Hi guys!!

It's been a very long time. Anyone still here that remembers me?

:~)

Av8tor
(av8tor1977)

It has a familiar ring to it...

In any case, welcome back!

Thanks!
Yeah, over 7000 posts and a "sticky" or two, but I've been out of this and gone from here for about 5 or 6 years I guess. Don't know if anyone from the old gang is around. When I get a moment, I'll click on some of the names I remember.

Have a good one!
Av8tor

I do

You wont know me but I remember you from your knowledge of conversions....which is a lot!
My 4 mix is still sitting waiting for an airframe, but sure seems to run nice on a stand

Hi! Glad to hear you like your engine. Hope it finds a flying home soon. I always wanted to "design" a Fokker D7 for mine. That would be cool. I hate seeing world war 1 fighters with screaming two strokes on them... I still have a nice Stihl 36cc four mix that I converted for myself.

But here's what's up with me:
Horrible loss--> Heartbreaking!

AV8TOR

Does anyone do "Engine Conversions" anymore? The influx of light, cheap Chinese engines had about decimated the hobby towards the end of the time I was heavily involved. Out of rebellion, I still have not bought any Chinese engines. I have my special conversions that I made for myself, plus a few that just need finished up. All special to me in one fashion or another. I still have two of the special 48cc twins we made using the BME crankcases and Echo parts. What cool engines those are! I've got some max effort little Echo engines that would eat any Chinese engine for lunch, and are very light too.

Fun times...

Vettepilot

Not in the sense of converting chainsaw or weedwhacker engines to aeronautical engines...

But converting glow engines into gassers seems to gain ground.

So yes, converting engines seems to be very much alive, just in a different way than before.

I have a Super Tigre 90 converted to run gas as well. These type conversions didn't hold that much interest with me.

Another thing I got pretty deep into developing is what we called "Gas/Glow". Running a gas engine on gas and a glow plug with a special fuel mix. I originally started with it because ignition systems for conversions were so expensive. Once the Chinese marketed inexpensive ignitions, the concept didn't make much sense anymore. I had one plane left running "Gas/Glow" and finally just converted it to conventional CDI ignition and avoided the fuss of "Gas/Glow".

Av8tor

I never held much for the combination "gasoline as fuel/glow as ignition principle" for reason that it is a combination of the worst of two worlds: Gasoline is, let's face it, a pretty finicky fuel that requires both accurate fuel metering, as well as accurate ignition timing. Gas/glow conversions, they run, and that's about it. They can power a plane, but you still require the ground equipment to GET it to run (fieldbox with glow power, starter, etc etc etc) and they barf out black crud on account of the rich setting required for glow ignition and the incomplete combustion that creates.
From what I have seen, less than stellar throttle response as well.

From a technical POV, accurate fuel metering is a challenge that is fun to solve, and the results (astonishingly clean running engines) very satisfying.

From a practical POV, incidental conversions (only one engine, just for the fun of trying it) are not interesting AT all... One plane out of a dozen in my fleet running a cheap fuel would be a gimmick, and I'll freely admit to that: What for, if the rest of the planes still require expensive and difficult to get glow fuel (mind you, I'm in Europe, where glow fuel is really becoming problematic WRT cost as well as availlability).
You still need that heavy fieldbox, starters, glow drivers, an additional fuel can, cleaning utensils etc etc.
One glow engine preferring this mix, another preferring an oilier or leaner mix, more or less Nitro, hotter or colder glowplugs, etc etc, So much variations, people don't see the forest for the trees anymore.

