3DwannaB

I just went to the LHS and picked up a funtana 90 and a Saito 100. With my pockets a lot lighter and big smile on my face I was pretty confident I had a good package for 3D flying. But after a couple hours cruising around on this site(I just joined), I've noticed people are flying this plane with engines outside(some way outside) of the recommended sizes. I know, it can be done with no harm to the plane with good throttle management, etc, that's not what I'm worried about. What I want to know is, will the 100 be enough? Will it have enough climbout? Will it hover with enough reserve power? Or should I take the engine back and go with something else. I'd really rather not spend a whole lot more money seeing as the saito 100 is salty enough as it is. I would appreciate some insight on this. Thanks.

Shawn

Cobra1

My Feedback: (42)

Did you read the review in the RCU Magazine? A YS 110 was used with good results. I will be putting a YS in mine also once I get around to it. I am like you in the respect I read here (RCU) that a lot of people overpower this and many other aircraft for the rocket like hover pull out.

JohnVH

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I have a fresh Saito 150.. anyone think it will be too much for it?

wind junkie

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I think the 150 would be excellent. I only went with the 180 because it's the same size and weight as the 150, and I didn't already own either.

Of course, one should take care to modify the motor box to make it stronger, and maybe shorter if you care to get the prop back closer to the cowl (aesthetics). You'll also need longer gear for prop clearance.

JohnVH

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ok cool, I figured since I already had it why not... maybe a 3 blade prop for clearance?

wind junkie

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You're on your own there. My gut says 2 bladers are always better, except maybe for noise. Get some nice graph tec gear for it and you'll have an even lighter setup than stock, and plenty of clearance. I think it's Graph tech part # 113 (Aeroworks Edge) if memory serves.

wind junkie

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Hey John, isn't that a Composte ARF yak 55 in your avatar? Why would you want a Funtana when you can fly around one of those beauties?

JohnVH

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HAHA, yeah, its the big 3.3m Comp arf yak! And yes it is the best. BUT, I need a trailer to haul it, the funtana would be a fun throw in the truck basher plane

3de

My Feedback: (6)

JohnVH,
a 1.50 will work great. I just flew mine today for the first time with a 1.80 and wow,, just an awesome combo.. I have a 18x6W and about 3/4" clearence. Luckly I fly off a dried up lakebed and the surface is smooth as glass.
Good luck!

wind junkie

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Yea, I I know what you mean about "throw it in the truck kinda plane." Mine is the biggest thing I have, so if I REALLY want a "throw it in the CAR" kind of plane, I reach for a profile. With the F90, I need to make 3 trips to the basement.

God, that's a beautiful plane John. It's got the best lines of a Sukhoi, Edge and Yak 54 rolled into one. Nice scheme as well.

3DwannaB

Yes, I have read the review for the 90 on here with the YS engine. But right now, I really can't see spending the extra 100 bucks for that engine compared to the saito. I am just about to my limits on budget as it is. The other thing being that I am still fairly new to flying and would not have a clue as to how I would modify the firewall and engine mounts to except a larger engine. That's the second reason why I'd also rather stick with an engine size that will bolt right up with no modifications. I am a fairly mechanically inclined person, but just because of the lack of experience in building planes (it's why I got an ARF) I just wouldn't trust myself to modify the plane and for it to work correctly. Know what I mean?

So, no one really has answered my question. Will the Saito 100 be enough? Or is there another engine I can get with more power, for not a ton more money, and will bolt in with modifications being limited to little or none? Thanks again.

Shawn

wind junkie

My Feedback: (1)

Shawn,

Sorry, didn't mean to sidetrack your thread. I was in your shoes a few months ago, except I already had a Saito 100 waiting for another project I didn't have time for. I saw that big beautiful yellow box in the LHS, and figured I already had the most expensive part and really wanted a big 3D performer, so after fondling the very lightweight wing pieces in the box for a few seconds, plopped down the $210 and stuffed the box in my small car.

You didn't say what YOU think constitutes good 3D performance, except you seem to know that a good reserve for throttle is needed for good pullout. What are you flying now? What is your 3D experience?

My background is mostly with 40 size profiles, and I'm not happy unless I have a Saito .72 pulling around 4.5 lbs or less for this size plane (hover at half throttle, excellent instant thrust for waterfalls, pinwheels, etc). If you think about that ratio for a minute, you'll realize, to follow this standard, one needs 1.44 cu inches for a 9 lb plane, which most Funtana 90's seem to weigh.

