Need a new engine for a Thunder Tiger .60 trainer. My experience is almost exclusive with OS 45 & 60. I have heard alot about the eveloution engine and giving it serious consideration. Also considered 4 cycle OS or Saito. So many options please help.
Thanks

I haven't seen the Evolution .61, but I have seen the .46 in action for many months at our field.

It's probably one of the least-problematic "beginner" engines I've ever seen. Fuel it and fly it.

Seems to make really good power, starts easily, idles well, no need for constant diddling, etc.

Looks like a good deal IMO.

'Race

i personaly don't like them. for their price they are pretty good, but they have these obnoxious tuning guards on the adjustments so you can barely make any adjustments, they look pretty gimmicky, and i am just not convinced.

If you look at them closely I think you will find it would be very simple to defeat the tuning gaurds.

Ed M.

oh i know they are. they are held on by allen screws. i still don't really like them though.

I have the Alpha .45 and the newer .46 and like 'em both. Strong runners, and I took the limiter collars off first thing...A friend has the new .61 but hasn't run it yet. If it runs a well as the others, it will be a real nice engine. My .455 alpha engine (in a Cermark Bobcat)today turned an APC 10x7 @ 13,100 on 10% w/ an aquacraft (Tower) muffler...

I've worked with at least 8 diferent 40 and 46 size engines with no problems. The mixture limiters are easily defeated or removed, permitting more power than is provided for the novice enthusiast. See the engine review in the February 04 edition of RCM by Clarence Lee. Highly rated in the 40 and 46 sizes.

With the high standards set by Horizon Hobby, and their superb customer service department, I would not hesitate to purchase one of the 60 size evolution engines.

They are fine as stated a good reliable starter engine since you already have
the OSs and seem to run them ok. You might want to consider getting into a
4 stroke the magnum/sc/asp (all the same) which are less then OS and saito
would give you a little more flexibility down the road

Hey I've got 2 of them that friends took them off there trainer's and handed them over to me since they wanted an O.S. ,but as it turn's out I eliminated all the blue safe lock collars and also eliminated the (20 lbs.) fly wheel added a tower muffler 15% cool power & with a MA 10x7, I tach. it @ 14.700 RPM. it really flies my R/C Nobler just great even though I should have changed the wood that forms the fuse it's nice hard wood but it's also heavy.But my Nobler has crashed a few time's already but repairable since the wood is so dame heard.[>:]

In light of the criticisms of the Evo's "needle limiter".... It needs to be pointed out
that those were not put there to maximize output...

The Evo is not a racing engine.

The limiter was installed to prevent gross misadjustment, and to give the beginner the best
shot at flying with a motor that offers simple adjustment, and will reliably start, run and KEEP running.

The product performs extremely well, and satisfies the beginner's need for simplicity perfectly.

'Race.

I have a friend who just bought a Alpha, and the evo .40 that is on his plane, runs very oddly, I suck at adjusting carbs, so maybe someone can help me.

The settings are at factory specs.

Primed the engine, and started it, ran it up to FT. Leaned it out just a tad.
Let it run at FT for about 45 seconds, to a minute, and it lost power, nearly died, until I droped the throttle, at idle, it ran fine, so I gave it full power again, and it ran up, for about 10 seconds, then died. I re-richened the setting on the high speed needle, and started it back up, same thing. I checked the fuel tank, all looks ok, I changed the little hose between the needle, and the carb.

I don't know what to try next, these engines are suposed to be broke in, and factory set. The QA team missed this one, I guess.

sarlacc:

Your friend must have got a motor off the assembly line the same time one of the guys I fly with did. He just bought an evo 40 to put in his trainer after the saito 56 he had in there broke the second con rod. I must say for being a factory broken in motor (with the carb limiters still on it) it runs terrible....will idle all day but once you go to full throttle for about 25 seconds it will cough and sputter and normally die. Lots of members in the glow engine forum love to bash MDS motors but I will take any one of my 3 MDS motors (2 - 40's and a 61) or even my os46la over that evo 40 if they all run like that.

