When Nitro Engines go BANG! 

Glow engines are creeping back because of the cost and difficulty of shipping LiPos. Plus, many who began on electric are giving glow a try, just for fun.

No one else smirked a little when Bruce spoke about a bronze bush. No? Just me. Damn my immaturity!

Sir, you are clearly a hard-flying, high-revving nitro man ... your box of dead engines demonstrates this clearly. You are a fine example to all of us Older Aeromodellers and I salute you. Thanks for your fabulous channel.

Heh, it's definitely more interesting looking at blown nitro engines than burnt out electric motors. ;¬)

Have to agree with the rest, another great video! I've got to where I really look forward to your videos during the week. One of my highlights. You're​ hard work is appreciated and injoyed by many I know.

This should be on your main channel! This was great and informative. And it is a review after all... reviewed for 50 years! Not many of those around!

Very interesting and informative. There is something so artistically eloquent about catastrophic failures. Thanks Bruce.

cheers Bruce. You have inspired me to get my collection of stinky noisey nitros back out this summer! . thanks from South East England.

thanks for the video bruce, always enjoy stuff like this

I find this very interesting! I like that you put clips of the engine blowing up

Would love to see more IC and pulse jet stuff Bruce! Sooooo much more soul than an electric motor!

Never owned anything that uses those engines but always had lots of interest about them. Good video Sir.

I loved this. Looking at details post-mortem is very interesting! I have mostly electric and Nitro birds. I even have that Thunder Tiger GP 61.

Yes please! Seeing how things work and break is a great teaching point. Thanks Bruce! Have a good one. :-) -Jamie

Marvelous, I recall them from the 70 80's. Really neat to see them work.

I'd watch another one of these! Quite an interesting video!

Nice video bud , happy flying dude 🖒🖒🖒🖒

Very interesting video Bruce, keep em coming.

Bruce I can see you screaming in to the funnel " MORE POWER SCOTTY", ans Scotty saying, "Thats all she's got Captian, it just an ABC sleeve engine!". Balls to the wall all the time!

Great vid, love to see another one.

The man knows his stuff. Great video.

I went through quite few MDS marine ones (difference is only water cooled head) on FSR-V nitro boats and never had a broken shaft, but all of them had two same problems: 1. Carb was constantly jumping out due it's crappy mounting system. 2. Conrod's bronze bushing wasn't pressed in tight enough. After a while it started to spin inside the conrod leaving crankpin without lubrication. And combined with high RPM from tuned pipe, conrod shot straight through engine block at the bottom. In late 80' in Soviet Russia if you wanted to do RC, DIYing was THE only way, no other way, so after putting some work, mods and tuning into them engines, they were the best ever!

Hy..we still like to fly nitro as much as we can ;)Hello from Slovenia....

loved it, takes me back a few years, would love to see more pulse jet stuff and glow engine stuff

Amazing and helpful video. Great. 👏

love the videos Bruce please do more like this

I am interested in seeing more like this . As I like the sounds of a nitro engine

this was quite fascinating

Nice to see engines going pop 😀. I still have 4 nitro engines ( 2 MDS 58's 1 SC52 FS and a OS 25) but all converted to petrol with spark ignition which sorts out all the rough running issues on the MDS. Happy days 😊

Thank you, Xjet. I am school and still love my glow fuel motors more than the new gas engines. Your video gave all of us (glow fuel engine lovers)...some great schooling on these engines. :0)

Great video! I have a collection of 4 strokes, I believe Thunder Tiger. They even made a 26 size, but I didn't get one of those. They are so tiny and intricate, and can idle very slow with a pop pop pop. Very cool engines. Ahh the good ole days!

Excellent knowledge.

Phenomenal video! Well done!!! Nitro may be a dying breed do to brushless lipo, but us diehards will never let go simply because the glorious sound! 👌👌✌️

Thank you for the video, your time,Knowledge.

Brings back so many good memories of model aircraft, OS engines, castor oil exhaust and cut fingers!

Great video. I like to see stuff that broke, I have a whole hobby room full.

