Traxxas - Nitro Engines

Nitro Engines

Currently, as with all of recent Traxxas products, all Traxxas engines are now designed in house at their Plano, Texas headquarters and manufactured in their own manufacturing facility located in Taiwan.

Traxxas has equipped most of its newer models with engines derived from the TRX 2.5. The current engine lineup consists of the older TRX Pro .15, the TRX 2.5, 2.5R, and the newest TRX 3.3 racing engine. The 2.5 represents the displacement in cubic centimeters, equivalent to .15 cubic inches. Although the displacement is roughly the same, Traxxas designed the 2.5 from the ground up with a refined crankcase, cooling head, port timing, and other components to produce more power, in line with expensive aftermarket offerings. The engine is physically taller, and the exhaust manifold is a circular port on the rear of the engine. In Spring 2006, Traxxas introduced the TRX 3.3 small block. The 3.3 cc displacement is about equal to 0.201 in³. The Traxxas 3.3 still maintains the same engine mounting dimensions as the 2.5, allowing the 3.3 to serve as a drop in replacement for 2.5 equipped Traxxas vehicles.

Traxxas' first engines were released in 1992. The Image 12 was a standard rebranded engine of average performance. The advent of the later TRX .12 engines were a dramatic improvement over the Image .12 and subsequently the vehicles Traxxas made increased in performance, quality and popularity.

The TRX .12's were entry level engines, and put out mediocre performance by today's standards. Later, Traxxas introduced the TRX .15 and Pro .15 engines. These produced slightly more power and accepted the EZ-Start system. Traxxas named their early engines with the size in cubic inches, which is relatively common for US-made model engines. They were still considered entry level, and were often replaced with more powerful after market engines when they wore out. Traxxas' boats used a version of the TRX Pro .15 which had a water cooling cylinder head. The Nitro Stampede two-wheel drive monster truck, Nitro Sport two-wheel drive truck, and Nitro Vee boat model still use the Pro .15.