OS have launched the first of a series of ethanol glow engines (and I gather Thunder Tiger are about to too):

http://www.os-engines.co.jp/english/bio_eng/

They state the glow, head and carb are new designs and the fuel is ethanol with a plant-based lubricant.

That brings to mind the thought that other glow engines could be converted to run well on ethanol...

What a bunch of green *rap.

A friend of mine says there are a few homebrew recipes for ethanol glow fuel out there... I haven't run across them as I have gone to conversion motors, but you might research it .

ok, did anyone else watch the video on that link? when the pilot flipped the prop and fired it up, i didn't see a glow igniter!? it fired right up without a glow driver! i thought the cans of fuel said glow fuel on them, so how was the plug hot enough to fire the engine without an igniter?

If you look closely at the very beginning of the clip you can see it has onboard glow. It is probably controlled by either a switch on the transmitter or throttle position.

I read about people using ethanol-gas mixes without onboard glow but if we could eventually go to a gas/petrol station for our fuel in the future for sub-.60 size engine fuel, count me in.

Have you read the E85 thread in the fuels section? http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3219478/tm.htm

Wayne V

Yes, thanks.
I have just done my first test with:
75% methylated spirit from the builders warehouse (the blue dyed stuff)
10% unleaded gasoline
15% castor

My old Irvine .40 ran anywhere between full wack to medium idle WITHOUT glow battery!
The throttle response is very sensitive and unless done slowly just kills it, but I haven't done any proper needle tuning yet (it has an idle one too).

If/once I get it running more smoothly, I will add more gasoline to see what happens. I see no reason to use more than 15% castor on this engine because it's fairly loose and castor is more expensive than the other components.

I'm glad you got it running to prove a point to u no who. Remember the more gasoline you add the hotter the engine will run and this may cause you some problems.

Today's test mix on my old Irvine .40 was:
62% denatured ethanol from builders warehouse
20% gasoline
15% castor
3% acetone

Idled happily at medium idle (without glow batt) screamed at full throttle but the throttle response is extremely sluggish (suggestions anyone?)

When I have finished testing and improving my Ethanol fuel mix I will post my recipe and findings on a separate thread.
I want to get the very old Irvine .40 running reliably first and then try different engines. This particular .40 has bad compression and always was a real pig.


Meanwhile if anyone can suggest a widely available oil instead of castor, I'll give it a try (if I can find it!)

What glow plugs have you tried? On my SuperTigres that I ran on a similar mix I had to experiment with different glow plugs to find one that it would idle with. There are a couple of other threads about the same subject and they also found some different glow plugs that helped with idle and transition. Good luck, this type of stuff is what it's all about for me. [8D]

I've tried two unknown plugs, and one seemed slightly better than the other! This is no help whatsoever but plugs do seem to make some difference.
I have an OS F four-stroke plug coming plus two other hot ones, so I'll be able to post how they compared in a week or so.

Excellent info my ST40 ran very good on ethanol with the OS four stroke plug and also the OS A3. It didn't like the Fox four stroke plug as much although it still ran OK but just didn't idle as good. I am not sure why.

Tried it with an OS-F and OS A3 plug and it worked as good as can be expected with this old Irvine .40.
I found it near impossible to flick start this engine (quite bad on methanol too) so had to use an electric starter.