I love nitro rc

Dig out some more stuff. I love seeing how and why motors blow up. Thank you. "I got a find out how tight motors wind" " I can't help it". hehe

That was a great video. I'd love to see another if you decide to do it.

Awesome video. ✔ Thanks heaps for the info. 😎👍

Thanks Bruce, great video. It would seem by your video, that your throttle was an on and off switch, go hard or go home, or turn it off and land......Love it....Nothing like the smell of nitro first thing in the mornin.

cool stuff! i remember my super tiger .46 and 60 motors and the occasional wack on the fingers when they started

Great video - thanks. I learned something today - i really dont know much about engines. My planks and helis are all electric.

Thank you for keeping Nitro engines alive and flying them! :) Proper olschool technology. I loved the Castor oil part. All my own RC planes have been Nitro powered. I did use Methanol and Castor oil mixture, which I had to mix myself. It seems that more and more people are switching to electric motors in RC hobby.

Very neat and informative. Have very little experience with glow. Mainly electric here.

Yes Bruce! Please do more nitro "post mortem" examinations 👍

I started in nitro with an OS .40. Love the smell and sound of nitro. Makes me want to dig it out and get them going on an airframe

I think you are point on.Great video.bring more.

Grew up with nitro in the 60's and 70's. Love it, more please. Special request, can I build a tricopter with nitro engines? My favorite plane was the Midwest Hots II, still have the plans for it, plan on building another when I retire!!! Love the videos Bruce...

I miss nitro motors had many over the years...enjoyed your vid

Thanks for the video Bruce! Electrics are nice and easy and clean, but nitro has a place in this hobby. They have great power at a better price than electrics for the larger models.

Back here in the UK in the mid fifties the lads flew compression only engines. The fuel came in tins and produced a wonderful smell. What was it? Nitro is a new one to me. Love your channels.

You have forgotten more than I will ever know about RC stuff - I just want to comment that "nitro" seems to be the recent "designer" name for these engines, but glow is more appropriate because newbies get the idea that nitro is the source of power, when it is the source of ignition only. Nitro results in lower power, and actually cooler - please check me if I am wrong. In fact, I like to emphasize what the fuel actually is to those interested enough to ask about fuel engines - alcohol (well, methanol). Your post morten was educational - thanks for all the time you put into sharing your knowledge. Lastly, don't we all love to run equipment up to, and sometimes through, their performance limits? Yeah! I never cry when things go BANG! Soak up the experience of power going plasma-level and getting out of its constraints. Ok, maybe that's just me - ha...

Vibration played the biggest role in this break

Thank ya Bruce, I remember the days with nitro, I had the OS engines, bought them from Ryders Hobby Shop in Flint Michigan,where I lived in my teen years. Yeah, they will go POP on ya after a bit. Great info sir, see ya in the air. Wayne.

Nitro isn't dead, it just smells that way. ;)

I did find this video interesting. Thank you

great video !

G'day, Yay Team ! Excellent topic Bruce, well done. I have a Rotax 377 which stopped because it's Cooling-Fan ingested the Throttle-Cable, & winched it out of the Carburettor at 2:1 x Crankshaft-Speed...; sadly, it all occurred at 300 ft while turning Finals, motoring down the Glideslope at 40% power, and the resulting Stall-Spin killed the Pilot who'd failed to secure his Throttle-Cable to the Airframe... Getting the Rotax going again is one of my many "one day..." projects. Have a good one, ;-p Ciao !

G'day mate, enjoyed your video. Cheers

I don't know much about nitro engines. But I owned 2 Traxxas T-Maxx's and drove probably most of 10 other maxx's in races. But I remember the life expectancy was 4 gallons of nitro. And I never made it beyond 3 gallons because of dirty carb issues or worn out carb. And those carbs at the time were like $35-$80 (edited). After replacing a few, I just decided to just get the better racing spec motor for like $180-$250. I remember my buddies were surprised of my t-maxx doing wheelies when it hit 2nd gear. And these are like the old days before the traxxas 1.3 motor was invented. Or 1.5? The 2.5 came out years later.... But the stock 1.1 or so motor ran like 30k rpm, I had a racing motor in my t-maxx that hit more than 40k rpm. And another motor hitting 48k.. You can really feel those extra rpm power in the high end as you ditch a stock t-maxx.

