On looking at the 1/2 A site tons of posts on coxes, norvels, a few on APs and CS > there is lot of stuff avaiable for cox
reeds, diesel heads, cranks from Davis. Sadly unless you can adapt the front intake to accept a small RC carb (where do yoo find one?) Davis has a very workable solution by connecting a servo to move a rod to vary the compression screw
still a exhaust oil issue blowing over the plane in glow or diesel

The norvels are no more and the APs and CS leave a lot to be desired for quality control

Of course Burford makes a very high quality engine but the price is out of reach of many ( yes the engine is worth it)

There seems to be a few of the guys using the TT07 inspite of its low power it runs fine and holds up
The surprise is PAW references they have the engines (this may get a few more into diesel) but a little pricey

With the tons of nice ARFS out there some are looking to convert from electric to glow or diesel
and of course the kit and scratch build guys looking too martin

Once you hit the 0.10 size you are ok either as glow and of course the OSs and TTS have diesel heads available from davis if the airframe can accept the size and wt of the larger engine

The real problem is that people think a small engine should have a proportionally small price. A nice engine could be produced, but if you are not in the business of making engines producing engines can be a daunting task. I've examined very closely Norvel engines and other small engines. Norvels are produced very economically. You just can't get any chepaer than that with a high quality product in my opinion. TT can produce very good engine but blew it with the .07. Why is anyones guess. Is the new revised version any better or different?

Just how big is the 1/2A market today? 1/2A is fading quickly into modeling history. I would be scared to invest in tooling for a 1/2A engine to find out there are only a handful of buyers.

Greg taking CS as an example I picked up one from Bill Hughes cheap yes you cannot turn the compression screw
You cannot get the engine apart no QC at $48 bucks apiece to buy 2 or more and hope you can get a good one is insane a real crap shoot a few folks have gotten ones that are OK. They really have to review their standards and do it right
if they were consistant no one would mine spending an other 10 bucks they can not even get a screw in straight and they are badly made besides

If they did this they would get a piece of the market martin

Another $10 won't buy the kind of quality you expect. Especially, if it's not produced at a factory that makes engines. If a person is going to tool up to make a good 1/2A, it's going to cost 100USD or more. If someone like CS could improve their quality, then $10 more might get a nice engine. $10 doesn't go far in 2008.

Greg they have the engine casting no issue here, I would guess the crank, rod and piston liner ok: They have to work on their tolerances
and assembly decent screws are not that much money I do not know if they are CNC or not if they do they have to learn to set it, There is no excuse for not having threads cut right and clearance for assembly and dis-assembly
they have the basics, by the way the carb seems fine except for the crummy screws holding it in martin

We know what would make a good engine. Even they know what makes a good engine. They have sold their samples of some of the finest engines ever made on Ebay over the past couple years. Rossi, OS, Rivers, Oliver, to name a few. There was an Ebayer from China selling some very nice engines. I had hunch this was the CS factory. A few months back they started selling CS engines. They are very aware of what makes a good engine. What appears a simple choice to you or me is not the same over there. That's why you find toxins in baby formula produced in China and doing such a thing would never cross anyone's mind in another part of the world.

Greg good point.much of the labor pool in China are unskilled and the factories to save a buck will hire them at the lowest possible wages. maybe the skilled are no longer at CS. Making Hot wheels toys do not require these skills
There are good makers out there Sanye is an example martin

Also super tiger still a good quality engine so it can be done

here in the good old USA we have done it too the infamous THOR years ago which sold for 7 to 10 dollars was a piece on junk most would not even run

Peng Han ( SHUIGUAN for RCU) just kindly sent me an extensive list of present CS replica engines (toghether with many more original cs) . It results that Deezil is not currently in production, but others are, that are RIVERS and ED Hunter going for 110$ and Tiger for 105, Tiger chrome for 120 and Cub for 95.
Any recent personal experience?
ugo

One friend of me in Bergen has the CS Oliver Tiger, the quality are poor. We maked new sleeve/piston due the transfer ports was not exact height and width and used the original measure from old english Oliver Tiger in timing.