But from that same practical POV I converted my entire fleet of ex--glow engines to run gasoline. And suddenly it made an LOT of sense...
Gasser conversions become so easy and simple in operation, that I have no need anymore for a fieldbox (I got rid of mine). A tiny toolbox with bare necessities (mainly for assembling the plane at the field) suffices. No engine related stuff, or maybe a single spare sparkplug.
Fuel is one single mix on which any engine I own runs equally well. and even the most extensive outing (glider tow meetings, shows and events) never cost me more than a quart of fuel for the entire day so basically I only bring planes and TX, and a small container of fuel, which I could, if necessary, pick up at any of the gas stations I pass on the way to the clubfield. If I wanted to... I barely ever need to on account of the astonishingly low fuel consumption of my engines, but I could if I would, and that was never the case with glow fuel.

Suddenly even a .30 fourstroke running gas, fitted to a 60"wingspan trainer, makes a LOT of sense: Fuelled up at home (with a whopping 6 oz of fuel), there's easily 6 ten-minute flights in it, and literally all I need, are plane, TX and my fingers to get the thing running. At the end, there's 2 drops of oil on it, so cleaning can be done when back home.
That beautiful summers evening that it would be nice to go flying but the hassle of preparation, and the hassle of aftercare keeps one from doing so? It takes me 2 minutes to throw the plane in the back of the car and that's all I need for a few hours at the club.

You've got to take my word for it, but this was a cold start, more than 24 hrs after last being run, running on the tailings in the tank from the day before.
It ALWAYS starts like this...

Well, the problem with glow engines converted to gas is that they run hotter, plus it's best to convert them to a gas type carb. The advantage to a gas, pumper style carb though is the fuel tank position is no longer critical, plus mixture is more consistent and FAR easier to adjust. If you are running a .30 four stroke on gasoline yet using a glow carb, I bet mixture adjustment is SUPER critical and touchy!!

Another factor is the need to run a lot of oil in the mix with a glow engine converted to gas. My Super Tigre 90 is converted to a roller bearing on the rod so that I do not have to run the high, glow fuel oil ratio. Plain bearing rods must be run with a minimum of 10% oil to give long life, and 20% oil is not unheard of with some glow fuels and engines. My Super Tigre, with ball bearings on the crank and converted to roller bearing on the rod only requires 2% oil.

On the Glow/Gas system I had developed, it was a gasoline conversion engine that ran on a four stroke plug, and a special mixture of glow fuel and gasoline. There was just enough glow fuel (10% of the mix as I recall) to provide the proper oil percentage and the catalytic action for the glow plug. There was no glow engine type oil mess on the plane. I got it working very, very well, but later gave up on it when ignition system cost became reasonable. I no longer run it.

Av8tor

I hate to say it, and seriously mean no offense, but... Those are all VERY outdated ideas, based on decades old experiences never retested, the validity of which has long since expired.

Times have changed: ALL my engines run their stock glowcarbs, some with minor modifications, most still exactly the same as they came out of the factory except for a better (Viton instead of NBR) O-ring on the main needle, and thermal decoupling if fourstroke. WRT carburation, the solution nowadays used (superposing digital fuel metering over the standard needles) handsdown outperforms ANYTHING on the market, be that Walbro, Zama, or Saito's proprietary gasser carbs.
Hands down, no comparison. Not the same planet, even...
Installation of that system can be done in a matter of minutes without special tools. Compare that with the work involved in modding a glow engine to accept a Walbro or similar.
Supercritical and touchy? Most engines I have not even touched the needles in ages... Some need an occasional seasonal correction, one click at best, and not critical at all...
Pump carburettors, fuel pressure regulators "a must"? Heck, no way:
And that was even before the electronic stuff... believe it or not, this is a 100% stock ASP engine, never even sniffed at glow fuel. Broken in straight out of the box on pump gas and oil, still using the glow carb it left the factory with.
Performance back then was allready not really half-arsed
and introduction of electronic fuel control (both these vids predate that) only improved things.

And mine run without issues now for well over 8 years with the first breakdown still needing to happen, leave alone need for replacement of parts (and most of them, they run a LOT...). A few of them have still to see a first deadstick, even.