Interesting video, I didn't know failure rates could be so high! My best failure so far was an evo 40 that came stock on a GP Arrow. The motor ate its ball bearing races, not sure why but there was only part of a worn thin race left and the rest scuffed up the cylinder. Only other failure was an Enya 45 that cracked a ring because the gap in the ring was to small to allow for expansion, The ring scuffed the cylinder but I put it back together without any machine work except some filing on the new ring gap. That motor still runs strong after 30 years, which was really about ten seasons worth of weekend flying. Yes this motor had a cast iron ring!

Fantastic video. I have never had a major engine failure.

I use to fly a lot not sure really why i dont much any more, mainly because I am way to busy building and being pit mechanic for my son on his nitro cars and large scale gas rc cars and trucks, Depending on the motor and the part that broke many are definitely worth the time to rebuild and for not as much as most people think it costs, Another reason I dont fly at our rc flying club is due to the older folks, always complaining about there stuff broken wont start falling apart and so forth, Dont get me wrong i am not speaking ill of the older generation, I think they are a great asset to the flying clubs, just up here in Northern Canada i found that they are just set in there ways and stuck with still using motors and such from the 70,s and are not open to all the new innovations to new motors plane design new fuels etc; The radio control sport and industry has advanced so much whether you are into nitro or gas or planes or cars, The things you can buy and build are endless it all really depends on the amount of money you want to invest into such a great competitive sport , Thank you xjet for doing videos that you do, Bear.

Good video Bruce I love nitro engines I must have about 30 around here including a YS120nc still in the box nothing like the smell of nitro in the morning

I can remember those days like it was yesterday. It so much better now

Interesting, I've flown glow for 40 years and 'never' had an engine go 'bang'. The fact I buy OS may have something to do with it, still fly my old 1982 OS 40 FSR ABC most weeks. 20% caster and good quality engines they do last 'forever' :)

great video, i love the nitro engines but struggled at first getting an irvine 30 to run properly but after years of using os and mds i went back to the irvine and tuned the screw to alter the fuel at tick over,and this was the cure for it all them years of thinking it was a pile of junk,ive also seen some bloke at a club fit a new engine i asked what was up with the other one,he said it dies when i he removed the glow starter,i told him the plugs go cold on the end and a new plug would fix it,do more stuff on the nitro :-)

I still have few nitro's in my fleet. Nice to see something on nitro once in a while.

The plain bushed engine with the cracked crankcase is asking for a jubilee clip around the front bearing to hold it together... and then be run to destruction

Howdy Bruce, I really enjoyed the insight. Maybe an idea for the next video would be the running in & tuning of the new engine? Knowing how rich to set it and so on.... Matt

I run nitro and in my eyes it is not dead. Love the sound and the simplicity of the engines and the power and speed on instant demand. Great to see your box of mishaps but have you had this problem with any of the European engines or even American's like K&B? Show us more Bruce, very entertaining.

All my nitro engines went bang .That was the noise they made as they hit the bottom of the dust bin .. Only fly either Electric or two stroke spark ignition gassers these days.. Nitro is too much of a pain in the ASS , biggest problem is the cost of glow plugs now and their unreliablity .

Really good video! do you have any engines where you don't know reason for failure? would be a fun guessing game for us at home to try to figure it out what happened.

Nice to see something that isn't bloody boring drones, jesus! Nitro still is popular at aeroclubs!! How about some DLE petrol engines in 3D or other planes?

Nice Flying Skills 😎😀👍🏼 Of Course This Video is Interesting

Got a similar box of F2D (CL Combat) Fora engines. In my club, we even got a trophy cup full of dead F2D engines, collected over time - sometimes you hit each other in F2D, and hitting engine to engine equals two dead engines in most cases.

Pretty neat! It went caboomski! Screaming its butt off! Lol!

