I am having trouble with my cowled Saito 180 in a Goldberg Sukhoi. This engine had always run flawlessly for me. In its last plane it was bolted onto the side of a big profile plane and the entire engine was out in the airstream. On the profile I kept it running in the 94000-9600 range. The propeller is a 17x6 APC.

Now it’s cowled and it is getting hot enough to quit. In one of my first flights it dead-sticked coming out of an inverted spin. I have never had this engine be anything but 100% reliable. The dead stick landed short of the field out in our surrounding wasteland and tore uup a couple things.

On my next outing I opened the high-speed needle to get down to 9200-9400 RPM. I had also opened up the bottom of the cowl to allow more air through it. When run in the 9200-9400 range after a minute or so at high throttle (on the ground), RPM’s will sag into the high 8’s. The engine seems hot.

Am I still too lean, do I richen the mix? Should I baffle the cowl so air gets forced over the single cylinder?

Dead stick landings suck at our weed patch. On anything but a tiny plane, our weeds tear up any plane that can’t make it back to the field. I am afraid to fly it.

Glow plug is a new “F” plug. Propeller is a 17x6APC

-Cheech