In my opinion, I will not buy these CS engines since the quality of work is not good enough.

Good grief:::: Not only poor machining they cannot even get the measurements right, Jens you have the skills to do this
your friend is lucky you helped him. many of us are not machinists and we should not have to be (remake an engine)
after spending our $$ . martin

For less money too you can get a letmo replica made in the Czech republic maybe $80 by craftsman who take pride in their work martin

Why waste you money on a CS olly when you can purchase the superb Rothwell R250 from OZ or if you wait a little longer you will be able to purchase brand new Oliver Tigers (Mk3 and Mk4 versions); yep they are currently back into production (no r/c versions) as reported on the UK Barton C/L site.

As for small diesels forget the Chinese as the quality is just not there (see some of the correspondence on CS ollies [:'(]) and the small world market does not justify new players (witness the extintion of AM, AE, FROG, DC, ED, Mills, Taifun etc over the years). We have all moved on and now survive on all the cast-offs of those famous brands that turn up on fleabay or second hand markets.

Ployd in OZ

I wrote about this in the 'Glow Engines' forum...

In the '80s it was, I think, Harry Higgley who wrote in his column in MAN magazine; "For an engine to sell at a street-price of $100; it must be manufactured for a cost of $10..."


If it costs the manufacturer $10 to produce and engine, it will be sold to the distributor for about $30 (including the shipping costs) and then to the dealer for about $65 (again, including the shipping costs). Eventually the modeler will pay $100 + S&H...

The $10 cost to the manufacturer is, of course, the residual cost and does not include the engineering, design, marketing and all overhead costs; just the net added cost of producing another engine. The cost is of all the raw materials, casting, machining, bearings, fasteners, assembly and the packing/box...

...And...

If the cost of fasteners and bearings makes you think, it would be impossible to build an engine for the value of a green and black piece of special paper, with Alexander Hamilton depicted on one side; please let me take you out of your misconception...

Fasteners are usually purchased by engine manufacturers, in kilograms; not in units. They typically cost less than one tenth of what a modeler would pay inexpensive sources, like MicroFasteners, or RTL.

Bearings? Even the excellent per-unit prices offered by RC-Bearings, are shadowed by what those buying in thousands pay... The engine manufacturers would typically pay under $0.20 per bearing... OS probably buy theirs for under $0.05...

The photo is from the WikiPedia page on the $10 bill...

The lack of easily available good quality 1/2A and .061 size engines is indeed a worry, particularly the unavailability of the Norvels which in my opinion are unmatched as a 1/2A size sports engine.

For C/L flying, I am coming to the conclusion that the solution is to turn away from the US definition of 1/2A and use the many superb, readily available .09/.10 size engines. In particular the Enya .09-IV is wonderful, and of course the PAW .09 is no slouch either, plus older Enya 09-IIIs, OS 10 FSRs, 10 FPs, etc. are easily obtained on eBay for very little price. Also, Carlson still offers the MK17. If diesel operation is desired, the PAW is great, and of course Davis offers a conversion for the 10FP.

Regarding CS, I'm inclined to agree. My CS olly is a great runner after significant remedial work by David Owen (including fitting a couple of Rothwell parts), but frankly for the bother of the thing I'd have been better off just buying a PAW or some more OS 15s on eBay, or even a Marz.

Instead of a gamble on the murky waters of **bay you can get an OSLA10 or TT GP10 and Davis makes a head for both. I have both with his heads I prefer the TT10 with its front angled carb over the LA10 both good runners and no issues no point in rehashing the TT07 its all been said martin

a Little bigger and heavier the EnyaCX 11D great engine


Ken Enya should put out the 06 again and have a diesel version of the 09 the 06 would be nice too