building WILD THINg--> engine choice

[Danny Chi]

I'm building the wild thing(Rc boat modeler) and have a question on engine. Is there a huge difference between a marine engine and a regular car/truck engine? will I be able to use a regular car/truck engine in my nitro boat? If not, what are some of hte better performing engine on the market? First nitro boat, need some help!

[Ron Olson]

You can put whatever .21 boat motor in it that you want to. MAC's, Nova Rossi's and CMB's are popular choices for that boat. Two friends of mine have them and I have a .12 version. One has a CMB Greenhead and the other a Nova Rossi. You're only held back by the depth of your pocket. If you built it according to the plans, the MAC will have a problem with the tuned pipe as it comes straight out the back.
You can try a car/truck engine, more are getting used in boats. If you're not going to race it, you could get one of the hot .26 or .27 engines for it. The hull is low enough to get plenty of air to the heat sink head.

[DavidJ]

I built one of these boats a few years ago(right after the magazine came out whenever that was) and it was also my first nitro hull. There sure was a lot of little points left out of the construction article. It took me a while to get it all figured out but mine runs great now. A friend like mine and he built one about a year ago and he used a motor out of his rc car and we could never get it to work right. Not sure if it was the engine, his setup or his build quality, but for some reason it just wouldn't go right.

Here's a picture of mine(the boat in the foreground)

[DavidJ]

I posted a very short low quality video of my boat running on rcflix. I wanted to email the video to a friend who only has a free email account so that's why it is such poor quality.

http://www.rcflix.com/photopost/index.php

Under the nitro boat videos: David J, wild thing

[Danny Chi]

Ron Olson
Thanks for you info

Davidj
what points where left out in the article? and what kind of hardwere did you use?
nice paint job BTW

[Ron Olson]

John Finch's Wild Thing had been upsized and downsized. I have one that was made for .12's by Mike "Grimracer" Zobarowski, one of the few that he made in wood. He is supposed to be getting a 'glas version to be coming out soon.

[DavidJ]

It was my first nitro boat so I didn't know anything about setup when I first built it. I didn't know how to hook up the main fuel tank and the hopper tank like he suggested. I didn't even know where to get a marine engine or hardware. I could never get the radio box to stay taped shut because it was too oily for any tape to stick. I didn't understand what he was talking about when he referred to making the spray rail(I added one later). I was just a total newbie and the article left a lot up to the individual modeller.