Is nitro definitely needed to get these engines running without the glow plug attached, or can you just mix 1 part methanol, 2 parts 93 octane gasoline and ad about 2.56 oz of klotz. How would this do?

Man, sorry to get the old "dander up" but this is the most commonly asked question in this thread!! The correct fuel isn't that hard to find as all the major fuel manufacturers make it. We've gone through a lot of testing, time, and frustration sometimes to come up with this mix that works.

To directly answer your question, the engine will run, but not as well as with some nitro. These engines have low compression, and greatly benefit from a little nitro. Without nitro, you will probably notice a significant rpm drop when removing the glow plug heat, (battery). Further, the idle won't be as good, and the transition from idle to high throttle will suffer.

AV8TOR

I tried the klotz and the methanol and the gasoline. It worked really well. The engine ran well and idled great. I then tried the glo fuel and gasoline mix. It ran about the same with maybe 200 rpm more on the high side. The idle was about the same. After awhile on the glow/gas mix it leaned out and died when I brought it down to idle. It never did this on the zero nitro mix. Both fuels ran fine with the glow connector off. It is a feather lite weedeater 20cc. Does anyone know what the optimal prop would be for this engine. The 16x8 I have on there seems to be bogging it down a bit....

Let me knwo

Try a APC 16x6...a little less pitch. Capt,n

Glad it worked for you! All mine like the nitro. Propping depends on the airplane. As Capn said, you can try a 16 x 6, or if you want more speed, go to a 15 x 8. It depends on the porting in a given engine, but most of these like to spin in the 7500 to 8500 range. Any lower is kind of lugging them down, losing power, and risking overheating.

Capn John... sent you an e-mail earlier. Still no Echo.

AV8TOR

What can you add to the fuel to keep it in suspension longer. The klotz mixture separates quickly. the glow/gas mix stayed together longer but still separates over night. This has probably been answered but I could not find it.....

What is the mix composition that your having problems with? A little more detail always helps.

Basically is there anything that will keep methanol and gasoline in suspension....

Hmm, this is strange. I've been running this stuff for almost a year now, and I've had no separation problems whatsoever with the gas/glow mix. Try a different brand of gasoline maybe? When I first started experimenting, I mixed up a batch in a glass jar... no separation after sitting still for a week. No problems in my fuel cans nor running mixes either.

AV8TOR

If your mixture is separating then it is not mixing at the molecular level and
is bound to fail.

Please tell us exactly what combination you are using.

av8tor: The tracking no says it was delivered on 9/1/2006 and a person signed for it. The initials are L. R. Gila Bend Arizona. I was told it may have been a business address? Do you know of such a person with same initials. For anyone else ... 15 of these Echo shortblock engines went to Alabama. Capt,n[&o] Tracking results provided by UPS: Sep 8, 2006 6:06 P.M. Eastern Time (USA)

TRACKING DETAIL

Tracking Number:
Status: Delivered
Delivered on: Sep 1, 2006 5:32 P.M.
Signed by: raya
Location: MAIL ROOM
Delivered to: LUKEVILLE, AZ, US




--------------------------------------

I have the answer after several hours of research and calling chemists. Amyl acetate. It the additive in glow fuel that binds everything together. That is why when I tryed to mix my own methanol/gasoline/oil, it separated. This chemical is used as a fuel additive in many fuels to bind the molecules together. So if anyone wants to mix there own fuel and not buy it already mixed you will need to mix 1 part methanol, 2 parts gasoline, 3.33% nitro methane, and 3 oz of good klotz or amsoil. and then add 1oz of amyl acetate to the mixture. This will yield the same as the 10/10 glow/gas mix of 1 to 3. The cost of mixing it yourself is about 5.00 a gal. Buying premix 10/10 and mixing it with gas costs about 6.00 a gal. So it is definitely a toss up. You guys were right about the 10/10 glo mix it works well.

Thanks

Avator: Do you live in or near Lukeville? Thanks Capt,n

I ran my 20cc featherlite for two hours on the glo/gas mix. I got it all tuned in and I am well impressed. I am a convert and will probably never pay more than the price of a cheap weedeater for a plane engine again......Thanks to all of you guys

Capn John,

It's all ok now! I just sent you a PM.

torkwrenchmon: Congrats on getting it all figured out, and you're welcome!

AV8TOR

For anyone who wants to know. A supertigre .61 hub will fit a featherlite weedeater engine. They have the exact same taper (machinist taper) works great with a thread extension.

torkwrenchmon
So just where does one find Amyl acetate? What quanity packaging and it price/unit? Thanks for the input and glad to hear of your success.

Wow! Someone on the group actually lives in Gila Bend, AZ! Neat.

That was my first duty station after boot camp in the USAF. I loved it there. I still dream of going back there some day to live.

One thing to take into consideration is!!!! WATER IN METHANOL if the methanol you are purchasing is very old and contaminated with moisture it will SEPARATE the mixture. This happened to me before all I just changed Methanol for a fresher batch and never had separation problems again.
Congratulations on becoming our NEWEST MEMBER to our GAS/GLOW brotherhood
As for the prop I would use an APC 15x8 0r an 15x6W ifd they have it available.

Yeah, I think you got it aeronut. He sent me a pm and I suggested the same thing. Either that or the particular brand of gasoline he is using has some kind of an additive that is interfering. I'm betting on water combining with the alcohol, and then falling out of suspension.

AV8TOR

av8tor, i was thing about putting dual plugs in my gas & glo engine. Would like to no if you think this would help out in anyway in the engine operation before i go to all that work. Thanks
ken

hey boxcar how the heck would you do that? might work i guess??!? maybe? possibly? i hope?!?!??

I would say you wouldn't notice any difference at all. There are two reasons this is done in aviation engines normally. One is for redundancy; if one system fails, the engine will continue to run on the other system, or spark plug as the case may be. The other, is that full size aviation engines have very large bores. It is preferable, and somewhat necessary to ignite the charge from two places. If you don't, the ignited charge on one side of the combustion chamber can cause a spontaneous combustion, or detonation on the other side of the cylinder, and/or the entire mix may not burn. Better to ignite the mixture in two places at the correct time, than have uncontrolled or incomplete combustion. That's a bit over-simplified, but I think you get the idea. In our small bore engines, I seriously doubt that you would notice any difference whatsoever in the performance or operation; spark plug or glow plug.

AV8TOR

I'll bet that it will run cleaner and leaner.

You will have to richen up the mixture, and dead sticks would be a thing of the past.

Idleing would be rock solid and the timing would be advanced.

I'd like to see the test results. A true before and after test.

Prop sizes, rpm, head tempature and fuel mixtures.

I had a motorcylce, a 250 desert CZ, that gained a lot from a second sparkplug.

Low end and midrange especially.

I have been wondering how those old motors would of ran on a 1/3- 2/3 mix.

It was the gasoline. The station by my house is not the place to buy gas for this procedure. I went to a new shell station and bought some gas and mixed it. It stayed in suspension great. Hey does anyone know what mods I can do to my carb to increase rpm. It runs great now but I feel like I could get some more out of it. It is a FL weedeater 20cc. I bought a brand new string trimmer that had a damaged trigger for a fraction of the price. I stripped it and made a glow plug adapter. I must also either purchase or preferably make a muffler. Anyone know what size of output pipes to run out of it.

I talked to my local hobby shop about this gas/glow thing. He couldn't believe it. So I will show him. I am going to mod my 60-1.20 size P51 and install this engine. It weighs about the same as the .90 that I have on it now......I need to make a muffler that hugs the cylinder, runs around the back of the engine and dumps at an angle down and back.

Let me know