AeroFinn

Blw,


It's a new cylinder, piston, piston ring, connecting rod, camgear, both front and main bearing..

So virtually there isn't much left from the original engine. One might ask what's the point of rebuilding the engine if that much new parts are needed? The reason is, I want to learn to service my engines. The other reason is that as Saito original bearings are of such a poor quality I would need to do the bearing job for a new engine pretty soon anyways. And again, this requires skills to assemble the engine properly.

Btw After the running-in phase I will be using Aerosave oil which is a high quality synthetic oil and popular here in Europe. The reason I'v been thinking of using castor for running in the engine is that the lubrication properties of Aerosave are so good that it takes forever to complete the running-in of a new engine.
My theory is that if you run the engine in at fairly rich needle settings the temps probably won't increse to the point the castor starts to burn onto the valves. This together with the fact that 40 minutes running is only about 4 tanks or so. Therefore, if the only disadvantage of using castor oil is sticky valves in the long run you can avoid this by switching to good quality synthetic after the ferst few original tanks with castor. The advantage with castor (as I see it) in running-in phase is the castor helps to keep the temperature down to avoid overheating and with castor the engine runs in faster than with modern high quality synthetic oils.

I''ll be glad to stand corrected if my theory fails completely in case someone has "been there, done that"

regatds Artto

Rudolph Hart

I can't see a problem with castor oil maybe some tuners relied on it's never say die qualities to much,like to hear what dave thinks about that.

Rudolph Hart

Yes you are right about castor being short term protection if you don't pump atf into the engine when not flying it weekly.Could you epand on the supplied fuel thing? the golden era racing with big saito's sounds fun please keep us posted mate.

hsukaria

Saito original bearings are poor quality? Is that the consensus here? I never heard that before.

AeroFinn

It seems to be many people are switching to stainless steel bearings after getting tired of changing bearings once in a season despite of use of after-run oil. This may be due to the poor quality of the original bearings of at least some models, such as FA-100 and FA-125a. How knows for sure? For some reason some people seem to be luckier than others..

Quikturn

My Feedback: (12)

+1 on stainless steel bearings. I thought I did everything right with my Saito 65 but still ended up with notchy bearings after the first winter in storage. No problems once I went with a SS set from RC Bearings.

UltimateFlyer120

My Feedback: (5)

I'm sold on stainless bearings for my Saito's. The stock ones don't last very long for me.

FNQFLYER

Old fart, in Old timer flying, in the dark ages people used to have all sorts of "special fuels"  most of which had nasties that caused cancer or were unobtainable by the general populance.  So it was decided that in Texaco in particular (which is esstentially an economy test plus flying and model selection skill thing) that the combatants would have 2 choices, use Contest Director supplied fuel, and get a greater allocation per pound weight of the a/c, or you could use your own.  All ok, castor based fuel was the order of the day with usually 10% nitro (or no nitro at all).  The along came the "modern" Saitos and OS engines that specifically stated not to use castor and as I remember had recommended oil percentages for the fuel mix.  Thus resulted the rule change that now has 3 fuels "supplied" by the CD.  No nitro, Nitro with castor and Nitro with synthetic.  The castor based fuels as falling out of favour.  BTB we all use our own brews for Duration (vertical drag race) and diesel and of course the O&R and othefold sparkies.
Re the Golden Era racing the big Saitos in both petrol and glo are being looked at.  I'll try to talk to Saito Japan before we make any move there, but I can tell you there is a Mew Gull made by the boys in Rocky that is waiting to be finished and fitted out.  After the Gratton do the guy from Horizon Hobbies took 3 back to the States, at $1200 for just the base fuse and wing and tail feathers.  They are that good and I gather 3 went to the UK    

FNQFLYER

Re bearings, once I finish my relocation (2,000k's close to competitions and otherflying) I will be continuing with my investigations into ceramic bearings and pistons and needle roller bearing fit outs for survvability and increased performance.  It has been an of and on again project of mine for the past couple of years.  I like stainless but they require looking after if you use higher nitro content fuels

Hobbsy

My Feedback: (102)

Tom, several of the Saito needle valves are not needl;es at all, but are a sleeves that moves in and out over a cats eye in the spraybar. It indeed can be removed. Picture #1 is most likely what your 1.00 has and picture #2 is of an .80 LS needle.

Hobbsy

My Feedback: (102)

Hey OF, I've been in Fla. for about 8 days so I'm playing catch up. I am a fan of castor and have mentioned before that my Saito .80, 1.50 and my Enya .46MKII were all three ran on Fox 15% fuel with 20% castor for two seasons, three for the .80 with no caking, no coking on the valves, only the mufflers suffered some ugliness. I also ran some Fox 5% fuel with 20% 50/50 syn/castor blend for a while. I'm still convinced that castor is our friend.

As for bearings, I feel strongly that people change bearings way too often. Most will easily go 10 years unless using the green stuff.

Rudolph Hart

I don't think the standard saito bearings are 'bad' especially in their bigger engines.My own problems stemmed from a lack of after run oil in the early days.Now i just squeeze an ounce of atf into the vent nipple and spin it up with the starter,never had any trouble since.

