anyway i have never flown before and i bought a rtf tower trainer 40 mkii. i heard the engines rae a hit and miss, well i have aa traxxas tmaxx and peopel claim the trx2.5 is a hit and miss. well i am pretty puzzled...every picture of then engine i c has no air filter. the engine page on th doesnt mention a air filter. can someone explain.

Airplane engines dont require airfilters. As for being hit or miss, they arn't. The tower engine you have is a real powerhouse and when BROKEN IN CORRECTLY and when TUNED CORRECTLY, will give you years of almost trouble free fun. You occasionaly will need to retune, but not much more then 2 or 3 clicks to compensate for air density changes.

Goodluck, check out the beginers forum and stop by the Cirkus on your way.

Sean

Shift keys broken on that computer of yours? Sorry about that, if you compare the car and plane fora, you'll observe that people over here tend to make a stab at proper English. Anyway, there are lots of complaints about the .45 size Tower engines. However, there are also people who say they work fine. Plane engines don't usually get exposed to dust and dirt, so it's rare to use an air filter. Have you lined up someone to teach you to fly?

I learned to fly on the Tower Trainer and I think it's a great flying plane. I've been flying for 10 years and I still have my trainer, and it's got somewhere around 600 flights on it by now. You'll do just fine on it. As for the air cleaner, you don't need it. There is very little dirt and dust "up there" to get sucked in. Your cars need the air filter because your carburetor sits 1"-2" above the ground, but a plane at 100' doesn't need it. Maybe if you are flying off of a field that is all dirt you might need one, but I wouldn't worry about. In this case comparing the planes to cars is like comparing apples and oranges.

Hope this helps

Ken

I am looking into joining a club near me. Also most people who bash engines are biased and all that, i didnt get discouraged by other people's reviews. My t-maxx engine needed to be set factory mixture settigns then slowly acclerating and all that for like 5 tanks. when i break in this ebgine would it be like that, and do i have to be an expert flyer to break in an engine. Im trying to say can u break in the engine without taking it off of the ground, and im not talking about breaking it in on a table. But if breaking it in on a table is easier i would love it. p.s i heard it takes alot o gas to break it in....i odnt mind because everytime i buy a gallon of traxxas at 33 dollars i never use it all.

With that trainer you will not need the high nitro percentage that r/c cars require because trainers are not really suppost to be fast they are ment to be slow so you can learn to fly easier. Since you dont need th high nitro, you dont need the high price. I run 10 percent nitro in my planes and that is only 15 bucks a per gallon.

It's not difficult at all to break in an engine. If you follow the instructions that come with the engine you can't go wrong. Following the instructions will give you an engine that will give you years and years of great flying.

Ken

thanks for the help guys....i like this place, great people who know whats up and a nice freindly forum.

You definitely want to start using airplane fuel for your airplane engine.

Actually, POLYGON, people who usually "bash" engines have had a bad experience with that engine, or have seen others who have, also. My advice to you is to pay attention to other's real-life experience and opinions of equipment. Most R/Cers don't bad mouth something without a good reason. Their experience and knowledge could save you a lot of money.

Dr.1

but i am talking about both sides of the fence. example....10 guys say thta engine owns. then 10 guys said it is bad and buy an os.

I would have to strongly DISAGREE that our engines are not exposed to dirt & dust. both on the ground & in the air.my experience with 15 years of using aircleaners is your engine will last longer, run more trouble free & in the event of a crash, ingest less dirt . if you use one you may be very surprised how MUCH fine particles are present after only a month or so of flying.

As for the Tower 46 -- I own one & I also owned its brother the GMS 47 (same engine). Several of my friends also own either, or both. I despise both of them. The Tower & GMS are certainly powerfull, but not inhertently more powerfull than an OS FX or AX, or a TT 46 Pro. The relatively high output results, in part, from their tuned muffler -- without it they are no more powerfull than the OS or TT engines. However, the OS & TT engines are a LOT more user friendly.

The price is highly appealing, as is the phony advertised power, but they have highly variable quality & some are just fine (more or less), while some are terrible, regardless of how "talented" you are at tuning them. Sure they can be made to run -- I still use mine --but the pain in the ar$e bother of tuning & re-tuning every time the weather changes just isn't worth it. Nor is the frustration of an engine that won't shut off, or one that flames out with intensely annoying frequency, particularly appealing.

I use mine in expendable applications -- because I truly don't care if it bites it.

I guess that you can tell I'm not a Tower 46 fan.

Now the Tower 75 is a whole 'nuther story.

hey buddy, can u find me a nice easy one on tower hobbies with some oil to go with it for the tower.46abc?

My only complaint with the Tower .46 is that the blue on the head and thrust washer faded almost immediately and looks kind of sick. As far as tuning an engine every time it is started, I always peak the engine out and then back it off a couple hundred RPM--wouldn't matter if it was running 30,000 when first started, I just do it. That is not to contradict BritBrat, who I think really knows his stuff and has many insightful posts to his credit. I suppose there are many people who just start an engine and go fly assuming the engine is still in tune. I just don't so tuning the Tower .46 is no problem. Just thought of another down side to the engine--it weighs about the same as a good sized anvil.

Max

I suspect that you live somewhere where the temp & humidity don't change markedly -- that bothers the Tower 46 a lot -- including the low-speed setting. Most everyone adjusts their high-speed needles -- but who wants to keep tweaking the low-speed needle?

I own the tower trainer RTF, but its engineless. I sent the engine to tower, where it got lost. The reason i am not angry is because all my clubmembers said to get a .46 FX, and i still havent got it, but i expect it to be fine. THe engine is great for the learning process, but dont try to put the engine on your second plane. I had trouble with my engine in a way that when ever i put the plane in a verticle position (Nose up), the engine quit. There was not enough pressure coming back from the exhaust. We checked that and it still didnt work. I broke in the engine according to all my club members and had it tuned every time i went to the field. I surely was a miss, not a hit.

Just my point of view.

It not that there isn't enough tank pressure, the real problem lies in the POS carburator (the engine itself is just fine). There is not a lot of consistency in the fit between the throttle rotor & the carb body. I believe that the body casting is the chief trouble-maker, as I find it difficult to believe that the machined rotor can have significantly variable dimensions. I have seen these carbs with both tapered & oval rotor-bores in the casting. This results in air-leaks.

The faults result in constantly changing vacuum in the throttle-bore, depending upon throttle position, rotor-bore wear, rotor-spring tension, vibration, air density, airframe attitude & even fuel type (fuels with castor oil seem to work better, particularly if the lube percentage is increased by adding additional castor).

Common symptoms include hard starting, poor idle, changing mixture in flight (usually leaning-out), failure to shut off, flame-outs & significant sensitivity to atmospheric conditions.

There are a couple of fixes --

1) bore the rotor hole true & machine a new throttle rotor (beyond most modellers)

2) swap the carb to another brand -- I have seen good results with a variety of carburetors

3) buy something else.

Not all of these motors suffer from these problems, and a "good" one is a nice motor -- but why bother in the first place?