Losi RC Car 8IGHT Nitro RTR Nitromethane Fuel Dispenser Charger and Glow Igniter not Included 1/8 4 Wheel Drive Buggy LOS04010V2

I have been a Losi fan 15+ years, my son and I raced a Buggy 2.0 and a Truggy 2.0. We have a lot of good memories of those races. I bought this to bring my grandchildren into the Losi family. I am a old man now but enjoy tinkering with these.

Amazing car. It is far better than any other RC car I’ve owned. It is so tough that I ran it into a real car and it wasn’t damaged, and I was running it at top speed. It is not only powerful but super fast as well. Great buy.

This thing has been a lot of fun. Starts right up out of the box and runs super rich. Leaned it out after about 3 tanks of nitro (break in period) and this thing screams. Only problem I’ve had is the gas tank split at the seam and leaked. Called Amazon and they refunded me $50 (Bought new gas tank on Amazon for like 20 bucks)These nitro cars are way different than electric so know what you are getting yourself into before anything!

I apologize for the length of this review, but there's so many ways to go wrong in nitro RC that I think it warrants being comprehensive to better one's chances of enjoying it. It's worth doing right, and a 5 star review from somebody that just got theirs, has yet to learn how to tune or change the air filter, but has 5 tanks of fuel ran through it with 1 fun day running at the track doesn't actually tell you much about what you're getting into.I bought mine from my local hobby shop in spring 2019. Mind you, at this point I already knew how the usual kit-vs-RTR thing goes -- The race kit version of any vehicle is always much more expensive than the RTR version, and that's not even including the fact that the kit still requires purchasing electronics, powerplant, whees/tires, etc.. And the way it always goes is that buying the RTR version of something and then slowly converting bits of it to the race kit spec ends up being more expensive than starting with the kit to begin with. I already knew this.Last time I was into RC was back in 2010 when I bought a $280 OFNA nitro 1/8 RTR buggy that came similarly equipped to this Losi, but I didn't have the money to enjoy it for long back then due to being a college student that was not good at maintenance. Always wanted to get back into it. Had similar unsuccessful attempts at nitro RC in 2004 and 2001. Never got anything to last more than a gallon before the engine would wear out, but I always wanted to figure it out. Fastforward to 2019, and I decide to take another swing at it.So $350 for this kit (at the time) vs altogether about $1000 for the TLR 4.0 kit and all necessary items. For all I knew, my pattern of unsuccessful nitro RC endeavors would continue, so I'd rather get about $400ish in before throwing in the towel than $1000ish.I bought it and had a great time. I'm happy to say that this time I was able to stick with nitro as I have the financial ability to do so and the mechanical know-how to keep things running, although I did go through the stock engine and 2 Novarossis a lot quicker than needed (only getting about 2-3 gallons before losing pinch).Here's 5 critical tips for nitro RC cars that, if someone had instructed to me in the beginning, would've saved me a lot of headache & money:1) Get a $10 Walmart heat gun. A hair dryer doesn't get hot enough. Preheat the engine to 200F (measured on the glow plug with an IR temp gun) every single time you go to start the engine. Not just during break in. Every time. This saves a lot of wear because it expands the tapered sleeve so the friction on the piston is tremendously lower. Also skips the goofy running behavior that all engines have when they're cold (no point in making tuning changes till fully warmed up).2) Don't run the tank out of fuel. The fuel is also the lubrication, so a moment of insufficient lubrication is is horrible for the engine especially if it's under load when it runs out (ie, when accelerating). I set a timer for 7 minutes and always refuel/reset when it goes off.3) Set the idle gap to 0.50mm - 0.60mm and stay within that range. Watch JQ's tuning video (easy to find) about it. You don't set the idle speed with the idle gap -- you set the idle gap to a known value then adjust the idle speed via the low speed needle. This simplifies tuning so much because it eliminates one of the 3 screws as variables.4) Use a hairband to make a throttle-return failsafe, and ensure it's pulling hard enough to overcome the servo (when it's not powered on) to fully close the throttle slide.5) Don't use the stock receiver switch, or any receiver switch for that matter. Yes it works when new. Yes you'll probably get several runs using it and everything will seem fine. But know that it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when it will fail. It will fail, trust me. They all fail, not just the ones included with this RTR. It's not worth the risk. Mine failed and I had a runaway that went off the track headed north into a field of tall grass where it got stuck and everything was ok. I was lucky. I just watched someone's fail at the same track a month ago. His car went east, through the parking lot and into 5 lane traffic where it got destroyed. Instead of the switch, get a $3 servo cable extension, and with the battery plugged into the extension cable, drill a hole that pierces through both the battery's male connector and the extension's female connector. Now you can use a body clip to keep them locked together. Less convenient than a switch, but it will not fail.Ever since I adopted doing those 5 things, I've gotten much better engine life.My 8ight nitro RTR drove great, and I was satisfied with my purchase. I only run at the track, and I was essentially new to track driving, so lots of jumps and violent crashes. The shocks being plastic and the suspension links being non-adjustable didn't cause any problems. Here's what I recall failing:-Rear diff ring gear stripped after awhile. I think it's because of the plastic inserts on the sides not being strong enough to keep the diff lined up with the pinion. I think if I had purchased the aluminum version of those inserts (part number LOSA4454; $23) from the beginning, my rear diff would've never failed. I replaced my diffs with TLR 4.0 versions which was very expensive, but in hindsight I don't think that was necessary.-Stock exhaust uses a silicone coupling with zipties to connect the manifold to the pipe. It sucks because it comes apart easily during crashes. I got the Dynamite 053MR pipe ($50) simply because it uses springs between pipe & manifold, just like how the manifold connects to the engine.-Pullstart failed around 1 gallon. Not sure if I was pulling it too far out, but I got a used starter box and the shorter engine mounts to allow using a starter box. If I had to do it again, I'd consider just cutting the flywheel hole in the chassis to be bigger so the stock motor mounts would work with it.Conclusion:I ultimately ended up moving to a Tekno nitro buggy kit after 10 months with the 8ight nitro RTR, but I still think I made the right call by getting the 8ight (again, when it was $350) because I was able to get the hang of nitro RC with it at a lower financial risk.If the price had been $470 (like it is now) when I was looking to try nitro RC again in 2019, I'm not sure if I would've bought it. It's possible I would've elected to buy a used nitro buggy instead, who knows.Either way, I'm enjoying nitro RC now, and I think it's safe to say I've got it pretty sorted out because I never have days at the track where I can't get my car to run, which is a success in my mind, and I think I owe some of that success to this 8ight nitro RTR that helped me get here.

Steering servo smoked after only 30 minutes of use made it a $430.00 dollar motorized paper weight. Returned item and I'll update how that goes. Return process was alittle hectic through Amazon but I reordered another losi 8ight with the addition of the dynamite exhaust and couldn't be happier, the car is night and day from what I originally had.

Love it

Great car solid build, easy to tune and get running. Worth the price by far.

So this thing is awesome when it works. The problem is the stupid pull start keeps breaking after two runs. Losi really needs to just put the spin start on everything and do away with the pull start.