No... Those things about carb changes, oil issues, special fuel mixes, conrod conversions, they are nowadays total rubbish. Most of my engines are cheap ASP's, straight out of the box broken in on regular pumpgas, not even Ethanol-free, not even high octane, not even "race fuels" and no additives apart from a regular decent quality 2-stroke oil.
I lubricate A LOT at 9%, but many people run 6 or even 5% without issues. No mods to conrods either. Some engines have minor cooling issues, but nothing that hinders flight. Nothing that cannot be cured with a slight bit of effort during installation, like cooling air baffling etc.

Does NOT mean that it is easy... It isn't. Setting up the fuel delivery curves is an aquired skill, that takes time and talent to master. It's however also not really black magic or dark arts, anyone that puts in a moderate effort to understand what is going on in the engine, can learn how to do it.
Bottom line is, the technology is there, and is relatively cheap, and can be entirely home made for less than 40 bucks in parts.
I sell those kits for 65 Euro, and that's overhead only, no profit in it for me. They weigh about 30 grammes installed. It consists of a piece of electronics half the size of a postage stamp that directly plugs into the receiver, and a fuel control valve approx the size of an inline fuel filter as used on glow engines.
Relatively simple and quick to install (I have done conversions for customers within 1,5 hrs including the installation of ignition, installation of fuel control and the programming, while they were waiting).

And it is reliable and proven to have no detrimental effect on the engines health whatsoever. Wanna see a 50+ year old Wankel run on gasoline?
Runs extremely hot, I have seen the engine core reach 180 deg C (355F) but seems unkillable. Old wives tales insist that these engines be lubricated with straight castor "or else"... This one has done several dozens of hours using regular 2-stroke oil for mopeds... No deterioration.

Well, we are going to have to agree to disagree on a few things, as I don't care to argue. Don't mistake the fact that I rather got out of conversions of yard equipment for airplanes about 3 years ago as being out of touch. I have been involved with building and tuning race engines of all types, two stroke and four stroke, as recently as this morning, and on a continuing basis. And on all my fleet, my Walbro carbs are a pleasure to operate and 100% hassle free. As far as operating a bushing rod on low oil content, well "you do you" and "I'll do me." For the most part, I got away from really small engines long ago anyway, preferring the 25cc to 50cc planes. (And up.) The Super Tigre 90 on gasoline was a gift from Keith at BME engines that I keep around as a novelty. He and I consulted on some engine projects back a few years ago.

Anyway, where can I read more about your electronic tuning widget? Obviously, EFI is actually the current thing, but I'm always up for reading about anything engine related.

Av8tor

I did not mean to be argumentative: I also did not start an argument.
You asked if conversions were still a thing, and my answer was "yes, but not in the way you used to do it". Then you basically went on to tell me that what I have been doing for the last 8 or 9 years with great success, actually is impossible and how it should be done properly. That rubs a bit as you might imagine, because I fly my planes and run my engines basically every weekend and have been for a lot of years, with people following me succesfully.

Have I been dreaming that?

There's however nothing to argue or disagree about...
There are only facts, and I did not make them up, they turned out to be what they are when I ran into them.
Fact is, that Walbro, tillotson etc, however good they might be, are not made in sizes suitable below maybe 15 cc (.90). Consequently, the option to fit one is not availlable.
Fact is, they might work wonderful on larger engines, they get more critical, sometimes impossible to get right, the smaller the engine gets.
Fact is, even Stihl found that pumper carbs could be HUGELY improved upon, and they came up with the M-tronic series, of which my system is a simplified adaptation.
Fact is, that you do NOT need a pumper carb to run a glow engine, not even in aerobatic use. I have a gazillion videos that undeniably prove that.
Fact is, that tank position is NOT critical, even without a pumper carb, I gave you video proof of that, both in ground testing and in flight.
Fact is that on gasoline those engines run hotter, fact is ALSO that this totally is NOT a problem.
Fact is, that plain bushed conrods do not fail. I have done about 50 engines myself (15 or so private, 35 for customers) and advised at least another 100 folks on how to do their own conversion, NONE of those have experienced conrod faillure, let alone ANY other parts faillure.
Fact is, that it is economically viable. Mind you, NOT "commercially", the market is way too small for that.. Not for an occasional flyer with only one or two planes, flying once a month or so either. But for the frequently flying RC pilot like myself, conversion absolutely pays off.

