proptop

My Feedback: (8)

So...that must be where the FoxaCoy's come from?!
From what I've read they make a good C/L Stunt engine...what is it exactly that is swapped between the Fox and McCoy?

landeck

My Feedback: (1)

Just replace all of the McCoy parts with Fox parts and you will have a great engine!

Bruce

GallopingGhostler

Yup, couldn't agree more. I had a choice, upgrade power to a Schneurle .15 or the cross scavenged Enya .19-VI. I'll take the Enya any day over the Schneurle. It is one really bad engine.

blw

My Feedback: (3)

I bought one of the very first ones when they hit the market and it outperformed the 46FX it replaced right out of the box. It did have a pinhole leak in the fuel tubing from the remote needle to the carb soon after buying it. It is one of the best 2 strokes I've got. I just removed the liner and piston, and put all of the parts excluding carb on their sides in a sonic cleaner. Turned the parts over and cleaned the other sides. It ran like champ last week. It is a very high time engine. I bought 6 of the newer ones about 3 years ago.

yosephwhite

My Feedback: (34)

I have only had a real bad experance with one engine, the Evolution that came in my PTS Mustang. That thing gave me nothing but problems and was made for a beginer! I even had a guy at my club field who had the same engine (that did work properly) try and get it running correctly but it never did. Horizon Hobbies did replace it with a new one (they are awesome at customer service!) but after I took it out I just replaced it with and O.S. 46FX and never had another problem. I think you can get a bad engine from any company and after getting frustrated and either crashing or almost crashing a plane it's easy to jump on the bashing wagon.
 My best advice would be to go with an O.S. engine they set up easly and the instructions that come with them are good and make sense to the beginer. Good luck and enlist the help of a local club member to help you with it!

Scrubmonkey

the only one i would recomend staying away from first is supertigre. they are great engines but getting them to run is a pia. if the needles are slightly off you wont get it running long enough to tune it. i found a site that had intructions for getting them about righ and from there it only needed a slight tweak. if they arent right then the mid range will be rich and you will have problems of it cutting out in the air. the engine needs to be tuned "in the air as like what i believe a gas engine has to be.

blw

My Feedback: (3)

The worst thing Horizon did was to not put OS A3 plugs in the Evolution glow engines. I don't think that Clarence Lee reviewed the .45 PTS engine, but he liked the original 46NT, 40 Alpha, and 61NT engines a lot.

earlwb

BLW, unfortunately, OS is imported by Great Planes and Evolution is imported by Horizon. They are competitors thus they can't use each others parts. So they would be unable to use OS glow plugs then. Besides OS plugs are too expensive. Now they could have used Fox plugs though, I think Fox plugs are better than OS plugs anyway. But then since the Evo glow engines are made in China and expect the plugs to be made inChina too.

blw

My Feedback: (3)

The Evos need hot plugs. The first runs need break in plugs anyway.

fiery

My Feedback: (2)

Sounds like Fireball 'Hot' (red seal), McCoy MC-55, or or any other standard long reach "hot" range plug would be fine.

I have an Evolution 60NX sitting in a box .. pretty sure it came with a Hangar 9 OS "F" copy installed.

GallopingGhostler

Those Swanson Associates Fireball Hot Red plugs do wonders. My OS Max10R/C cross scavenged engine would not start with a Fox idle bar plug. I replaced it with a standard non-idle bar Fireball Red, and it became a different engine, easy starting with several flips of the chicken stick, good sustained idling, etc.

A change in plugs will sometimes turn a bad engine into a good one.

Seeing a good number of Perry carburetors on certain brands of engines tells me that they turn a bad engine into a good one.

I saw a picture of one Fuji .099S engine with an Enya .09 carburetor. I imagine that it turned a bad engine into a good one.

aspeed

A lot of the motors don't take a long reach plug any more.  I had a TT .10 that was really making me mad, It wouldn't idle low enough to land without quitting.  A short reach was up too far in the head and a long stuck out.  It needed a middle reach OS (or Enya).  2 washers on a long reach plug work, but at an rpm loss on the top end.  I have a few cards of Fireball plugs, and the seals blow on them.  They work fine until then.  Maybe I run higher compression than they can take.  I usually take out the head spacer for the last 500 rpm.

GallopingGhostler

Then perhaps the Fireball is unsuited for high compression engines. I don't know how their latest batch is. The ones I have are older Fireballs, bought several cards of them years ago, still have some left.

The engines I use them on are medium / lower compression engines. For these they work fine. I like to swing larger diameter lower pitch props for sport flying. I enjoy the fuel economy provided since the engines are turning over at a slightly lower RPM in flight.

Perhaps if you weren't milking out every last ounce of performance from your engines you'd have better luck with the Fireballs? (Sorry, just kidding.)

sarpet

fox.25 very bad disappointment

GallopingGhostler

Could you explain?

earlwb

All of the Fox .25's I have and ran in the past worked great. They all ran nice for me. But a couple took forever to break in as they were tight from the factory.