Great video Bruce! Would the things you said about the MDS 61 apply in general to MDS engines? I have a MDS 68 that revs like crazy. After seeing this I'll try putting a lighter prop on it.

Interesting stuff, small powerful engines are fascinating! Looks like it might be possible to make a single franken-engine from the box-full, if there's any good cranks in there, that's the kind of thing I'd try on a lark!

Castor oil eventually gums the engines up causing all sorts of mechanical gremlins, I prefer synthetic in my engines.

I also love glowplug engines, cheers from Croatia Split

I've been into nitro R/C for several decades myself, and although I do have several planes and can fly well enough, I'm more of a land lubber and am into 1/8 scale off-road buggies. I've blown up more than my share of nitro engines over the years. Not from poor tuning skills, but rather HARD running. I like high RPM horsepower way more than low RPM torque, and my preferred engines all tended to display this trait. I've seen all kinds of failures, usually the common ones shown in this video, but the strangest failure I've seen was with an engine that suddenly stopped. It didn't "wind down" like when one typically blows up, but rather just stopped instantly. It sounded very different than usual when it let go. When I got it home and started tearing it down, I removed the cooling head and button, and the piston was missing, nowhere to be found. There was just a rod and piston pin in there. WTH?? 🤔 I got the back-plate off, and there was the piston.. No piece of it larger than a grain of sand, just piston dust. The piston somehow just crumbled off the rod, right into dust. The rod or crank wasn't harmed, the crank bearings were fine, just a piston failure I guess... Strangest thing I've ever seen. 🤷🏻

yes pleas more videos on the engines a would like to see sum video on your new MDS 61

keep em rich, keep your pipe tight and your seals good, run low % nitro and an engine will last years and years with the only wearout being the bearings & sleeve.

got a mate who's into this, but I'm trying to convince him to get into glow fuel engines, they have so much character ! Electric may be more convenient, but these nitro's are just awesome !

Thanks good video

love nitro

Great Video. What is your opinion of the Cox Medallion and TD engines?

Had the MDS 45 black head and that was a screamer. Also 2 of the 148s. One was converted to diesel and was a blast to run. Had it in my CMpro P47 . Would still be running it today if the fuel was easy to get. I would run diesel over electric or glo any day.

This was cool. If you're looking to for ideas for the dreary weather.. Maybe a history of RC type segment? I'd personally be interested in that being fairly young in this hobby.

yep very interesting to see some old school

Nitro engines are awesome!

A bang-up time was had by all. :>)

Bring it on! love to see something on Nitro,most channels on You -Tube are electric only. Please bring out more of your collection of stuff that went bang. I recently aquired a few niteo engines. My question would be,should I replace the bearings. They seem to be ok,some old gummy crud in them,I did soak them in break away to soften and remove the old oils,cleaned and regreased the bearings,they seem to be ok,one has stiff bearings however. I have no idea how many hours they have on them. My goal is to invest in at least one nitro plane. I have 8 electric planes,one is an Extra 300 in pieces,it didnt do well in the take off on its first maiden. Shame because its my only balsa. The wing and Epinage are fine,just needs a new middle secttion. I have the materials to fix it,just need to get it going.

one of my favorite vids that wasn't just making fun of steave.

Great review. I have never had a engine fail. Lucky I guess. I have many engines, but have used my Webra Speed 40 mostly. That thing is a beast!!! ......&......Its Austrian made.....so it will last forever!!! LOL

my MVVS 49 (Green head) is still runing nice on my Flying machine, 18 000 rpm and still shows no sign of giving up!

I've flown .45 and .60 sized "nitro" engines for years. The only failure I had was once when I was flying in Las Vegas. It was well over 100 degrees F that day and everyone else had gone home. I think, if I remember correctly, it was 109 degrees to be exact. I was trying to run an old K&B .61 pretty rich but it got so hot it seized! I hate to see nitro go. Gasoline is cheaper but everybody has gone to such large airplanes. I still like the .60 sized aircraft.

Great video Bruce. I enjoy both electric and nitro in this hobby and would love to see more traditional fixed wing stuff on your channels. FPV, multi rotors, and flying wings just don't do it for me.