Needle Valve settings
 

Hi.

I have a Kyoho Caliber 3 heli with an Irvine .39 engine. I am very happy with the heli. The only thing I'm not 100% sure of is the correct way of going about setting the low-end and top-end needle valves on a heli. With airplanes you just open the throttle completely and listen to the sound of the engine to set the needle. Is there any tips to set the low end and the high end values of a heli? And also, if you are in a hover and you give a fair amount of + collective quickly, should the engine revs drop as the heli climbs?
Thank you

RE: Needle Valve settings
 

This is something of a dark-art with the Caliber. I have the stock Kyosho engine (GX36) and found that it over heats very easily. I had to drill a 25mm hole below the engine (holesaw) to better monitor the engine temp. I now run Xfuel (supplied by Henke Beyers from SAModelSport) 15% and that solved a lot of my engine worries. The low range should initially be set as per the motor manual. Make the high range too rich. Set the low range leaner until it idles reliably (if the idle speed drops when you remove the glow-driver - go a bit leaner, I found this to be a good measure of low range). Spool up the heli and lift off. Set the high range leaner (2 or 3 clicks at a time) until you get a good throttle response/transition from idle to hover and good headspeed. Look for good amounts of smoke and check the engine temp after a minute or two.

I have found that it is very difficult to set good throttle and pitch curves that compliment each other, it sounds like you need to ramp up the throttle curve a bit or perhaps all that positive pitch (plastic links, try a flatter pitch curve) is over loading the engine. I can climb out (quite impressively for a 30) at full throttle with just a small drop in rpm. Do you have the kit-supplied training blades fitted? Those things have a lot of aerodynamic and inirtial drag! My biggest headache is an over revving engine while flaring (due to extra translational lift) and when I bring down the throttle curve a bit to compensate, it struggles to pick up rpm when climbing out again. I am thinking of putting a throttle jockey on the thing but thats a lot of cash to spend on the Caliber.....

Good Luck!