I've always enjoyed anything with wheels and an engine, whether it's the big cars you see in my reviews or scaled vehicles controlled by radios. And as you can see, some of these don't even have wheels. And while I've worked on RC motors and engines in the past, I've never built one from scratch. So when Stirlingkit reached out to me to do a video on one of their nitro engines, I couldn't resist. I'm Chris from AutoAcademics, and today we're going to build this. What this is, is the Semto ST-NF2 from Stirlingkit, and they have all sorts of miniature engines ranging from single cylinders up to V12s. They can run on either Nitro or gasoline and once built, there are plenty of videos where people have even used them to power their RC Vehicles. let's get to the build.
Alright, so let's get started. The instruction manual is pretty decently laid out. All of the pictures are in color, and they're also numbered to correspond with each position in the foam, as well as in this little box here. So, we'll get started and see how we do. It says, "Be careful, the dark side of the bearing faces outward." So that is what we're going to do. There's a little notch to allow that pin to go through. Come on, there we go. I'm assuming it's the tiniest one because these things are tiny. Oh my gosh, y'all are going to see me wear my glasses for the first time on camera.
lubrication: Alright, I'm going to put some more lube on the top end of this now where all these rockers are. There we go. So I'm just going to layer that whole top half with some lube there, some oil. All I did was go to my local hobby store looking for something for nitro engines and nitro engine model builds, and they referred me to use that stuff. It's kind of an all-in-one oil, works in all kinds of situations, can be used on your real cars. That was what was recommended to me, so that is what I am using. So just going to take a little bit of this, get a little bit more, and we are going to just get all over all these gears. I mean, not gears, but all these lifters. I don't know if this is totally what I'm supposed to be doing, but all these places where there's metal on metal, I just feel like there should be some sort of lubricant in there as well to manage that. So that's what I'm doing.
spark plug: The glow plugs are basically like little spark plugs. And there's a gas conversion for these engines where you can use real spark plugs. But I hear though that the glow plugs are a little bit easier to work with because you don't need a continuous spark going into the engine. The glow plugs themselves are what make the heat and ignite the Nitro. So once you get it running, then the glow plugs will keep it going, as opposed to actual spark plugs that need a continuous spark that is happening to cause the detonation inside of the engine. My Nitro monster truck uses glow plugs as well, but they're a little bit bigger than these. These are cute little tiny ones.
mounting base: Silly old me didn't realize that the mounting base actually came with a few materials here, and one of them was a starter button that actually goes with this base here. So I'm going to get this hooked up. I guess I should have put it on the base before I connected it to the wires. While it's nice and neat having the power button, the starter button here mounted to the base, unfortunately, the wires that come out the bottom, they basically just stick out. So the base wouldn't be able to sit flush on a table. So I'm back to using the original starter button that came with the wires, and I'll just have to have them on the outside so that I can use the starter button this way as opposed to having it neatly mounted onto the base. If I can figure out another solution to make it neater, I'll do that. But right now, I will use this wire setup, this configuration. Now as I'm connecting the glow plug igniters, something that I did not realize is that with these wires, you have to be able to pull the wire out, and that releases the clamp onto the glow plug. I did not realize that. So I kept trying to push the wire on there, and it wasn't holding. But if you actually pull the wire, it's spring-loaded, and that allows you to unlock or open the connection point. Then you can put it down over there, you pull the wire, it connects, and now you actually have a clamped-on connection to the glow plug. There's something that I didn't realize at first. Alright, now the battery I'm using is a Venom 420c 3-cell battery, and the reason why I chose this battery is that it comes with different adapters that you can use for different types of connections. Since my wiring already had a specific type of connection, I figured it would be much easier for me just to get one with some adapters as opposed to having to cut and solder a new connection to the wiring.
Starting: It's alive! It's alive! Let's go! Yeah, baby, finally! I have to get it to the point where it continues running on its own. But this is progress, and again, this is part of the hobby. You see, you come in here, you build something like this, and then you see if you can get it to work. It's not always going to work on the first try, but it is still a wonderful project that you can work on either by yourself or with a family member, friends, or kids, something like that. It does have a bit of a learning curve to it. It is a little bit challenging. It's not something that I would necessarily recommend for little kids, but you know, if you've got a pre-teen that's into mechanical stuff, into engineering, building stuff, it could be a fun project to do with them. Or if you're just an older guy like me who enjoys tinkering with stuff, enjoys things with wheels and an engine, well, here you go. I've seen many videos where people put engines like this inside of RC vehicles. I don't know what the future holds for this particular engine for me, but I can say that it's pretty cool to be able to come out here, actually build the engine from scratch, from all these little pieces, you know, just spend a few hours just kind of by yourself in your own mind, and putting it together. And then to finally see when you get it running. And you know, again, even if it's not running perfectly yet, the fact that I did get it started, and now with just a few more tweaks or what have you, I can probably get it to run the way that it's supposed to. You know, that's huge. I consider that a win.
So again, this is from StirlingKit. This is the Semto engine. It's the ST-NF2 model. And you know, by all means, use that, check it out, could make a great gift for yourself or for someone else who enjoys tinkering with these model engines and just kind of putting them together and creating something from scratch.
0 comments