ORIGINAL: liquid_TR
ORIGINAL: Bob Pastorello
30. If your engine was fine yesterday, and today it's NFG, then *something* changed. Find what changed, and fix it. Don't jump to conclusions and speculate....
That is exactly what happened to my DL50 last weekend.. It's a new engine and was working perfectly the week before.
Last week, I came to the strip, put the plane out, put on the wings, charged everything up, put the canopy, fueled it up, choke, flip, flip, flip, nothing.. opened the choke, flip,flip,flip, flip,... unusual POP! from the manifold.. hmm.. it never done that before?
So, removed the spark plug, wettish.. I let it dry and start over. With choke, flip flip flip, POP! again with an unusual sound as if the timing is off.. removed the cowling, inspected everything.
I suspected the properly padded ignition, so I removed the plug, put a new plug in it outside of the engine - to see if its firing. It did seem normal. spark visible..
So here I am, with perfectly fine engine thats got fuel, oxygen and fire but no go.. now thats not possible..
needles were adjusted properly, no junk anywhere, ignition battery, switch and cables are OK...
After 5 hours of inspection, trial and fail, I came back to my first suspect: the ignition module..
Swapped out my ignition module from a frieds DL50 - no choke, flip ONCE and VRRRRRRRAMM!! Running like a clock..
Put my ignition on my friends DL50; flip, flip, flip, flip...... unusual POP!.. no go.. There it was.. a mysteriously gone bad ignition module that decided not to work properly anymore without a single reason..
Ignitions will drive you crazy some times,
A couple of things that have happened to me, now I am talking about the RCXell Ignitions.
I had a ignition that I used to test run engines, Mounted a engine hooked all up and engine would not start, now i keep a couple of 4.8 volts batteries for testing also, Got another battery and engine still would not start.
I also have a ignition tester made by CH that will simulate a engine running about 4,000 RPM, Installed it and the ignition was working but noticed that it seemed it was not sparking a loud as I thought it should, got another ignition and and put the tester on it and the spark was louder and cranked the engine with no problems, Just shows that just because there is spark does not mean all is well.
Next
Had a engines sold to a customer from a local club that had problems, Said after about 2 min of flight the engine would just stop running, Sent him another ignition and after about 2 min of flight the engine stopped running and would not start again.
So i made a trip to there club, After a little frustration I found he was using a 3 cell lipo with a standard Duralite regulator and when we tested the out put voltage it was putting out 6.7 volts and was cooking the ignitions.
You just never know what will come along and bite in the beee.[:@]
Milton