wrong with nitro.

 

A RTR nitro is a really good purchase for someone who is looking to get into nitro cars and isnt trying to drop $$$. Pick up an RTR and a Gallon of fuel, glow plug, double A's (double the amount of AA's needed for the Controller and the serveos so your covered for when you finally kill them) and you should be good to go for hours of fun..

 

Sounds similar to how i have my motor dialed in. better to be a lil rich than lean..

your 100% right cant go wrong with nitro!!!

 

i use hyperion lipos and they can charge at 5c so it takes 12-15 minutes for a full charge on a battery and the car will last 15-20 minutes per battery. the e-revo i recently sold would do backflips from a standstill and could pull wheelies down the street with no problem and did over 65mph with a $10 pinion gear change. the motor had over 5hp which isnt bad compared to the 2.95hp of the 4.6 savage. but to each there own, some people like nitro some people like electric. ive just seen a lot of people jump in getting a big expensive nitro for a first rc and get in over their head and give up and sell their car within a month.

 

i use GEN ACE lipos. these are like $35 for a good battery to RACE on (7.4v version). they are ROAR approved and places where there are actually racing going on, they will check to see if your lipo is approved.

Gens Ace ROAR Approved

NiCD and LiFe batts dont need any race sanctioning board approval. only LiPos need it due to their nature of catching and bursting on fire is handled incorrectly (go youtube for some videos of lipos on fire). also, if you race and just for plain safety issue, a LiPo safe charging bag (another $10-20) is needed when you charge batts.

throw in a $50 or for a lipo charger and then the price of an RTR rig and you are good to go.

Thunder AC6 Smart LiPo Balance Charger/Discharger w/ AC Adapter for 1-6 Lipo/ 1-15 Nimh + USB to PC Software



nitros needs a receiver battery pack so keep that mind.

 

Don't electrics need that same bat pack for it's receiver as well?

 

yes, modern electronic speed controls (ESC) do have a built-in battery elimination circuitry (BEC) that provides power to receiver.

 

Ooo I use to race nitro RC cars in the kyosho cup waaaaaaay back in the 90s

 

I have a few nitro cars, an on-road Ntc3+ and 2 off-road RC10gt's. The road car is incredible, it has 4wd and a 2speed tranny. It must go 60 in two seconds. The crappy thing about the road car is I haven't found a good enough place to run it out here. Literally every single time I have taken it out I have hit some stupid obstruction in the pavement, had an epic crash, and paid 20-30 dollars each time to fix it. And this is after I work at Talbot's and can get parts pretty cheap.

Other than their relatively slower speed than the road car, the off road cars are just ****. I have the stock .15 engine in one of them and a larger .18 in the other. They are more or less equal in terms of speed, the .15 probably gets up and going quicker because the .18 has a lot of upgrades and is definitely heavier. I can jump them 30 feet on dirt no problem, have some great fun at tracks, and then throw road tires on them and shred some streets pretty well too. I would get the team version of the RC10gt if I were you.

As far as nitro vs electric, it's kind of like driving a manual versus automatic. You get into the car with nitro, messing with the carb, gas, and just the overall enjoyment of driving since it's more user involved.

Don't let the whole idea of burning gas get in the way. A gallon of nitro lasts a longggg time. Hours upon hours. I think the biggest drawback was finding people to drive with, because driving alone (especially on road) was boring.

 

I have only electric.. Nitro seems to be banned due to noise in my area.
I own a Mugen Seiki MBX-6 eco, Slash 4x4, Slash 2wd, Xray t2 007, 1.9 crawler, and XR-10.

Anyways, congratz on the purchase! Savages are some awesome kits. As for a place to bash, i dont know any up north, but there is a huge spot of dirt on trimble and component in san jose