FL-70 loss of power
Hi Bax,
Hope you can help me out with this problem, as you've helped me many times in the past.
I have an FL-70 running on CoolPower with 15% nitro and turning a 13x6 APC grey prop. For some reason, I cannot get it to put out the power like it did just a month ago. I have it in an Excelleron 50 and just a month ago it had unlimited vertical, and take offs were short. This model has stock soft mounts which came loose slowly, robbing the power. I did not know the mounts were loosening, but I sure noticed that gradually the plane was struggling to get off the ground and vertical disappeared. When I finally discovered the loosening and softening soft mounts, I dumped the soft mounts and built hardwood rails on top of the existing rails to make the engine mount solid. Anyway, today, the plane was better but still struggled somewhat, and I put a friend's tach to it and found it running only 8600rpm max, which I backed down to about 8200 rpm for flying. It just hasn't got the pep it had originally (I did not tach it before today). I did check the glow plug, it was fine, but I changed anyway and got the same lackluster performance. I should mention that I logically (to me) tried to lean the engine more when power gradually decreased over time as the soft mounts loosened and softened. I also tried a 12.5x6 and 12x7 prop before going back to the 13x6 prop and hard mounts today. What can you suggest to reobtain that fantastic performance the engine had a month ago with short take off runs and unlimited vertical? Thanks Bax. Jon