I remember buying a Magnum GP-25 many years ago, circa 1990 or thereabouts, and it ran horrible, the carb was simply crap on it. I got lucky and found a OS .20-.25 carb on sale at a hobby shop and bought it and then the engine turned out to be a pretty nice engines. That was back when they could make a decent engine but couldn't make a decent carburetor for it.


here is a oldie but goodie, a old Fox .25 on my coroplast Pizza box flyer plane. it works fine.

Mr Cox

Fox engines got a really bad reputation around here when you had to run "tooth paste" through them in order for the parts to mate properly. Over do it and you wear out your engine before it is run in...

I know it is a long time ago but that gave them a bad reputation and appart from a few CL fliers we never see them around here.

(I have a modern Fox .15BB myself and it is fine)

fiery

My Feedback: (2)

My only complaint concerning my 2012 Fox BB .15 is that the piston and liner fit is not tight enough to make an ideal conversion to diesel operation

Wish it was tighter and I had to run it in more!

The twin needle carb on it operates perfectly, though the ratchet springs are very tight and the needle knobs are so thin it hurts your fingers to grip and turn them.

GallopingGhostler

I've got one of those, a later model with MX carb on it. Glad I got it before the supply of them dried up.

1QwkSport2.5r

I'm beginning to think that a "bad engine" is a subjective term depending on who you talk to. Other than some really really old crappy ones, most of them seem to be pretty decent? Maybe a carburetor or glow plug change is all thats needed on a "bad engine" to turn it into a "good egine"...

Sport_Pilot

As I recall Fox also gave you to option of exchanging the motors. That solution was meant for those who had to fly right away.

earlwb

Fox did get a bad reputation from people wanting more instant gratification without much if any, break in. Some Fox engines were pretty tight right out of the box and took a longer time than normal to break in good. Since you couldn't lean it out until it got run in good, you may have had trouble trying to fly it then too.People didn't have any patience at the time they wanted instant gratification. People also seemed to never read the instructions on how to set the carburetors and they would invariably mess up the adjustments.

For a number of years here in the USA, Fox setup the engines with high compression, at the timeFox wanted people to use FAI fuel or 5% nitro glow fuel and on those high compression engines it caused lots of trouble when people kept trying to use higher nitro glow fuels in them. They usually didn't like 15% or 20% nitro glow fuel which was what a lot of people were buying. So it tended to give the OS engines a huge boost, when OS made the engines a little more loose so they didn't have much of a break in, and low compression so they could run higher nitro glow fuels. OS also went with easier more simple looking carbs that made it easier for people to adjust them (they sort ofhide thelow speed needle from the users). So OS played right into the market where people wanted instant gratification and using higher nitro glow fuels. So obviously OS pretty much won that situation.

Now then Enya engines tended to have the same long break in issues that Fox engines had too. But both Fox and Enya engines tend to last forever as compared to some other brands that seemingly wear out in a season or two. I still remember quite a few people hating Enya engines as it took too long to break them in as well.

I wound up with a large number of Fox engines where I would get them from frustrated users who didn't have any patience to deal with the engines. So I sort of have a lifetime supply of Fox engines and I seldom need to put on a different engine on a plane as the engines just don't wear out.

1QwkSport2.5r

I think a lot of those headaches those people had could have been avoided if they had a better idea as to what they were getting themselves into... Obviously there wasn't as good of a information trail back then as there is today, so like was said before, some people didnt 'get the memo' on long break-ins on Fox, Enya, and even SuperTigre. SuperTigre newbies have trouble for a couple reasons.. Same reason as why those people go to OS.. Instant gratification. High $$ cost, fast break-in, faster wear-out. The tighter an engine is the better. In the words of Dub Jett, ' A tight engine means you're getting your money's worth in power and longevity'.

earlwb

Have you noticed how many engines had Perry carbs put on them. I have seen numerous Fox engines, and SuperTigre engines with Perry carbs on them. Conley still makes a Perry carb adapter for Fox engines too.

The current Fox carburetor also hides the low speed needle inside. So it is less confusing to a new user. But the engines still need a good break in before you can use them well. But the break in isn't as long as it was in the past, I think Fox put in lower compression heads on them now versus the older high compression heads they used years ago. That helps a lot with breaking in the engines.

GallopingGhostler

Can't say because I really don't know. Wonder if Fox is now using newer numerical control equipment that machines with tighter specifications. They do this now in automobiles, break in is quicker with very little oil loss. I used to remember back in the 1960's, it was normal during an engine overhaul for the vehicle to burn a little oil and it took longer to break in. Honing was more coarse. It looks primitive by today's standards, IMO. Also, isn't Fox now gone overall except for some of the CL engines to ABC technology?