For several years now, I've been running all my Cox engines on Sig Champion 25% fuel with some extra Klotz castor added to each quart bottle. It's worked well for me but I see that it has been discontinued(Tower's site also shows other popular Sig items as discontinued such as the Four Star series, what a shame.) I have enough fuel to last into next year but will then have to switch to something different. It's tough to change when something works so well for you. Most of the other 25-30% nitro fuels I've seen are low in total oil content or don't have any castor at all in the mix, not to mention more expensive. As the market narrows, I wonder what our 1/2A glow fuel options will be in the near future. Like many of you here, I've got a rather large collection of Cox engines that I want to run well into the future. Lots of 1/2A planes I dream of building and flying. I'm afraid the lack of availability of a suitable fuel may be the largest threat to our segment of the hobby.

If you go to the Sig site it shows both the Champion 25 fuel and Four Star series planes still listed. A lot of times when
someone like Tower shows something as "discontinued" it means Tower no longer carries it. Not that it's gone from the
planet. Why not give Sig a call and see if you can order direct or if they can point you to a LHS that carries the items you're
looking for?
Good luck!
JLK

Good point, thanks.

I sincerely meant that as a helpful suggestion.
Hate to see anyone lose favored and faithful products.
Happens to much as it is!
Once again,
Good luck!

My local hobby store is 40 miles away, I have used Byrons from them 1/2a fuel is only 16% castor so I top it off with benol castor oil , same as you do and the last one I got was $13/quart....Rog

I buy Tower Hobbies 30% nitro heli fuel in quarts, then add castor to bring my oil mix up to the desired level.

I buy Morgan's Sidewinder Pro 20/10 ($9.99) and 30/10 ($13.49) from Tower, then mix the two along with Klotz BeNol to get what I want. The initial low oil content gives room to add sufficient castor and not have the oil percentage get too high. The oil in Sidewinder Pro is a 50/50 synthetic/castor blend.

andrew

I've used Sig and other fuels over the years, then a couple of years ago I found [link=http://www.s-whobby.com/]S&W Fuels.[/link] This guy is great, plus he'll blend any mix you want, and as long as you buy a case of quarts shipping is reasonable. I think I paid $75 for a case of 12 quarts last year for a 25% nitro / 20% castor mix. That's $6.25 per quart DELIVERED for those who are mathematically challenged.

And for those of you who want to start hoarding, he sells the base components by the 55 gal drum. Yow...

EG

Excellent feedback. Thanks.

I just got a couple of quarts of Sig 35% fuel direct from Sig. The shipping is a bit much, 12 bucks, but oh well ya can't have everything.

Trinity Platinum 30% nitro has only 8% lube, add 11.293oz castor oil to a half gallon to get 21.8% lube and 25.5% nitro.
Try Arty's fuel calc. spreadsheet, it's great.

Also good info. Thanks. I love this forum.

Lost Glider

What is the synthetic/castor ratio on the oil in Trinity Platinum?

andrew

Can't find that info.

I sent an e-mail to Trinity asking if they would disclose that information.

I did some more math, a half gallon of Trinity platinum would have approximately 5.12 ounces of lubricant. If that was 100% synthetic (it probably isn't), and add 11.3 ounces of castor, that would make the lubricant package approximately 68.8% castor and 31.2% synthetic. Or roughly two thirds castor and one third synthetic.

Check your math... 5.2 / 64 = 8.1% lube to start with. Can they sell it w/ only 8.1% lube?

What is 8% of 64? = 64*.08=5.12

Yes - the car boys run their racing engines on very low levels of oil, scary low sometimes.

Don't know if you've been to many car races, but they're fun to watch and they run the poo out of their engines and cars. They tune by sound and temperature - all the competitive drivers have a screwdriver sticking out of one pocket and a digital thermometer in the other. They are really pretty good engine tweakers and since the tracks are not large, they can easily see and hear how their cars are performing. Race preps are usually run a lap, drive onto the pit ramp, check the temp, tweak, then run another.

Having a box of $350 engines at a race is not too unusual. Frankly, when they're running in the mid-twenties enclosed in a car body, on dirt and with such low oil, I don't know how they last.

BTW, my numbers matched LG's, assuming the lube was initially 100% syn. To come up with the exact numbers, we would need to know Trinity's syn/cas ratio.

andrew

I'd like to share my fuel blend program. It has at least one unique feature that was inspired by a Scallawag comment at SMALL some time back. "how many have a container of exactly 9.23 oz of nitro?" Well I went home and wrote this app to include the ability to mix using his criteria. (Thanks Steve)

Right click and save as Fuel Blend.exe.
Al

This is almost like taking a class in brain surgery. I mix fuel in batches of 100 ozs in a Pyrex measuring cup. No need for spread sheets or calculators and the engines still manage to run, usually.

CP, most of us are stuck buying what ever the local hobby store has, or buying off the Web. Will you please tell us where you get your ingredients?, names, addresses, phone numbers, Web addresses, e-mail addresses. I'm sure, if it was possible, to just step out the door and meet the local chemical truck each day on his way past, we would all be doing that. But that's just not the way it is. So using what is available, and altering what is available, are the most feasible options for most of us. And how about a special permit to buy certain ingredients? Some people have skid marks on their record and may not be allowed to purchase some ingredients, or maybe they live in Themiddleofnoplace, Wyoming and would have to pay astronomical shipping fees.

Thanks.

LG, when I'm stuck with store bought fuel, I just top off the jug with castor. There's always some airspace in the jug to do that. I've never encountered 8% oil fuel, then you would want to transfer some of that fuel to an empty jug and then add enough castor to double the oil content. A little bit too much oil doesn't do any harm except to your wallet, it's the most expensive component. Most LHS fuel around here is Cool Power.
I used to buy racing fuel ingredients where that were listed in the yellow pages. It was a VP distributor. They sold 5 gallons on up of nitro and methanol and gallons of oil. Now I just go to the Chevron, Standard Oil dealer down the road next to the Co-op and they have the stuff. I bought 55 gallons of methanol for $160 just the other day. I had to mail order a couple gallons of castor from Sig, they included rumpled up drawings of the Hog Bipe, too! IIRC, the oil was about $50 delivered. I'm still working off an old 5 gallon drum of nitro so I'm not sure what it's going for now. My bigger engines don't need nitro, but even 5% makes a big difference.
No place where I bought ingredients checks who I am, they just want the money.

Try some of my 1/2A fuel listed on that "other auction site". Just do a search for "glow fuel".

Regards,
GPB

As if we don't already have enough to consider with fuel, I came upon this: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9057493/tm.htm

You can buy everything you need from VP racing fuel, but the shipping will kill you. Your best bet is to find someone locally that drag races, races boats or circle track, and he will know someone that gets nitro by the drum. If you ask nicely, you might be able to get a gallon or so. Also check with your local guy that makes bio desiel. They use pure methonol. You might be able to get some from him and get him to order you a small ammount of nitro.