Hey guys,

I'm working on my first 50cc gasser (30% Edge 540 w/ DLE 55) and need your opinions as I know everyone building giant scale must work through this! I'm wondering about how to allow for sufficient cooling to the engine with regards to cutting the cowl. I know you're supposed to have 2-4 times the exit area with regards to intake air to allow for sufficient cooling. I realize that I'm going to have to hack up my cowl quite a bit on the bottom in order to achieve this and also not sure would look good. My question is, how to achieve this best? How do you all do it? I would like to use the stock DLE 55 exhaust, and not tuned/cans.

My plane has cannister tunnels built into it, but the covering is obviously still intact on the bottom of the plane where the cannister exhaust would normally exit. Is the best standard method to assist exit air flow to cut open that ultracote covering anyway, even if not using cans to allow sufficient airflow?

Or do I leave the tunnel covering intact and just cut large holes or some type of pattern in the bottom of the cowl that still look good but don't compromise it's strength?

Or do I partially block off (like 30%) intake area so I don't have the need for so much exhaust area?

What do you guys all do for cooling your engines? I want to hack up the cowl as little as possible and make the plane look good obviously. Anyone have any nice pics of patterns?


Thanks!