RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Synthetics have come a looooooong way since then.
The lubricity offered by modern PAG oils is only matched and often surpassed by POE.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

TimBle,

I wish I knew for sure. Truth is I have seen some use after run and some not with Cool Power. Some get rust either way, and some don't. It even works that way with other brands of fuels. I know it doesn't make any sense. I have several hundred engines( mostly glow) that I have to trust my method and it has worked great for me. Obviously they all can't be used at the same time, so some are stored and others used more frequently. I use different system depending on that factor( storage or use). At the end of the day, I'm sure that everyone does what has worked for them. As for the newbies that are trying to learn, get all the info you can from every side, and make your decision. Ultimately, each has to live with consequences of their own decision. I don't wish rusty bearings on anyone, just alot of good days of flying! Good luck to all.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Well that's all any of us can do any way.<div>
</div><div>The lubricant is always blamed for rust issues but it appears no one has considered the methanol quality or the other factors I've mentioned earlier in the thread.</div><div>Its a shame because, that probably where the true problem lies, no with the lubes. Synthetics are trusted in anything from gearbox oils to cutting fluids to high specific output engines, to compressors running high solvency highly volatile refridgerants.</div><div>
</div><div>I trust CoolPower, and Model Technics with ML70. I've had bad batches of both fuels and those cans are consigned to engine cleaner. There are no quality specifications for model engine glow fuel and that leaves a great big barn open for all kinds of issues to develop. Impure Methanol being the primary culprit</div>

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

"The debate on castor vs synthetic will rage on for years and probably take us well into the century."
Goodie, Iwouldnt want to get bored around here. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f...wink_smile.gif

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Just keep your lube holster handy. Never know when General Castor is going to walk through the door.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

I don't think you can categorize Americans as this or that regarding lube oil. This is the same as people sometimes categorizing Europeans as being afraid of nitro and thus not importing it. We know that to not be true.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

What I am curious about is when a synthetic will be developed that will meet or exceed the high temperature protection offered by castor?

Here in the USA we have synthetics such as Klotz, Amzoil, Red Line, Bel Ray, Stihl, etc. So these are exactly as good as the highly recommended European Motul types of synthetic then? Are these a PAG or POE type?

From JAKA's past description of pylon racing and high temps with synthetics in Europe I've often wondered why our synthetics don't provide the high temp protection that he describes.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Stihl in America...soso. Where do you think they are mainly located?

Regards,

Holm

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

STihl is blended by Bp. Its a global contract so the formulation they use in Europe is used in the USA. If the blend stock is not available in the USA then the product is blended at an LOBP in Europe and shipped to the US as finished product.
Same for compressore oils based on the latest PAG, POE and alkyl Benzenes and these are either imported or blended locally in the US.

The fixation on European POE oils is probably derived from its use in the Aviation industry for turbine oils. However PAG's actually offer better properties relating to how our engines operate. Its true there are PAG's and then there are PAG's. But with the European Lubricant companies making inroads into the US market over the last 10 yrs they've taken their base oil technology and moved into the US market as well.
The reason it has not moved into the RC fuel blenders realm yet is probably due to market reluctance and high purcahse volune for the baseoils and additives. Then there is the aspect of working with oils they don't know and that s big risk if they get it wrong.<br type="_moz" />

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Friend had a brand new Saito 100 and he flew it twice with Cool Power and put it on the shelf with no after run. After three months on the shelf He flew two more times and the engine seized up when the bearing exploded and they had corrosion. Now we both use after run immediately after wefly regardless of when it will be when we fly again. I use pnuematic too oil. It works fine.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

They don't. The flash point temps are about the same, and below that of castor.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

I wasn't going to delve into this thread much, but I will share my experience with a rusted piston ring. I have two planes, but I am not ready to fly them yet as I'm awaiting further flight instruction from my flying buddy. In the mean time, I have ran most of my engines on airboats as a method of getting to know the engines and get them broke in well before putting them in the air. I had been running a full castor homebrew fuel at 20-25% content depending on cylinder construction, and 5% nitromethane. The full castor regimen was used because the engines are used in a wet environment most of the time and its well known castor has an affinity for metal and its rust protection is second to none, nearly. The engine I had a problem with was my SuperTigre S90K ringed. On the full castor brew I never had any problems with the engine. It hasnt rusted inside or needed bearings replaced. It is running on the original factory bearings and piston ring from 1983 when it was made. In an attempt to cut down on the slime on the boat hull and varnish on the engine/muffler, I tried a few tanks of a 50/50 blend of castor and Klotz techniplate. This time and only this time did I end up with a stick piston/ring in the cylinder. It wasn't stuck hard, but it was stuck enough to warrant pulling the head off to see what happened. A thin rust line around where the piston ring was is all I saw. Some #0000 ultra fine steel wool took the rust off the liner and I re-ran the engine on the test stand on 20% castor and the engine ran fine. Compression is great. This phenomena hasn't happened since. When I'm done running for the day, I disconnect the fuel tank and run the engine until it will not run anymore. I then drop the piston to BDC and leave it like that until I run it next. I did this same exercise before the rust problem, and since then. No further problems since going back to the full castor brew.

