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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/10/2007 9:36:50 PM   
blw



Posts: 4619
Joined: 3/15/2004
From: Auburn, AL, USA
Status: offline 		I've lived in other countries and have seen some crazy stuff. What is taxed higher in Europe, for example, may be dirt cheap here. But, we also levy some heavy taxes on things ourselves. Nitro is an example where the lack of availability counts for price increases, but in other places it may only be high taxation. We've seen this go on with engines.

The thing about all of this is that it usually doesn't make much sense on any side of the world with taxes, shipping rates, and other charges. I've sent electronics to friends in several other countries because of this.

Unfortunately, out-of-control lawyers are not just in the U.S. If you look, you will find examples.

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/11/2007 12:01:45 AM   
Ed Cregger


 

Posts: 8052
Joined: 1/31/2002
From: Ringgold, GA, USA
Status: online
quote:

ORIGINAL: blw

I've lived in other countries and have seen some crazy stuff. What is taxed higher in Europe, for example, may be dirt cheap here. But, we also levy some heavy taxes on things ourselves. Nitro is an example where the lack of availability counts for price increases, but in other places it may only be high taxation. We've seen this go on with engines.

The thing about all of this is that it usually doesn't make much sense on any side of the world with taxes, shipping rates, and other charges. I've sent electronics to friends in several other countries because of this.

Unfortunately, out-of-control lawyers are not just in the U.S. If you look, you will find examples.



-----------------


Lawyers can't win cases that lack merit. Remove the product problems (merit) and the cases will become unprofitable, providing no incentive for lawyers to pursue such suits.


Ed Cregger



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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/13/2007 6:14:57 AM   
AndyW


 

Posts: 1919
Joined: 1/17/2003
From: Timmins, ON, CANADA
Status: offline 		I live in a small mining town in the middle of nowhere. The nearest hobby shop is 200 miles away, a four hour drive if you do the speed limit. Fuel there, is 45 dollars a gallon for 25% Cool Power. Here, in the big city, it's 30 dollars a gallon. This big city is 400 miles away. I travel two to three times a year and buy fuel when I do. When I run out of glow fuel I'm stuck.

When I run out of diesel fuel, I just make some more. Aviation, non detergent oil is available, we have a lot of bush plane activity. Ether is from the John Deere dealer. Kerosene and MEKP from the hardware store. I've since substituted the MEKP for the Amsoil product, it's cheap and easy to get with no Hazmat issues. Not to mention Benol by Klotz, easy by mail order and even this small town has bike and snowmachine shops that carry it or can order it with no shipping fees added to the price.

Without the capacity to make my own diesel fuel, I would not be into diesel in any significant way. I bought some Davis product, by mail order, a great many years ago that had you add an equal amount of kerosene to it. I had no idea as to what I was doing and can't even remember what engine I tried it on.

This is Toronto, the biggest, baddest city in Canada, some 3 million. Not big by some standards but no slouch. I got to see Brad Pitt at the opening of the new Jesse James movie during the Toronto Film Festival, currently running.

I've visited some 7 or 8 hobby shops and four flying fields so far. Diesel???? Nope, and one shop was owned by a Brit who once ran diesels extensively but now talks nothing but, (oh god the humanity) ELECTRIC. One shop knew of a true diesel fanatic and the owner took my name, number and email Addy to pass on to him. I presume he got the message but so far, he's shown no interest in connecting with the only other diesel nut within 600 miles, (it seems).

At the flying fields, No one ever heard of anyone bench running a diesel, never mind flying one. As it is, I have two small glow planes with me. The reason no diesel? The smell. Not to be tolerated by my travelling companions and certainly not by the folks who run the accommodations we're in. I was warned ahead of time. So no, I wasn't able to demonstrate what we're so passionate about.

It's my opinion that like me, if more folks knew that they could mix their own fuel, they'd venture to try diesel, and stick with it. Yes, you CAN order it from the diesel center of the universe. But the expense of doing so, in no way compensates for the rightfully claimed double the mileage.

Lots of people just want to buy and fly a product. Some will venture to buy a head and try diesel. IF THAT'S ALL THEY HAD TO DO. But no, buy a head and you're always wondering, like the hobo, where the next meal is going to come from. So you have the head, you bought some fuel, got hooked, and then as you continuously had to order fuel and deal with freight hassles and cost, you gave up and shelved your stinky engine as a curiosity for the guys to ignore when they dropped by. But then, one day, you came across an article, or a thread on the Net and you mixed your first homebrew and glory be, it RAN. And ran well, by gum. And then you realized that your engine ran better because you read that lots of ether helped a lot, especially on the small engines. (You never knew what was in the commercial mix). You realized that if you started out with LOTS of ether, you could just about stop worrying about ether loss and hard starting and fuel going sour etc. etc. You made small batches as you needed it and never worried about bad fuel. You read this and other forums and came away with more knowledge and opinions and found your own way. You found what worked for you. You didn't always know why but sometimes you didn't care. You were having fun and learning stuff along the way. Not to mention being entertained by the regulars on this and other websites.

