acdii

I have a DLE 20 that I finally got tuned perfectly, at least the last two times I flew it. Today though it kept quiting at idle, had two dead stick landings after chopping throttle to idle on approach, both time barely making it to the field. I put it on the bench and found that if I leaned out the low speed it would idle, but killed the transition, throwing all the tuning off. When I tuned it I was using the 32:1 fuel mix it calls for, but today all I had with me was the 20:1 I use for the Saito engines. So is it the higher oil content that is causing this? When flying I was at 1/2 throttle for most of the flight and it was running strong too, down to 1/4 throttle nice and slow flight, just when I close the throttle does it die after a few seconds.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

More oil will effectively make your engine run leaner. Synthetic oils tend to be worse about this than the dino oils.

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

Generally if they quit on final they're lean. If that's not the case - possibly the engine is idled too low? Should be somewhere in the high teens if you have a tach.

I'd be surprised if the problem were associated with oil content.

acdii

Hard to imagine it was lean as it kept quitting on the bench until I leaned it out. I didn't put it back up after leaning the low speed, due to the transitions being off, so will give it ago next time out using the 32:1 that is for it. Just have to remember to put it in the truck. At least this time I used a half tank of fuel, so had a good long flight, I usually land with 3/4 tank still. I got about 20 minutes of flying in.

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

In a perfect world, these little guys need to be rich to run right. If you start with one adjusted properly, and you lean it, the idle speed will increase. No doubt about it! Don't go for a smooth running engine on idle. That will leave you lean every time. When right, the engine will be a little unsteady actually, maybe not even hitting on every compression stroke. Doesn't sound good, but we're talking about a single cylinder 2 stroke. They're just that way on the idle...

Not saying there's no chance of something else going on.

Peak at wide open, then richen until you just start to loose rpm. On idle, go for your smooth/quick transition. Fly, and adjust as necessary. -Al

acdii

I had it perfectly tuned, flew it several times before yesterday and never needed to touch anything, however I was using the 32:1 mix in it. I had to lean the LSN about 1/8th turn before it would idle properly, which of course threw the entire mix off. In fact, yesterday was the first time I could not keep it running more than a few seconds when cold. It popped right up on first spin with the choke on, but soon as I turned off the choke, it ran a bit and quit, just long enough for me to put the starter down, but not long enough for me to grab the radio. I bumped up the idle trim a bit at a time until it stayed running, and transitions were fine, no hesitation to WOT and ran fine at anything above idle. The downside was it was idling at about 3000 RPM, which is way too high for this plane, it would not be able to land. I will run some of the mix I have for this plane and see if that makes a difference, though now I have to start over again since I never marked the needles once I got it tuned.