Big Hog,

I'm a fan of Fox engines although the only one I have flying is a .50 BB. Had it a long time, still going strong. I don't have a .74 but have run a lot of the Eagle 4 .60's. Still have one in the box. My experience with them is that they can swing a big prop. Don't let the RPM with various props fool you. If you want speed, put on more pitch.

As to popularity; I always thought the QC wasn't very good on the twin needle carbs. Rather than file on the low speed needles like Duke Fox outlined in the poop sheets, I bought a handful of low speed needles (they were dirt cheap) and would swap them into a carb until I found one that gave good idle and midrange. I suppose that the dimensional tolerances were pretty loose. It didn't bother me to have to futz around with them but I always liked to play with engines. Some folks don't like to have that dimension added to their modeling experience, so Fox got a bad rep in the RC world. Also, there's a lot of bad info about Foxes floating around.

Cheers,

CR