So, it's pretty widely touted that a YS 1.10 has roughly equivalent power to just under or perhaps matching a Saito 150, and that seems to fall in the ballpark of what you'll need if you don't want to modify your plane (too much).

I don't think you'll find anyone here who as flown the F90 with a Saito 100 who actually claims it's a stellar 3D performer this way. Yes, you can harrier around, and you CAN hover it on the prop, and if you're very very good, and fly in optimium wind conditions with no turbulence and no obstacles around you so you can pull out horizontally in any direction, you may be happy with the Saito 100. With an APC 16x4W it WILL pull the plane up out of sight forever -- especially if it already has some momentum to get it started. It is an excellent "pattern type" bird with some 3D capability in this configuration, and certainly a lot cheaper and easier to set up as you're suggesting. That's excactly what Hangar 9 intended, in my opinion. If you're Mike McConville, you can be justified in saying it will fly 3D in the stock recommended configuration, and you can make it look good in the air.

But, if you dream bigger, your 3D skills could use a "buffer" of forgiviness in the form of more instant thrust to back you up when you get into trouble, or if you've seen videos of guys doing absurdly exciting things with their 3D machines, you're going to be wishing you spent more time and money every time you go out to fly with this plane.

The airframe is a bargain, if you discount some quality issues with wing ribs splitting. It's built very lightly, which is good and bad. Good because it's an excellent starting base on which to mount strong and fast equipment, but bad because it takes knowledge and work to put the rest of the puzzle together in a reliable and safe way. The "Funtana 90!" thread is full with tons of info on what guys have done to their birds, and one can distill a lot of good info from this volume.

But it seems like your basic question is still, do I have enough power for my weight. And the answer to that still will depend on what you think a fun ratio is for you. If budget is your key limitation now, I'd suggest just sticking with your Saito 100, follow the manual, pick some good light servos to keep all possible weight out of the tail, and upgrade later if you want more.

If you go with a more powerful engine, you'll probably also want stronger servos, bigger landing gear, props, better hardware, bigger fuel tank, etc. This will add up to lot of extra cost. I have between $1200 and $1500 into mine as it stands. The YS 1.10 could very well be the cheapest and best way to get the extra power after all. I've never even seen one, so I can't say for sure, but that seems to be the most popular choice from what I've seen here. I love Saitos, and I learned a lot from my F90 experience. If I trashed my F90 today, I'd grab all the components and buy another tomorrow. It would be a LOT easier building the second one, that's for sure.

bentgear

Shawn, please don't take this the wrong way, but if you go with the Funtana 90 go ahead with the Saito 100. From reading the above it will be much more than you will need and hopefully you will not soon be looking for another plane to put the engine in.

As info the YS 110 is as much a bolt in job as the Saito 100.

As far as the Saito 100 goes, it will hover the plane. It will not have explosive pull out, but will pull out.

You might be served better with a UCD 60 or a Harrier 3D.

Ed M.

wind junkie

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Oh, I forgot to mention, I actually did put the 100 in my F90, and flew it for a few weeks this way on Cool power 30% heli fuel and an APC 16x4W, after trying numerous other props. Then I switched to the 180.

Here are pics of my setups. Note, with the 100, I needed the battery up front in the cowl to avoid adding nose weight (and this was with three 1.4 oz JR 9411SA servos in the tail!)

3DwannaB

Yeah I guess it would help if I further explained my expectations so that the rest of you out there could give better information back to me rather then just guessing at what I want. Please here me out and don't just brush me off (not that I think anyone has yet), when I explain myself. My past experience really hasn't consisted of much. I just started flying towards the end of the season of 2003. So it's been about a year. I've onlly flown two different planes, both of them being SPAD type planes. I'm sure most people would say that it's too early for me to be buying a plane like this and so on and so forth. I've spent many hours on the sim and feel that I am a very capable pilot. Even the other people that I fly with were impressed with my learning curve. Although I've never flown a real 3D plane, only on G2, I think I'm ready to start learning. You have to start somewhere right? I know that there are many more maneveurs that 3D consists of and I like to do them all, harriers, walls, tip spins, etc. But for some reason, seeing a plane that should be crossing the sky, just sitting a few feet off the ground about as stationary as you can get just puts a big grin on my face. That's why I am somewhat worried about the power to weight ratio with the saito. I am more along the lines with windjunkie on that I think I'll need something with enough reserve to help me pull out of my learning "bobbles" to a safe recovery. I hope this information will help better structure your replies.