I did not make that mistake... I am marine engineer by profession and have been involved with quite a lot of technical innovations over the course of 30+ years. I have been at times hesitant myself to adopt to new technology when I wasn't the one implementing it, and met a lot of resistance when I WAS the one implementing new stuff. I reckognize 'em when I see 'em.
I did not take you as being out of touch, I took you as someone "stuck in certain routines", and that is OK, because for a large part of my life I was like that too. I was OK with that, until I noticed it also guaranteed I made zero progression.

The conrod "you do you, I do me" thing eludes me to be honest: If a reknowned player like Saito guarantees their gasoline engines, which have NON-bushed bare aluminium conrods, on 5% oil and has been doing that since their introduction well over a decade ago... Maybe you should revise the "being out of touch" statement a bit...

This thread: Electronic solutions to modifying glow engines of all sizes to gasoline has been in the top three on the list since I started it... It is a continuation of this thread: Start saving big on fuel costs. Build our controller and convert to gas. - RC Groups, which got ruined by a few "contributors" with a very curious aversion against anyone that did not preach the gospel of the holy glowplug...
If you start reading, I suggest you start with the RC Groups thread, the first 50 pages are most relevant WRT technical info.

Ha! Ok, ok.

You are the greatest engine guy ever. Your tuning acumen and engine expertise is amazing and could never be really appreciated by mere mortals. You are so "with it", up to date" and on top of things. So innovative! Just how do you do it? Amazing! Wow! I humbly defer to your obvious grand wisdom and superiority.

Just really seemed like you needed that...

;~)

Av8tor

Holy cow, we are not worthy lol!
He must be real fun at the airfield.

OK... this baffles me...

Really? No I am not, but it sure sounds like you feel challenged in your assumption that YOU are? Look, YOU are the one opening a thread titled "remember me?"... Not me. That suggests a need for validation on your part. Not mine.
You are the one claiming to be that grand tuner, ("I have been involved with building and tuning race engines of all types, two stroke and four stroke, as recently as this morning, and on a continuing basis" is your statement, not mine). I never claimed to be a tuner (building race engines or souping up existing ones), please show where I did.

You asked a simple question: "is anyone still doing conversions?", and received a simple answer:

You COULD have left it at that, no? Because I sure as hell was going to... I could see this escalation coming from a mile away and the lack of detail in that post was deliberate.

Post 9 and 10 was just a bit of banter between two engine enthousiasts you telling what you did and why you no longer pursued that, me giving some more detailed insight in what I was up to these days, AGAIN clearly indicating that there was a significant difference between what you did previously, and what I am still doing to date. You converted weedwhackers, I convert "slimers". If it wasn't allready clear from post 8, it sure should be clear after post 10.
AGAIN you COULD have decided to leave it at that... But you didn't.

Along came post 11... You basically started telling me how glow-to-gas conversions should be done (your way, the old way), and why such conversions are in your opinion problematic. Although worded different, what it came down to was, they basically are not worth it... What did I write post 10 for, then? Did you even read it? If you did read post 10, you would KNOW your post 11 was BS, and if you didn't bother to read post 10, then why then bother to respond at all? Would be a bit silly, wouldn't it?

I did not start spouting incorrect facts. You did. All I did was point out that those facts were wrong, and proven to be wrong allready many years ago.
I tried to do that as respectful as possible in post 12, but apparently the reality of your knowledge being obsolete was more than you could handle.

If you cannot handle being proven wrong,that's on you, not me. If that causes you to attack my accumen, please keep in mind I never attacked yours.
I for me, I simply refuse to let incorrect information stand...
Let's leave it at that...

