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 RACER'S
EDGE SURE FIRE .32 NITRO ENGINE |
RATING:   |
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COOLING
HEAD - An eleven fin cooling head does an excellent job
of keeping the engine temperature under control. It is beautifully machined and allows for easy
access to the engine mounting bolts. It is quite large in size which gives
it more surface area for improved cooling.
We did notice that the bottom of the head is anodized where it contacts the block. Technically this can hamper cooling a little bit however it was not a problem in any of our testing. The engine ran at consistent temps at all times. 
CARBURETOR - The slide style carburetor is a three needle
(high, mid and low speed) setup and the carburetor body is composite.
The slide has a nice dust boot on it to prevent crud from sticking up
the slide and potentially getting inside your engine. All the adjustment
needles have a factory flush setting, meaning to get the carb back to
the original factory settings, they simply need to be turned until they
are flush with the carb body. You will never have to run back and check
the manual to see what the original settings were! A simple yet much
appreciated feature.
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INSTALLATION
- We chose to install the Sure Fire in our Team Losi LST. It
is our heaviest truck and could benefit from some big horsepower and torque.
The stock MACH 26 was removed and the basic engine components were transferred
over. Everything (flywheel, clutch, header, pipe, air filter, etc) is
a direct fit from the MACH to the Sure Fire. When transferring the flywheel, it is important to use the flywheel collet from the MACH and not the one included with the Sure Fire. We also used the stock clutch shoes but as you will read about later, they were really not up to handling the torque and power the Sure Fire delivers. FLIP MY CARB! - Everything from the MACH to the Sure Fire is a direct swap over. This makes the Sure Fire and easy and excellent engine upgrade for any LST owner. The only thing that required some attention was the carburetor. The SF carb needed to be rotated 180 degrees. We also redirected the fuel intake nipple and adjusted the position of the ball end on the carb slide. That's it. Perfect fit. |
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| BREAKING
IT IN! |
 Video clip of engine break-in (3MB) .zip file 
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BREAK-IN
- The break-in instructions are detailed and leave no question on how
to get things going. With that said, it should also be noted that the
entire manual is well written. You will find many different people who
use many different methods to break-in their engines. We simply stick
to the manual and do what it tells us. All of our engines have lasted
a long time and provided us excellent service by doing what the manual
says to do. The Sure Fire break-in procedures require idling the engine through 1 tank of fuel, then letting it cool. The 2nd and 3rd tanks were for 50% throttle and under driving. Simple oval patterns were made, allowing the truck to coast at times and letting the engine cool. Tanks #4-6 were used for power tuning. We adjusted the high speed needle through these tanks, gradually, looking for the sweet spot in performance. We utilized Trinity Monster Fuel 30% with 12% synthetic castor oil. Engine temps were taken using a MIP on-board temperature gauge. We used a Racer's Edge #5 glow plug (equal to a McCoy #9) during our break-in and testing. Here's some test data we collected during the break-in procedure with our on-site weather station:
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| WHERE
THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD (OR THE DIRT)! |
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PERFORMANCE
- Once we had the engine dialed in for maximum power while maintaining
decent running temps, it was time to see what it could really do. The
LST is no lightweight and the Sure Fire has its work cut out pushing this
fat hog around. The MACH did a fine job of this. The Sure Fire does a
stellar job. The SF engine delivers smooth, trigger on, power throughout the power band. Where it really seems to shine is in the lugging/chugging department. Otherwise known as torque. It has some serious deep down "grunt" and that is much appreciated with a heavy truck like the LST. We kept our LST in high gear as low gear was almost worthless. Every pull of the trigger while in low gear would just wheelie and/or flip the truck. Even in high, the launch power was incredible! Even in high gear, if the tires could get traction, the front end was coming off the ground. From a dead stop, it started pulling hard right away and did not stop until maximum RPM was achieved. No hesitation was felt at any time. Power, power, power AND MORE POWER. That pretty much sums it up. This engine has a lot of TORQUE. It is a torque monster. We had to re-glue several of the LST tires after about 30 minutes of hard running. Granted they may not have been glued all the great from the beginning BUT the MACH never chucked them after several gallons of hard running! Stay tuned for some video of the engine in action. As soon as the weather cooperates, we will get some footage! Clutch woes! Our stock LST clutch took a dump at about the 1/2 gallon mark. The actual failure was a broken clutch spring. We finished the day by removing the broken spring and shoe and just running it with two clutch shoes (it actually worked pretty good). That is not the best thing to do but hey...we were in the field and ready to pound on this thing. A silly clutch spring was not going to stop us! We broke a total of two clutch springs during our testing however we were using the setup from the original MACH. This is no fault of the engine. We should have used a new clutch and spring setup for our new, more powerful engine! The stock, 3-shoe setup has been restored however a bigger, badder clutch will be a very good idea in the near future. TUNING - We hate finicky engines. You know what we are talking about. The ones you can never seem to get tuned right! Thankfully, the Sure Fire is a dream to tune. Once we did our initial, minor adjustments for the day, we could run for hours and hours without touching the needles. STARTING - Even in the break-in stage, the Sure Fire started very easily. In fact it started on the 5th pull out of the box and after that it was 3 pulls or less. As with any big block, you need to be careful not to hydro-lock the cylinder with fuel when starting. It is a great way to bust a recoil rope! Overall the SF started like a champ throughout the break-in and testing process. FUEL CONSUMPTION - As you would expect with a big block engine, the Sure Fire is a thirsty dog! Depending on how we were running the truck, the SF would drain the LST tank in about 15 minutes or less. In comparison, the stock MACH engine would go 20 minutes on average between refuels. Of course these times would vary with your driving style, fuel type used, ambient temps, tuning, etc. Keep in mind we are comparing a .26 engine to a .32 engine. The Sure Fire is 20% larger in the displacement department and the increased fuel usage seems to coincide with this number. Don't read this the wrong way! We would expect a decent amount of fuel consumption with an engine of this power rating. Fuel is cheap!! The Sure Fire 32 also comes with two different carb restrictors (8mm and 8.5mm) that could be used to extend the engine run time. Did we use them? Nope. We wanted POWER! Will you use them? Maybe. You have the option anyway!
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| LADIES
AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY, HAVE YOU REACHED A VERDICT? |
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