I'd also like to really thank windjunkie for the more detailed explanations. I am one of those type of people that will take in just about all the information someone is willing to give. Thanks alot and keep it coming.

Shawn

Dazzlerman

Saito 100 will be enough for the Funtana 90, I have one with the Saito 100 and it do everything you ever wanted.
You just need to put somting like 30 grams or maybe the battery pack on the nose for balance.
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wind junkie

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You're welcome Shawn.

Try looking up some of the posts by "MikeRC" here on RCU. He has a video of himself flying around his F90 with the Saito 100. It will give you a taste for the capability with this setup.

I tried to visit his website just now, www.mikerc.com, but couldn't get it to load.

Dazzlerman

Here's is my Funtana pic [:-]

3DwannaB

Well, first off I'd like to say thank you to all who have contributed to this thread. I think what I've decided to do is stick with the 100 that I have already instead of exchanging it. I'd really rather save the money right now and use it to help buy the other things I need for the plane. I downloaded mikerc's video and it seemed to do pretty well. I will just try and concentrate on making the plane as light as possible by using lighter servos and whatever else I can to keep the wieght down. Should help out the situation quite a bit, at least I hope. Any suggestions on making this thing light would be appreciated. I'm thinking of probably going with a li-po battery for the reciever, and the graphtec landing gear for starters. What do ya think? Any other more obvious things I missed?

Shawn

wind junkie

My Feedback: (1)

If you're comfortable with lipos, then that's a good idea. Graph tec gear is good, but I think Fiber-lite makes the lightest gear possible for this plane, although they were out of stock for a while, they may have more now.

Using a lightweight Dubro or Higley spinner nut, and Higley locking nut will save weight compared to a plastic or aluminum spinner, plus you don't need to modify these to clear the prop like you would with a spinner. I'd suggest a light wood prop, but I think you'll need al the trust you can get, and the APC 16x4W is the best I've tested. Maybe someone can recommend a better wood prop like Menz or similar imported one.

Of course, elimination of wheel pants is optional, as is the cowl. Looks like Dazzlerman opted for this too. It may help to be a bit generous when cutting out the bottom of the cowl for cooling reasons, and this also eliminates weight.

You may find that you still will need noseweight even with light tail servos (I did) and a lipo battery won't help balance no matter where you put it. You may consider moving the rudder servo up front and going with a pull-pull setup, which may be a bit lighter, but more importantly, you'll get the weight out of the tail. 1.5 oz in the tail translates to 4.5 oz in the nose needed for balance.

I combined the power and ground servo wires on the 3 tail servos in mine to save some weight. Only 5 wires go back there and then branch off to the servos. That's probably not worth the effort for most guys, but I'm accustomed to doing things like this all the time with glider projects (glider wings always need custom extensions).

VanWidick

My Feedback: (22)

Personally I think it depends on your budget and skill leval to base your decision about engine size.


I had a YS 1.10 on my Funtana 90 and wasnt really satisfied with the pull out.

Put a YS 1.40 on it and pull out is extremly nice.

Good Luck.

DLK

Hi Guys:

Well well, interesting topic. I have the FT 90 with a Saito 100. It is under powered in my book. Does it fly nice, you bet. Does it fly the way I want, no. I want it to have enough reserve power to pull out of any situation. I say Saito 1.80. Will I/you have to use throttle control - of course.

I'm just confused what to do about motor box, cut it back 1" or leave it. I mounted my battery next to the motor on extended ply piece (saw it on post) and still had to add 4 oz of weight there also. This baby is very tail heavy. No problem landing Tail H if there is no wind, but that's not the real world.

My .02, Dave

evfast

My Feedback: (31)

DLK, I just mounted my 1.80 on it today there is about a half inch gap betwen the cowl and the back plate, but I can live with that.

I also had the saito 100 but not enough to get out of bad situations.


later

DLK

Well - - you just made me order a Saito 1.80<G>.

BTW what motor mount did you use.

thanks, Dave

evfast

My Feedback: (31)

Saito 1.80 Golden Night, Dave Brown mount you might want to cut a small slot out so the carb can fit nice and snug, 18X6 APC wide prop, H-9 Ultra Stick 1.20 gear and it fits awesome plenty of clearence.

The plane balances out around 6.5 I might buy a 20oz tank and move it back a little.

let me know if you need pics

later