svemoe

I have two RCV-engines, a 90SP and a 91CD, and I wonder if I can use the new fuel from Model Technics. The instructions recommends using Duraglo 10, but my LHS says Duraglo 10 is no longer in production and has been substituted with a fuel called ProPower 10. As far as we can see this fuel contains 18% what we believe is fully synthetic oil with an additive they call "Sical". The label says: "18% EDL2 with Sical".
As I know there has been some issues regarding castor or no castor, especially on the SP-series, I just wonder if I can use this fuel, or any other no-castor fuel for that matter, on my engines?

Sverre Moen

RCV Engines

Hi

ProPower 10 is okay to use with RCV engines and in fact I believe we have used this for all the 130CD testing. We find that as long as the synthetic fuel is high quality these can be used. We still use a fuel with a little castor on our SP series engines though.

I hope this helps
Best regards
Laurenne

svemoe

Thanks a lot for a very prompt answer. Should I understand this as it's ok to use this fuel on both my engines as it is, but I should preferably add 1 or 2% castor to the fuel I use for the SP?

RCV Engines

We haven't done exhaustive tests on this fuel with an SP engine, but we assume it would be fine and it wouldn't invalidate your warranty

I hope this helps
Laurenne

svemoe

Thanks again for another quick answer. I haven't had the opportunity to run the engines very much, but so far it looks very promising. The 90SP is placed in a Gloster Gladiator ( B. Taylor design ), and the 91CD will go in a 1/5 scale Fokker DVII. I've only had one flight with the Gladiator so far and had the engine stalling out probably due to some old fuel. Since then it has been lightened some to improve it's handling and is now only waiting to get up again.
Thanks again for superb service!

svemoe

I just tried running my 90SP on the Propower 10 fuel out in my backyard, and it seemed to throttle very fine. Transition was great and the fuel seemed to be ok. I only had one slight problem. I couldn't get it to idle below 1800 rpm without the glowdriver attached. Idle was adjusted so that it would just barely react when I removed the glowdriver. I could trim down the idle some, but then it would die on me as soon as I took a rapid transition from full bore and down to idle again. To keep the engine running I have to keep idle at 1800+.
Earlier I had this engine benchmounted and ran approx. 2 liters through it with a car-fuel i modified for use in the SP. I added some castor to the fuel i bought to get a blend of 70% methanol, 15,5% nitro, 9,7% synth.oil and 4,8% castor. With this blend and an APC 18x14 i could get it to idle below 1200 rpms for extended periods without any problems at all.
Lately I haven't been able to get hold of the fuel I used as a base for this blend, and in all honesty I prefer to buy the fuel ready made. I have also rotaded the cylinder to get it ideally positioned in the plane. I remember that when I did this the ports didn't match up equally much in the intake and exhaust as the manual says it should, but I can't remember wich port I let show the most. If it's one tooth wrong on the timing, could it cause this much difference, especially with the different fuel? Oh, BTW I now run a 18x12 Master Airscrew prop on the engine.

RCV Engines

Hi Sverre

My name is Stephanie and I have taken over from Laurenne who left last week. I have spoken to one of our engine technicians about your problem and we suggest the following - a home-made fuel mix is not recommended. It sounds like a timming error - one tooth out on the timing will make all the difference to running - tickover particluarly. Each port should be equal. The propeller size you are using is correct, we use this size prop (not the same make however) when we test our engines and normally achieve 1400rpm.

I hope this helps.

Stephanie

svemoe

Thank you, Stephanie. I'll check the timing again, and hopefully this may solve my problem. Thanks again.