Way back before I had any idea, diesel to me was difficult and mysterious. Any advice on fuel content was always 1/3rd all ingredients. Amyl nitrate was always mentioned. You heard of MEKP but was warned it was horrendously DANGEROUS. You were deathly afraid that your hands were going to melt if you got a tiny spill.

You were always warned to NEVER, EVER, use an electric starter. You were told that you will break a diesel just like even the diesel experts do, only faster, if you used an electric starter.

Who would have ever thought that THIS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af4dQNa60_w was possible on a diesel engine? Priming by blocking the muffler? NO fiddling with the needle or compression screw? And look, using a spring starter!! Not much different from glow.

And here, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-666705683941330773 we have the same engine being flown in the winter. Note that it started on the settings it had during the fall. No fiddling with the needle or the compression to start. We are talking going from 50F in the fall to 32F in the winter. I had to fine tune for the weather but note, the *&%^#@% thing started with no hassles. Cold starting? How about covered with snow. Two to three drops of prime, hit the starter and way we go.

And look how well it runs. Solid idle, excellent transition. Absolutely reliable. And oh, that masculine, diesel sound.

The secret? A 40/40/20 mix with Amsoil at 2%.

Amyl Nitrate, the magic and absolutely necessary ingredient was impossible to get. When AJC informed me that MEKP would do the job, now I got REALLY interested. Still, I was working with the always mentioned 1/3rd mix. ONLY when I was informed that small engines needed a lot of ether and only when I realized that modern engines didn't need any more oil than glow,,,,, well, what can I say. Just look over my YouTube posts. What might NOT have been if I hadn't learned to mix my own.

And that cold starting? On a starter? Not unique to Norvel. See this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJb7aZFMVwY A cold PAW getting whacked with an electric starter with no messing with any adjustments to get it going. I ran out of memory, but a few seconds later, the engine transitioned into a strong run. And of course, I can't leave the PAW without illustrating a start on a no ether fuel, here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkNb63u1tHo

Those of us who consider NOT having to breath second hand cigarette smoke a right, have won our day in court. I'm not much of a drinker but to be polite, I'll nurse a beer for a few hours when the guys get the urge for more than a coffee after an evening's flying. Some days the local watering hole was drowning in blue smoke. Gag city and when it was that bad, I always bowed out. Today, smoking is banned in all commercial, public buildings. The barmaid was beside herself, she needed the tips of the regulars to keep her lavish lifestyle. On a hunch, I re-assured her with the theory that she might lose her current clientèle to a degree and for a while, but most of them would be back. That happened but something unexpected ALSO happened. The bar picked up a whole NEW set of clients who formerly stayed way just because of the polluted air. That bar is now doing better than ever. And the barmaid? Her take home in tips nearly doubled.

Keep diesel fuel a mystery and you'll keep your current hardcore stinky power advocates coming back for more because they're hooked. No problem. But make it easily known how to make your own and I'd venture to say that while you might lose a FEW who used to buy and fly, I'm convinced that you'll pick up a lot of business on the hardware side if fuel availability wasn't such an issue.

And here's the real deal. I make my own heads and I mix my own fuel. MOST guys can't make their own heads but ANYONE can mix his own fuel. Having learned THAT, he just might give that DDD thing a try I think, and because fuel is no longer such a hassle, he'll stick with it. As I have.









< Message edited by 1705493-AndyW -- 9/13/2007 6:26:17 AM >

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/13/2007 6:33:20 PM   
Stuntguy13


 

Posts: 144
Joined: 5/11/2006
From: Jupiter, FL, USA
Status: offline 		Andy,

Have you ever tried just mixing the JD Starter Fluid with say 25% oil as a fuel? This would make it even simpler, the old fixed compression engines used just ether and oil in about this mix, should work.

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/13/2007 7:06:44 PM   
AndyW


 

Posts: 1919
Joined: 1/17/2003
From: Timmins, ON, CANADA
Status: offline 		Stuntguy13,

Led to believe that kerosene was the "power" ingredient, I never did. Now we are learning that ether and kero deliver the same power, pound for pound. So it's worth a consideration, especially for very small engines like the TD .010 for which I've been meaning to make a head for for the longest time. This one would have an adjustable CP but the fact that the smaller the engine, the more the ether would be taken to its extreme. Because we have a very small engine with very low fuel consumption, the high cost of the ether would not be a problem. And you never know, on an all ether fuel, that adjustable CP might not even be needed.

Thanks for the suggestion. It'll be tried on the .010 and the .020 which have eluded good throttling. On all ether, that might change.



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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/13/2007 7:19:05 PM   
slope-soarer


 

Posts: 226
Joined: 10/12/2004
From: Barrow in Furness, UNITED KINGDOM
Status: offline 		Damned good post Andy.

Makes the case out clearly and concisely.