And Kamlooper, yeah, I am usually a decent guy to be around both on and off the field...
I might get a bit edgy though, when a polite discussion, NOT by my doing, derails into someone trying to sell me BS and then, when I/m not buying that BS, starts projecting his own shortcomings on me...

Too funny!

I'm going to grab a couple of glow engine planes to add to my gas fleet, just because he made me miss them, and I actually know how to use them--> without dead sticks and tuning problems!!

I deferred to his self imagined wisdom and it still wasn't enough. Wonder what this guy does for fun?

It's been fun!

;~)

Av8tor

Well Brutus, my read on your efforts here in responses to technical information stands out as extremely intelligent and well informed. You appear to always be trying to help people. Thank you for your contributions, I enjoy reading your posts.

Me too...glow forever! What they were intended for

For others reading this and dont know Av8tor, he has been very helpful and on point regarding engine conversions (ie; weed wackers, blowers ect) before they died off. All without coming across as condescending. Just my opinion based on his posts here going back a few years.

I think Ill break out my 4 mix and run it up, just to hear it. Its been a few years.... last thing I did to it was make an exhaust manifold out of copper tubing and a muffler out of a hair spray can. I might have lost a few rpm putting a muffler on it but I prefer the sound over the harley/ratty sound of open exhaust. Not the prettiest piece of metal to look at but was and enjoyable project. The engine was free so why not

This guy reminds me of the yokel who wanders into the shop and loudly says "Yeah boy, you put you some 454 heads on a 396, and that makes it a 454 and it will run like a striped ass ape!!" said with an air of authority while pausing to spit some tobacco juice. We would get some guy like this spouting some such nonsense like this in our shop about once every couple of months or so. We had experience with them, so we would not argue and just look at each other with a knowing smile. We would refuse to do any engine development work for them, as it too often ended up being a problem.

The main thing was not to engage and argue with them, as this triggered their need to prove that they were "the smartest guy in the room", and no amount of talk, even pointing things out in books or internet would convince them they were wrong.

Just not worth dealing with. After a while they'll wander off to find a new audience...

;~)

Av8tor

Reality's gotta sting...

Homelite (and other) Hop Up Techniques and How To:
Started, march 20, 2015, last activity April 30 2015, a 40 day period. 0,5 posts per day in that period, and to date 31.353 views (appr 9 per day total average).

Electronic solutions to modifying glow engines of all sizes to gasoline
Started June 14, 2022, currently still active for a continuous and ongoing 900 day stretch, averaging 2,5 posts per day, totalling 2432 posts, and 302.611 views averaging about 335 views per day.

Stop kidding yourself, nobody is buying it...

You often meet interesting characters when you participate in various forums as I do. Here is one that has a most astonishing need for recognition. Moreso I believe, than I've ever encountered! I hope he finds it, and not too many are disappointed with some of his less than wise ideas on some subjects. It is obvious why he's had problems in other threads and forums. A very self righteous, opinionated, abrasive character.

For myself, my goals and enjoyment in the forums are met. I could care less about "stardom" and "fandom" and "followers" and all the rest of that crap sought out by people with inferiority complex issues. All I want is to help people where I can, and get answers to my own queries where possible. This has all been happily done for many years.

You can relax, you are the greatest, the stage is yours, and I wish you luck.

With that, I will ask the moderators to close this tiresome thread, and I personally will lock out 1967Jose's content. Clearly, I have nothing to learn from him!

Lastly, if any of my friends and engine guys from the past are still around, shoot me a PM, and let me know what you are up to, and how any of my many engines out there are doing. Ciao!!

Av8tor

Ok, it took me a minute, as I have never "Blocked" or "Ignored" anyone before, but I got it done. I will no longer see any posts from 1967brutus.

HURRAY!!

;~)

Av8tor

You goys place nice.

Consider this your friendly warning before people start getting put in time out.