the pope

Hi there O.F. you better keep an eye on the Mew gull as from all reports its a snappy little critter especially when slowing down for a landing . The landing gear has been known to cause probs as well . I redid mine before it had a chance to let go I have one also but its been on the wardrobe for a couple of yrs . Will get around to it one day !!!!!!! The 180 would be plenty as they call for a 120 2&4 stroke from memory . Cheers the pope

F86_SABRE

Hi,
I have a nib methanol Saito 450 radial. Has anybody converted any of these to gas yet?
Reuben

Rudolph Hart

Hi there popey good to hear from you and what engine will you run in your's? i have a cmpro 55" midget mustang designed for 55 to 75 two stroke engines and found that if i fitted the saito 115 up front it balanced perfectly with no lead needed fore and aft.It's exciting and sometimes tricky to get on and off the ground but the 115 sounds good and it's quick with a 14x10,with the mas classic 15x8 it will rip it's prop at scale speeds in a slight dive which always sounds good.I'm looking for the same kind of experience,sound and handling traits in the 72" mew gull by fitting the fa220.Good luck and hope you drag yours out and finish it cheers mate

Rudolph Hart

Sr thanks for sharing the fiddly technical stuff it makes good reading.Like charley and triumpman i think i'll take the low tech and simple approach to gas conversion as i don't need that last few revs unless racing someone.I usually buy a bigger engine if i need more power.

the pope

Hi there O.F. I did have a 120ax OS in mind for it as well as a saito 125 thats why I thought your idea of a 180 is kind of cool . I love overpowering stuff , that is till the wings clap hands but you cant have every thing . I have also thought of gasser power as i have a dle 30 as well as a couple of mintor 22 cc and an OS 22 cc. From what ive read on the mintors Ill have about 3 gallons in each before they take a dump !!!!!!!!!!!! Cheers the pope

SrTelemaster150

Quote:

Originally Posted by the pope

Hi there O.F. I did have a 120ax OS in mind for it as well as a saito 125 thats why I thought your idea of a 180 is kind of cool . I love overpowering stuff , that is till the wings clap hands but you cant have every thing . I have also thought of gasser power as i have a dle 30 as well as a couple of mintor 22 cc and an OS 22 cc. From what ive read on the mintors Ill have about 3 gallons in each before they take a dump !!!!!!!!!!!! Cheers the pope

I ran over a 60 gallons of 15% Cool Power through my CDI converted FA150 before it was stored in an unheated shed for 14 years after a crash that nearly totaled my Dyna Flite PT-19. Other than some minor rusting & carbon in the exhaust port, it could have been clened up & had new crank bearing installed to burned another 60 gallons of fuel.

I don't think I would have gotten the same length of service out of it if i had burned gasoline in it.

SrTelemaster150

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdZgxPjXLxQ

SrTelemaster150

Quote:

Originally Posted by triumphman49

Sr is rite concerning the meth issue, but note the designation used after the FA180 HC - high compression - been modified - so not really apples to apples. Personally, like Charley, a couple of hundred RPM usually doesn't mean a lot of difference to me. I've got a FA150 with 2 different manifolds - stock carb\Walbro carb (CHI conversion) and FA270T with RCxel & stock carb. Probably be Spring before I decide which way I really perfer to run.

T-man49
Saito #723

Note that in my comparative tests http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1769449 that the FA180 that is completely stock except for the CDI conversion made just under 3HP. That's about 20% more than advertized & @ least 25% more than real world HP for the FG30.

Now, about higher compression. The 9.6:1 CR of the FA180 is about the maximum for gasoline in an air cooled engine. Even then, ignition advance must be kept @ a less than optimum 28° BTDC to prevent detonation. W/methanol, I have been able to run 12.8:1 W/36° BTDC. Methanol has a much higher relative octane value than gasoline. It will allow a much more aggressive ignition timing advance that is optimum for making power along W/a much higher CR. That not only makes more power & torque, it is more efficient adding to better fuel economy for a specific power output..

blw

My Feedback: (3)

Dan- I don't think there are any ethanol fuel designations in the gas classes below the alcohol cars, like comp and stock.

Top alcohol funny car is restricted to methanol. But, top alcohol dragsters can mix methanol with nitromethane. Top fuel dragster fuel is about 90% nitro.

There are ethanol classes for drag racing in Europe though, I think. There used to be.