The common advice recently was buy your fuel.... here, here and here. (sorry no free advertising ! )

This did not take account of those who were miles away from a possible source or even worse those who had to pay not only for the fuel but also mailing costs.

i am sure that a lot more people would get into diesel if only the fuel was both readily available and considerably cheaper than at present.

Someone tempted by giving diesel a try would almost certainly stop dead when they discover the price of fuel compared to glow fuel. O.K, so the same quantity of diesel fuel will give longer engine runs than glow. Problem is they don't KNOW that, and if they have heard that it does then they usually don't know by how much of an increase they get, and even then it still works out far more than glow fuel.

I took a chance on diesel and bought my first PAW secondhand at a rally. I then chased up some fuel, just a litre to try it. Finding that I did indeed like diesel engines I then needed to find a way of running them "economically", there was no way I could justify the high cost of commercial fuel compared to what I can get glow fuel for. The need for a cheap fuel has driven all the testing and now flying that I have done with my own fuel mix.

Having discovered that I could run a diesel on my own fuel mix, at a price that I can afford/accept,I then bought several more PAW's. Without a scource of cheap fuel I would have abandoned model diesel engines. Jut look on e*ay (UK version) and see the diesels for sale, then notice most of them have been stored for years !

I wonder how many engines with conversion heads are lying in a box or been changed back to glow fuel ?

Reg

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/13/2007 7:28:40 PM   
merugo


 

Posts: 290
Joined: 12/13/2006
From: rome, ITALY
Status: offline 		Andy,
with such travel companions you have simply to substitute kero with turpentine or lemonene, some girl will ask you what after shave you use . Mint oil could also work very well, but not for your pockets!
BTW, to be exact, ether equivails kero pound for pound of air burned!
Ugo

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       Post #: 32

RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/13/2007 8:51:59 PM   
AndyW


 

Posts: 1919
Joined: 1/17/2003
From: Timmins, ON, CANADA
Status: offline 		Thanks Reg,

We're accused of being cheap if we don't fork over our hard earned cash. Not a good way to earn rapport with current and possible, future diesel customers.

Ugo,

Travelling companions are older brothers with serious health issues so in any and all cases, their needs were paramount. In any other circumstances, they would have tolerated almost anything. Once we get through this nasty business, (and we are making good progress) we'll be back to normal. Next year, I hope to do a tour of the clubs I've made contact with and spread the word with a fly and tell, so to speak. But your suggestions will be considered, even if you are kidding.

Yes, you've put that more precisely. Lots of ether never seemed to hurt power was the point and in all cases helped with good throttling. No substitute yet, but talk of atomization has reminded me that I have two sizes of a unique carb/throttle made some twenty years ago. Hard to describe and I wish I could post a picture but as I recall, it was superior because of improved fuel delivery. It might work to better atomize a no ether fuel, along with preheating the fuel through a waterjacket etc. Lots to try and discover as we clear up present concerns.

God, I miss my shop.



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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/14/2007 7:12:17 AM   
merugo


 

Posts: 290
Joined: 12/13/2006
From: rome, ITALY
Status: offline 		Andy,
sorry for the misunderstanding, but you may REALLY use lemonene or turpentine as well. Try and refer. They work well, and you by sure like experimenting.
Ugo

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/14/2007 7:19:14 AM   
merugo


 

Posts: 290
Joined: 12/13/2006
From: rome, ITALY
Status: offline 		Andy,
I intend Vegetal Turpentine, NOT mineral or "substitute" turpentine. They work, but it is an entirely different matter.
Ugo

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/14/2007 11:16:56 AM   
AndyW


 

Posts: 1919
Joined: 1/17/2003
From: Timmins, ON, CANADA
Status: offline 		Hi Ugo,

Thanks for those tips. I'll give them a try.

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/14/2007 5:23:23 PM   
Stuntguy13


 

Posts: 144
Joined: 5/11/2006
From: Jupiter, FL, USA
Status: offline 		Andy,

I agree that fuel price is an important issue to growing interest in diesel, to that end if the Starter Fluid and oil fuel works it would be about $18 gal (USD) figuring $1.85 for 11oz of usable SF per can, 5oz mineral oil @ $3.20 per quart or $0.10 per oz that's $2.35 per pint or $18.80 per gal (checking Tower for glow fuel @10% Nitro about $18.25 per gal).

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/14/2007 5:40:07 PM   
ddd


 

Posts: 256
Joined: 9/28/2002
From: CT
Status: offline 		Don't you think if we our other makers of model diesel fuel could make a good workable blend with 2 items instead of 5 we would?

I remember a modeler in canada we furnish formula with his fox 60 head decided to make that old joke of a mix from the past 1/3 Ether, 1/3 Kerosene and 1/3 castor oil and when he went from idle top full power there under the plane was the crankshaft the rod and piston still attached. Why do you suppose he split the case wide open and the answer is. Were is all this oil going to go? You see in the old days all engines were one speed freeflight and control-line and oil content made no diffference were as R/C is as a throttle.

Bob Davis
Davis Diesel

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RE: compression comparison and exhaust color - 9/14/2007 7:07:45 PM   
slope-soarer