I have a spacewalker II powered by a thunder tiger .46 pro. Last year when I assembled, I followed the directions and mounted the engine canted to one side. Its between sideways and fully upside down. The muffler I have for the tt is stock. When I built it, I had to carve a bit of wood out since the front of the plane from bottom to top is on an angle in order for the muffler to fit. The end of the muffler's exit hole is roughly maybe 1/2 inch or maybe smaller away from the angled portion of wood so the exhaust hits the wood. This engine does not seem as powerful as my OS .46's. Today at the field, after 1 minute in the air at roughly 1/2 throttle, the engine was losing power and just died. I dead sticked into some high weed flipping it over. Damage was broken main gear. A club member told me that maybe since the exhaust was so close to the wood that it was maybe robbing some power from engine. This engine has had this problem before but this was the first time it ever quit in the air. Would having the exhaust so close have this effect of dropped power? When I started the engine, it throttled up from low to full without any hiccups. I just may yank the engine out, leave the spacewalker for awhile and throw the tt .46 on a Kaos.

Dave...