ORIGINAL: ddd
This is a statement for the record as to which mass produced engine converted to diesel was the most powerfull. It was American and was the Cox and later K&B Conquest .15 with one of our conversions. Larry Renger the point man for Cox sent me 2 Conquests an R/C and Free flight version and an 8X4 Cox gray Propeller. We made a head and ran the prop on both engines and got 18,200 Rpm a great number. I called and told them the results and I got this response. "That's great, it as good as glow." Many years later I came across an article in the foreign notes by Peter Chinn. It was a review on the Conquest glow 10% and on a cox gray 8X4 the Rpm was 16,500 Rpm, what do you know! More recently there was an endurance free flight/R/C event to honer the a famous pioneer and the engine was the Conquest with our head and a then available Kraft Radio an all American system.
P.S. the three most powerfull engines are still American the Nelson, Jett and the fox.
Bob Davis
The Cox Conquest (a copy of the Australian Burford built Taipan 15 "Goldhead" ) is well known as a rather fragile engine as a glow and it's unlikely to have held together very long as a diesel at 18000rpm .There is a discussion of these conversions amongst some c/l F2C fliers at:
http://controlline.org.uk/phpBB2/vie...onquest+diesel
Apparently the rear races fail.
The Cox could have achieved 18000rpm as a glow by running much more than 10% nitro, I believe that the F1C fliers used to run about 50% and over with these engines. I would guess that they would have also had quite short lifes at these speeds.
Mine, in a c/l Goodyear eventually broke its piston, something which I later discovered was rather common.
Rossi (Italian) did a diesel conversion for their equivalent glow 15 and it was a much more powerful and reliable motor.