In an effort to keep the innards of the carb as clean as possible can a small amount of regular automotive carb cleaner be mixed with our fuel without causing any harm to the carb's non metalic parts.

Karol

karolh,
since our two stroke engines rely on oil in the fuel for lubrication, adding a solvent may effect the oils ability to form a protective film on components. I would not want to use it in a two stroke myself.

Dave

If the carb cleaner is petroleum based, forget it. It will not mix with the fuel.
I did get good results with injector cleaner, but if it smells like lamp oil, forget it.
The best bet is the carb or injector cleaners that also take care of water in the system by dissolving (absorbing) it.
Very little of the additive is needed, but it must be tested first.
take some fuel in a clean glass, and stir in a few drops of the cleaner. If the fuel gets misty or milky, discard the cleaner, it is no good. If the cleaner dissolves, and leaves the fuel clear, let it stand off for a few hours.
If no cleaner drops have formed seperated from the fuel, it is safe to use.

Thanks Pe, assuming I find one that is suitable how much should I add to say a gallon of fuel.

Karol

Your carburetor will stay sparkling clean with pump gas as long as you run the engine 2-3 times a year. Modern gasoline already has a lot of cleaner in it. The oil we mix with gas goes a long way toward keeping corrosion out of the carbs, especially if its petroleum. Using glycol or castor based oil [that can mix with alcohol] can cause corrosion and blockage over time, oil made to mix only with gasoline seldom will.

For that super squeaky clean look, mix the fuel 50/50 with either Draino or Gunk carb cleaner. I absolutely guarantee that the results will be spectacular If you want to eliminate carbon deposits, simply use kerosene instead of gasoline

I will not be held responsible for anyone or anything that actually believes and tries the above.

I was not quite comprehensive enough about compatibility cheks.
I should have added "for methanol fuels and synthetic oil mixed gas". The matter is very complicated.

The amount to be mixed in is as per instruction on the bottle.

Indeed fuels are evolving rapidly, and the oxigenated stuff sold nowadays has increased cleaning capabilities, as well as the power to absorb a little water that has found it's way into the carb. With too much water, the oxygenators will separate from the fuel, and cause trouble.

Without attempting to stir up a can of worms, I have not found a valid reason to add any type of cleansing agent to model gas engines. Myself and others, day in and day out, normally fly readily available R/C gas engines for a continuous period of 10 to 14 hours a day. That's in any and all weather enviornments, at altitudes from sea level to above 8,000 on a regular basis, and up to 19,000 on rare events. These engines fly for 100 hours before they are seriously checked for any abnormalies, and as a rule are not re-built until they reach a running time of 300 hours.

Our particular group averages a minimum of 1,200 flight hours a month, and, no, there is not any type of in flight mixture control to assure that the mixture stays perfect. The carb needles are set once before the plane goes up the first time and probably won't be touched again until rebuild time.

To date, using normal gasoline and Bel Rey oil at 50-1, I have not seen any need for a cleansing additive. With the above in mind, I truly believe that the amount of experience we have gained in day to day operations qulaifies me to make the fairly blanket statement that there is just no need for this type of additive.

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All gasoline has cleaning agents added by the manufacturer. Adding cleaning agents is asking for engine failure problems. Oil needs to coat parts. Some cleaning agents will prevent this. Second guessing the engine manufacturers and gasoline producers has cost many folks lots of money in the past.

We had a local "newbie" to gas engines here that used a cleaning agent in his fuel. The final result was a totally destroyed engine. Sleeve, piston and ring was chewed up. The repair cost was 75% of the replacement---so he opted for a new engine. Is cheaper to learn from other peoples mistakes.

Silversurfer, This is not stirring up a can of worms.
Your experience is invaluable, especially the amount of engine time you can boast. I have seen large differences, ranging from spotlessly clean innards to very operable carboned up engines, so I realy am not in a position to condemn either system. I too do believe, that fuel and oil manufacturers are constantly striving to give us the best run for the dollar we spend, and all extra additives are questionable at best, unless the user has been messing around with inferior stuff, and then needs extra additives to undo his errant ways. The technology used in the magic add-on bottles should be known by the master blenders, and thus be much better adapted in their fuel blends.

Having said all that, there of course are a lot of people here that believe in dinosour (misspelled, I know, excuse the pun) oil, and they in particular may be in need of some snake medicine. Heck, I could go on-and-on, but I won't. Suffice to say, there are more ways than one to skin the cat, though modern oil and fuel manufacturers narrow the range fast.

Hi,

I believe that the make of oil used in our two strokes contributes in a major way to the carbon buildup in engines. In the tests that I ran a year ago, all oils caused carbon except Belray which is the one the uav guys in silversurfer's group use. If that group changed oil brands, they would have more problems. In fact, based on silversurfer past comments, I believe they used to have problems.

Elson

Thanks to all for your comments. I figure I've learnt enough now to know to stay clear of using any additive whatsoever in my fuel.

Karol

RC Bugman,

You are correct. We were forced to change from our engine manufacturers oil to Belray due to separation issues under severe operating conditions. I wish to re-state that under the conditions that most R/C engines will ever encounter, just about any oil will work just fine, with synthetics winning out over any conventional oil every time. I'm not altogether certain, but your previously posted oil experiments may have had some bearing in our selection.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones because of the benefit of having all the available flight data from work to assist my decisions in what R/C products will work the best in my personal stuff. Makes those purchasing decisions easy. All that's left is how much I want to spendto match performance levels.

BTW, the hours noted above are no boast, they're required flying hours and are uaually exceeded.

I meant boast in the sense of "claim", not at all like bragging.
Like in:
"No language is rude that can boast polite writers. "

Thank you sir. It's appreciated.