Could it be a fluke? Maybe. Could it have been water ingestion into the engine on the final moments the engine was running? No. Have I since started using ARO at the end of the day? No. If I ever use more than 5% synthetic then I will use some ARO at the end of the day in my ringed engines. I'm not terribly concerned with my ABC/ABN engines as they have stainless bearings already, and my lapped iron/steel engines get 25% castor without question. And NO, I'm not Dr. Castor. I'm just cheap and use it almost exclusively because its cheap, AND it smells good. Could I get a few more rpm by using more synthetic? Yup. Do I care? Nope.

I'm done ranting. I'll grab some popcorn. I'm curious to see what others have to say of my experience.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

how old is the engine?
How long was it run on castror before the switch to the 50/50 mix
What was the mix ratio of the 50/50 mix? 15%. 20%

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

The engine was made in the early 80's. 1983 roughly. It was run on full castor fuel from the time I got it. When the rusted ring happened, it had about 1.5 gallons of fuel through it. The 50/50 oil blend was 20% total content and the needle was 800rpm rich of peak. I think it was a fluke, it was a pretty hot and humid when it happened. 95 degrees and 80%+ humidity. There was a fair amount of oil in the bottom of the crankcase so I don't feel it was anything I did "wrong" aside from changing the fuel.

The engine runs superbly now and has no lasting effects from the rusty ring as far as I can tell. Backflip starts first try every time almost.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Cool Power 15% has been my fuel of choice for years. I currently have only one glow engine a Saito FA 82 that I purchased new in the fall of '08. I fly the plane this engine is on a lot going thru about two gallons a month, more in the warmer months but I generally fly year round.

I have never used ARO in this engine. Sometimes I run the engine dry and sometimes I don't. Other than check the valve clearances I don't have to do much to the engine.

Last August I started hearing a different sound coming from the engine. I decided to tear the engine down and found the rear bearing a little rough so both were changed. The Saito was as good as new.

I ran out of Cool Power, the LHS doesn't stock it. I tried some Wild Cat Premium Xtra. 15% Nitro, 18% Oil Synthetic/Castor blend. The first gallon ran great , I even saw about a 500 rpm increase. The second gallon was not as good. I had my first dead stick ever with this engine. The needles were checked, valves clearances were checked, and the glow plug was changed twice. I just could not get the engine to run like it did in the past! I gave up after three tanks. I suspect that the second gallon of Wild Cat was just bad fuel. The box it came out of looked like a jug or two had leaked.

I found a friend that had some 15% CP and bought a jug from him. The Saito was back to its old self after one tank. The needles took a little bit of adjustment. I even put back the plug I thought may have been bad and it ran just fine.

Thats my experience with Cool Power………like they say your results may vary. Who knows if I had used ARO I might have gone four more years before the bearings needed changing. :D

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Bearings wear out, thats a fact as death itself.<div>
</div><div>1Qwksport2.5r, One possibility I have seen in some industrial machines is when changing over to lube oils with a different baseoil or even very different additive packages is that there is sometimes some oxidation effcts within the oils themselves, hence I always recommended a flush out of the machine with the new oil, drain and refill before recommissioning the machine,</div><div>
</div><div>with a model engine in the environment you operated yours, the water and its properties of hardness or salinity could be have been a contributing factor over and above the simple change out.</div><div>
</div><div>The occasions when I changed fuel I always flushed the engine with the new fuel and lube before running it. Just flood it and run it off the start for about 10seconds. I always found the engines to want to run a little rough on the change over but with the flushing they simply fired right up and ran well.</div><div>
</div><div>Not too mention that the Synthetic component would also have increases the detergency of your lube oils and it could have losened rust from elsewhere in the fuel path and that deposited on the rings.</div><div>
</div><div>Very hard to provide a definative answer sorry but your story is interesting and worthy of further consideration</div>

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Timble - I'm in a freshwater environment thankfully. I've ran my other ringed engines on the same fuel blend with the 50/50 oil mixture in the same enironment and didn't have this happen. No rust has flaked off anywhere else inside the engine; they are pristine inside. The ring itself rusted to the liner. It left an orange line all the way around the liner. I noticed it the day after I ran the engine so it ended up not being a big deal

My ABC car engines didn't bat an eye at either full castor fuel or a 50/50 blend of oils. They turn more rpm with some synthetic in the mix. None of my engines have any rust anywhere else inside. I pop the backplates off from time to time to catch rusty bearings before they get bad.