If MDS stands for Might Dead Stick then the evo should be renamed to an ADS.....Always Dead Sticks. He did call horizon last week and they said to send it back for warranty (only has about a quart of fuel through it with about 20 dead stick landings so far). Horizon said it sounded like a leaky bearing that would lead to the tuning nightmares that he was describing.

If you can't get it to run right I would suggest either calling the LHS or online shop that you bought it from and explain the problems you are having with it and see if they won't replace it with a new one. The evo is tauted as a pre-broken in motor that is ready to fly right out of the box.....all I've seen with this motor so far is dead stick landing practice

Madd_Maxx

that doesn't mean you shouldn't break themn in. you would probably notice that you would have a bettter time with them if you broke them in. they are diesigned to be geared more tward the "buy it on friday, build it on saturday, crash it on sunday, buy another one on monday" flyers because it doesn't require any knowladge or skill "supposedly" and they are somewhat cheap. they are also somewhat gimmicky.

I started a bit more than a year ago with an Alpha trainer. I always had engine trouble. I spent far more time fiddling that flying and almost every flight ended in a dead stick landing. I finally got tired of it and put on a Thunder Tiger Pro .46. I broke it in as per the directions and put it on the plane. It starts right up, taxies out, flies until I want to land and taxies back with nary a cough or sputter. I sent the Evo back to Horizon under waranty. The crankshaft was misaligned. They replaced the crank and crankcase and a few other small bits and sent it right back. It is still on my shelf. It is probably fine now but it has bad Karma and I don't feel like putting it on anything. Excellent service. Maybe the engine would have run better on Lemon juice?

Jeff

Just curious...


How exactly does one go about misaligning a crankshaft?

You got me. That is what they wrote on the note. I don't have it in front of me but it implied that a mistake was made during assembly.

if you manage to misalign a crankshaft during assembly, you must be taking some serious shortuts. that woud probably explain why they are so cheap.

Misaligned crankshat, leaky bearing etc ?
Wow. How do you misalign a crankshat except
by design. I can see daylight through my bearings
and the engines run just fine ?. Older engines didn't
even have bearings and they seem to work OK ?.

I'd venture a guess that there was an unscheduled terrain encounter that
misaligned some things in that motor...that's the only way I can imagine to misalign
a crank. You couldn't even assemble it crooked. ?????

It either fits or it doesn't. There's no tolerances to permit otherwise.

?????

The plane did have one landing in a tree but that was only a month or so before I replaced the engine and the engine problems existed from the beginning, nearly a year before the arboreal episode (Landing is on land, treeing is in a tree?). Maybe the technitian was blowing smoke. Either way, I have it back now but I probably won't use it again for some time.

heh heh....

An "in-flight arboreal intervention"....


Perhaps the airplane was just trying to trace it's roots so to speak?

Researching the family tree in a very literal sense...

lot's of fun.

Glad you have something in the air...

Good luck with it.

'race

Trees are black holes for model airplanes, just sucks them straight into them. Well, if the rear bearing was inserted cocked over to one side the crank would not be perpendicular to the connecting rod and piston, would produce unusual wear and strange reactions from the engine.
Good luck
will

If the bearing was crooked there is no way to get the crank in. The section between the two bearings is a precision fit to prevent airleaks and the crank would just not fit at an angle.

unless the machining isn't poercision. then maybe you could fit it in crooked

well i have a evo 40 i did have to remove the limiters but after a good break-in period it runs great . i found that when it was sputtering at wot i switched to 30% heli fuel and re adjusted and a os8 gp that took the tendency of it beeing at wot for a minnute and then die out of it. another tip is dont give up on the tuning with this eng one little click made a bigg diferance further more mine was way rich on the bottom part of hte reason for the heli is cuz i was flying at 20degF and colder