Here is the picture of my Pt-19 from Hangar 9. My friend and I jointly built two of them that are identical. Bothare using a Jag converted Ryobi 31cc. With the servos and battery in the tail they balance with no extra weight. Both came in at 14lbs. Maximus

Hey, I have a Ryobi 31cc I could use on the H9 PT-19 I ordered. Is it possible for you to post a few more pictures, particularly of the engine area? A few questions if you don't mind:

1. Did you mount the engine directly on the firewall? If so, did the cowl fit okay?

2. Are these the conversions that use the magneto and flywheel, or one that uses CH Ignition?

3. Where did you mount the fuel tank? It is true that with that pumper carb, I can mount the tank closer to CG, but I'm not sure it is worth the hassle.

4. have you flown them yet? What props have you tried?

Thanks much.

Max looks like you have the robart struts on. How well do they work? Were they difficult to install? Thanks

Well Volfy, The engine is mounted on a new firewall that is about a inch back from the existing one. My friend Paul did most of the work but it looked fairly easy. He just sawed of the sides of the motormount box on the front and top and cut a new firewall out of plywood to fit the front of what was left of the box. This was epoxied back on and reinforced from the back with glass cloth and epoxy. These planes are using the magneto that comes on the engine. Of course the flywheel has been thinned and lightened. The fuel tank is in the compartment where I believe the radio gear and battery go. It ends up just barely in front of the CG. Both planes are currently not flown but are ready to go when the weather and other obligations cooperate. They both have Master Airscrew 16x8 props, one a classic and the other a "K" series. The Ryobi is turning them around 7200 rpm so far on white gas with Stihl mix. One note: The cowlings would not fit over the flywheel without cutting when the engine is mounted at the firwall to drive washer length in the manual. Paul actually cut the top of the nose of the cowling off and made a new top out of glass cloth and epoxy then blended it in and repainted it. This was necessary to provide the clearance for the top of the flywheel to rotate without cutting or wearing a hole in the cowling. It only needed about a 1/4-3/8" or so. This was not a big deal either but then again Paul is a industrial modelist who builds prototypes for companies for a living. Handy friend to have, eh? The only other option would be to set the engine back more and try to find or have made a new propshaft adapter or go with the CH ignition. I guess it depends on your skills. We also contemplated not using the Jag motor mount and cutting a hole in the existing firewall for the carb to fit through and mounting the engine to the firewall with the backplate screws. I believe this would work as well but you would still have the problem with the flywheel. Brylee, the struts are obviously good because they faked you out. Paul made molds of the struts and actually cast them out of resin right around the factory gear wires. The shock shaft is chrome trim tape. They are nonfunctional and only for aesthetic purposes. Any other questions let me know and I'll take some pics of the pariculars and post them here. By the way I have two of the Hangar 9 scale WW II pilot figures for this plane for sale if anyone wants them. $13 each shipped. Maximus

I have the same plane and mine is powered with the 25cc Homelite with the big bore carb from www.carrprecision.com. It fly's great!!! This plane/arf is a really nice kit, nice flyer and good looker. I wouldn't hesitate a second to buy another if I ever auger this one in. I had the same problem with the flywheel being to close to the cowl. What I did was use white foam and extended the fuselage about an inch and thus moved the cowl mounting blocks out an inch which gave the clearance I needed. I covered the foam with yellow ultracoat and painted the cowl to match. It's so fun to bring this plane in for a perfect main wheels only landing. Have fun.

Thanks much for the reply Maximus.

I just got the plane yesterday. The fuselage had a lot more wrinkles on the covering than my H9 1/4 CAPs, but not too bad overall. This thing is built solid, though. A bit on the heavy side, so I can see why folks prefer the GP version. Those wheels are hideously huge, and HEAVY (over 1 lbs for the 2). But, heck, at that closeout price, I can overlook a few flaws.

I have other weedies but the PT-19's long narrow cowl cries out for the Ryobi. I bought a CH Ignition kit for it, so I shouldn't have the cowl clearance problem. I shaved off as much metal as I can off the engine case and fins to save weight. I've also upgraded to a Frank Bowman piston ring, which made a world of difference. It was swinging a MA 18x8 at 8000rpm back in winter when it was nice and cool around here. I was going to up the CR and enlarge the ports, but for this bird I don't think I need to.

Sounds like good advice to cut off the firewall 1". I will measure good and try to cut off just enough for the cowl to fit right and for the plane to balance right. I'm going to try hard to keep the weight down, so lead weight is a definite no-no.

Paul sounds like a mighty fine friend to have. His job has my envy as well.

You might want to post pictures of the pilot figures. I was going to let Brigitte and Eva fly this one (as per MAN's review) but a couple of scarf flying stiffnecks might not look bad either.

Volfy, Your right about the wheels they are heavy. I sold mine here on RCUniverse and used a pair of Dubro 4.5" Treaded Lite wheels with the grey hub. They fit perfect and are the scale size and both wheels are lighter than one of the factory wheels.
I ran my engine again last night to check for radio interference and was getting 7650 out of the 16x8. Did the new ring or the CH ignition make the difference for you? Or both? To keep the weight down we put all servos in the tail and a 1800 mah, 5 sub c cell battery pack in from the bottom below the servos. I got the measurements for where to put the servos off from one of my Modelsport videos that featured this plane. We built a removable plate on the bottom of the fuse below the servos and attatched the battery pack to it. When installed the battery just clears the servos. The plane required no other weight to balance this way. Yours might be different being as you ditched the flywheel. Ours weighs exactly 14lbs. The pilot figures are very scale. They have oxygen tubes and a .45 in a holster and everything. Very realistic. When I paint mine I'll send you a photo. For those interested Paul said he would install the molded struts that are mentioned above and shown on my plane to your factory gear legs for $20 returned shipping included as well as alter the factory cowl to clear the flywheel for $25. Later, Maximus

Maximus, I don't really know for sure, since I added the synchrospark module and the Bowman ring at the same time. I suspect maybe 30:70, respectively. I have another unmodified Ryobi 31cc recently liberated from a 725r, and if I ever get around to it I'd like to mill the cylinder head base down a little to increase the CR. I'm convinced that I can then advance the ignition timing a little more with the synchrospark, use 93 Octane and get a few hundred RPMs out of it. I'll probably have to use a 20x8, as these Ryobis are not really meant to spin faster than 8000rpm or so.

The CH Ignition folks claim that you don't get any Hp gains from the CH conversion. I think they're too honest and conservative for their own good. They even recommend against using the Synchrospark module with these weedies. I bought one anyways and it works great! I believe so have several others.