Hobbsy

My Feedback: (102)

Along the way I've used Corrosion X and now use NAPA Fogging Oil which costs about 1/5th as much as the CX. I also learned that WD 40 is worse than using nothing at all.

blw

My Feedback: (3)

I'm with you on the fogger idea. I just need to remember to stop in the NAPA place.

Castor takes more heat over synthetics, and doesn't turn to ash when over heated.

Jim Branaum

My Feedback: (3)

A long time ago I did some comparisons and decided that ATF did not 'stick' to bearing surfaces well enough for me, as was confirmed by bad bearings. So I looked around until I found something that solved my problems AND was easy to find.

For more than 20 years I have been using Rislone as my after run oil in everything and my Saito's love it. What I like is to do is put some in the vent tube and prop the engine enough that it sucks the oil in. I tend to store my planes engine down which makes the oil run to the front bearing that rarely gets lubrication. The next time I go flying, the first run of the engine is a bit laggy and rich as it exhausts the excessive oil which tells me it stayed in the engine and protected the bearings.

I bought a quart 20 years ago and still have around 1/2 of it.

The ONLY Saito bearings I have ever had to replace because they were rough were also were involved in those sudden stops that accompany lawn darts.[:@]
YMMV

FNQFLYER

Guys there are varying grades of ATF better look for MIL spec 5056 (red hydraulic oil) which is what I use. This was the original ATF before we all go smart.  As a point I would never use the green Chev recommended (Holden to us) automatc gear box oil, full of nasties.  Corrosion X should never be used any where it is subject to heat other than ambient (read the use specs) and please consider that any, repeat any,normal oil (even Klotz etc) is better than nothing after the days flying.
Re castor all that varnish plus the general glug left behind convinced me to move to synthetic mind you I still use it (castor) 4 stroke diesels.
As I said you use what suits you the best and so what if we disagree it all makes the world go round huh
BTB old fart we have blue skies again

Rudolph Hart

It's all thunderstorms and no flying here.Next time i go past repco or coventrys i'll look for that oil mate.I like the bronze colour you get from castor and it sure smells good,used to get spoon fed that stuff as a kid,wish mum could have added a bit of nitro to the mix.Hope the move is going well.

ps dave hope you had a good break mate,cheers

UltimateFlyer120

My Feedback: (5)

Maybe my stock bearing problem might be I run 30% heli fuel. The stainless bearings hold up to my flying style and the stock does not. I use after run oil.

smkrcflyer

Lots of good info hear. I use 15% heli fuel but I'm not real good at using any kind of after run oil. I guess its something I should be doing or I will get good at replacing bearings.

hsukaria

How do you inject oil into the vent tube? Do you use a syringe or a squeeze bulb?

SrTelemaster150

I bought a small plastic bottle of some sort of light oil several years ago.

It has a small tube within the spout tube that allows either inverted or upright dispensing depending on whether the inner end of the tube is pulled out to the spout or left @ the bottom of the bottle.

It is just the right size to insert into small fuel line tubing. I insert the tube into 1 end of the fuel line tubing & place the other end of the fule line tubing over the vent nipple. I then squeeze a few CCs of oil into the case as well as the ports.

I only use ARO when the engines are put up for the season or otherwise not going to be used for a while.

I use ATF.

SrTelemaster150

I only use ARO when the engines are put up for the season or otherwise not going to be used for a while.

I use Morgan Cool Power 15% full synthetic glow fuel.

Never any corrosion issues if I store my engine in a climate controled enviornment. (in the house) I have taken engines that were stored for 14 years out & put them into service W/nothing more than some oil injected into the case & turning the engines upside down & every-which-way to distribute the oil as well as rotating then crank to distribute the oil thoroughly.

Jim Branaum

My Feedback: (3)

I put a fuel tubing extension on it to get the waste away from the airframe if possible. When I am injecting the oil, I use a bottle (might have been an old after run oil bottle - I don't remember) that has a flip nipple on it and I put a chunk of 1/8 brass tubing into that and put that into the extension. That way I also can see the engine take the oil.

Hope that was descriptive enough.

hsukaria

Yep, thanks. I just have to go back and put a longer vent tube so that I can access it without having to remove the engine cowl.

FNQFLYER

Bearings:  I have only had any sort of bearing problem (minimal) when using my models in the tropics and that I put down to humidity. I don't include any problems resulting from extreme use here.  30% Heli fuel (Powermaster mix using the low viscosity Klotz or Cool power oil can't remember which for the minute) has not caused any problems in the YS engines and is in fact our base Duration fuel when we don't mix our own.
The first after run oil I used was Prather oil (produced in the states) which was an after run oil the model boat guys used.  Cost a fortune and when I got it analysed (by modeller chemist person) I found it that is was 95% Mil Spec 5056, hydraulic oil, just like we used in DC3s and 4s.  Hence the switch and when I got lazy and bought an automatic gear box type car I noticed that the fluid was also predominatelt 5056 (this is way back in the 70's.  So I put aside a stock of it and have been using ever since.  Moral find an A&P guy and get him to acqwuire somefor you.  It works well with all seals and gaskets we use and doesn't hurt any of the fuel lines.  Re syringes, check out the local vet for varying sizes or medical suply shops all good places for modelling stuff.