I'm chalking it up to being a fluke with my ST S90K.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

I'd 2nd that. Probably the ring material or something got in there that promoted the rust at that interface.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

There was oils made from animal drippingsthat werechanged in such a way that changed that changed their molecular structure, thus synthetic.

The modern bearings are not just close tolerance (small oil clearance or gap between journal and bearing) but also use a plastic and composite materials allowing such close tolerance without damage to the bearing material. It is not just a matter of machining to close tolerance, that could be done before CDC machining.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

I do not believe thos high performance PAG oils are used in our fuel because of the cost.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

These are not the lower quality synthetics we must use in our model engines.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

"we must use"....<div>Please explain. </div><div>
</div><div>At $2.50 /L for a 20L drum of PAG I think there's margin for a good quality, and please also differentiate the differences in "quality".</div><div>
</div><div>I would be quite keen to understand what you perceive these to be since you're speaking from a position of authority in this matter.</div>

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

My opinion on synthetic oil quality is simply that Synthetics designed for gasoline use are formulated much better and perform much better than those designed for methanol fueled model engines. Perhaps the lubricity of gasoline aids in the synthetics ability to lubricate and protect an engine, whereas methanol is "dry" and has no lubrication properties whatsoever. I use Amsoil Dominator injector oil in my fullsize fishing boat with Johnson 120hp v4 outboard. The fuel pump automatically mixes fuel at 50:1 at rpm and about 70:1 at idle. It creates as much carbon on the pistons and heads as mineral oil did, but it smokes much less. The smoke factor alone is why I use it. Mineral oils for outboards aren't much cheaper than the synthetics, whereas in model engines, synthetics are at minimum twice as expensive as castor oil which IMHO is the age-old failsafe. Castor just works, and if you run it lean, most often the oil will save your tail. Synthetics (I speak of what is commercially available here in the USA) don't have the lean run protection or viscosity that Castor has so a lean run might toast your engine. Now if we had some good ester based synthetics, my opinion would be different. As of now, I use synthetic oil in model engine fuel very sparingly, mostly in RC Car engines. These engines dont like a lot of castor because of the rpm they turn.

I am not a fan of synthetics in model engines, generally. In gasoline engines, it works okay. Not as clean burning as I would like, but you can't win 'em all.

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

Gentlemen your claims of which is the better, castor vs. synthetics, which after run oil home made vs. purchased or what fuel is the best is all a crock of doo doo in my opinion. Chances are if you have had a problem in the past it has been something you have or have not done. When you consider the many modelers who are doing everything wrong according to your opinions yet don’t seem to have the problems you have encountered it becomes pretty obvious who might be at fault. I have run just about every kind of fuel commercially available and all worked just fine. Some were messy others were less so. The engines didn’t seem to care. When you consider the run time of a model engine compared to any other internal combustion application you sound a little ridiculous discussing the necessity of the need for lubricants designed for extreme conditions. A 15 to 20 minute run even at full throttle is not anywhere in the realm of extreme conditions. I doubt most put less than two hours run time per flying session and what maybe twice a week at that. As to doubting the quality of today’s synthetics I have one of the first YS 120 engines. It’s used in a Lazy Ace and has so many gallons of synthetic through it I have lost count. I use it as a glider tug with a cradle on top or tow line and it runs wide open to altitude once the release is done it dives vertical with the engine at an idle probably resulting in super cooling the cylinder. Thirty seconds of free fall I flair it at my feet and with it idling the next glider is attached. Then to full throttle to altitude again. My tank is 28 oz and I can repeat this 5 times before refueling. This engine has been in this service for well over 15 years with no lubrication failures. The internals are clean and shiny. I know what it was like when I used to mix my own fuel or buy the castor stuff and yes it works and works well but except for my bushing engines, give me pure synthetic any time over the others. You guys are beginning to sound silly, like teenagers comparing swords in the shower. Like Spaceballs “My Swartz is bigger than your Swartz” http://movieclips.com/PWVBE-spacebal...s-big-as-mine/

Can't ya just answer the question asked with out all the posturing.

i use kool power fuel and the jug says that no after run oil is needed for storage. i understand that after run oil wont hurt, but will the kool power work do the same?
thanks all sb

Dennis

RE: kool power and after run oil
 

I prefer to not leave things to chance, and err on the side of caution. Ive seen too many rusted up engines used in a variety of applications and I personally dont want mine looking like that. If that is silly to you, well, so be it. My philosophy is "go with what works". I do what works, and what I can afford. I dont know what cool power or omega sell for in your area, but both fuels sell for $34-38 a gallon in my neck of the woods depending on nitro content.