F86_SABRE

Thanks SR for the link. Sounds great as well
Interesting option!
Thank you.
Reuben

SrTelemaster150

Quote:

Originally Posted by blw

Dan- I don't think there are any ethanol fuel designations in the gas classes below the alcohol cars, like comp and stock.

Top alcohol funny car is restricted to methanol. But, top alcohol dragsters can mix methanol with nitromethane. Top fuel dragster fuel is about 90% nitro.

There are ethanol classes for drag racing in Europe though, I think. There used to be.

There is a grass roots class for LX/LY cars. Chrysler 300C, Dodge Magnum, Dodge Charger & Challenger. Some started running post '09 5.7 small chamber heads on pre '09 5.7 rotating assemblies @ approximately 14.5: static CR W/E-85. While this was on the ragged edge & some failures occurred, the big spenders soon started building E-85 specific high compression long blocks.

I used to race in the N/A 5.7 heads up class & was the guy to catch @ one time. It soon got ridiculous W/guys trailering the cars to the track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Sbz2Etl_A

Back to Saito W/CDI.

If I lived in the Midwest where E-85 was readily available, I would probably run that although if I lived in a large metropolitan area I could buy methanol from bulk suppliers for about $2 a gallon.

blw

My Feedback: (3)

I messed up by not mentioning that I was talking about NHRA racing. IHRA did have ethanol classes for a few years......I think. Could be wrong on that.

Rudolph Hart

Guess it's time to haul the old lawnmower out of it's hiding place and start er up..this time i'm going to add a bit of nitro to the mix and tach it.Should smell ok if i can find some castrol r to put thru it too.

flyingagin

That brings back an old memory

I was a teenrortilling for a garden. ran the tiller dry so refueled. Just that I grabbed the wrong can of fuel. Turned out to be my aiplane fuel 15% nitro.

Idle was really fast with fire and clouds of smoke coming out the muffler. When I blipped the throttle it would rev like crazy and throw fire 2 feet out the muffler.

Scared the heck out of the next door neighbor. My mother traded the tiller in at the local hardware store for a new bigger one. The small engine tech later told us that @!#!$ thing threw fire at me and smoked us all out of the back room. I never told him about the model airplane fuel.

It sure had a lot of power

Ken

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

I got the get the snow blower out of the barn and put it in the garage. It is 19 F outside right now. It snowed all day but didn't amount to any worthwhile accumulation.

FNQFLYER

Old Fart, here I go again, re Seagull Mew Gull. My flying mate / mentor has 1 off Gull (Seagull) in his shed (NIB). He put together another one (at least over viewed its assembly) and found that the torsion box for the u/c needed a lot of re work to enable it to survive. They were running a big gas engine in it when it turned left instead of right and that was all she wrote. I think my mate will run a Saito 200 in it or something similar. If you want fast and to reduce all that weight in your hip pocket look to the Rocky guys for a FAST gull but organise the o/draft first. The last 3 made went to pommie land for $5000. That was fuse and wing and empanage and undercarriage.

Charley

My Feedback: (2)

Well, Ill be........,

Now I see where you're coming from.

Why do you think this engine wouldn't have lasted as long if it had been run on gas?

CR

SrTelemaster150

Running gasoline results in much higher operating temperature & more carbon build up than alcohol. These engiens are not designed as gas engines to start with so they don't have needle bearings for lower oil content like most "GAS" engines. Many have the same conrod as the glow version so that can be an issue as indeed it has been on some models.

Saito is now on it's 3rd version of the FG57 & the FG20 is discontinued.

SrTelemaster150

A gas conversion is not less complicated than a simple CDI/methanol conversion. The methanol conversion still utilizes the OEM carburetor. It just needs to be leaned out.

If you don't need the 20-25% power advantage (over gasoline) of the CDI/methanol conversion so be it. In a warbird, that higher specific output will allow for the same performance W/a smaller engine that might fit within the cowl.

An otherwise stock FA180 converted to CDI burning a moderate Nitro/methanol mix will make as much power as the much larger FG36. Less weight on the nose will make for better performance. The added weight of fuel load will be located close to or on the CG . I got 8050 RPM W/an 18 X 8 prop out of my stock FA180 converted to CDI burning 15% Cool Power. An FG36 would be hard pressed to better that.

Charley

My Feedback: (2)

Never tried it have you? You're repeating what other people have said, with no real experience of your own. Unless you've tried it, it's just conjecture.

I ran my Saito 1.5 on gas for one summer in 1994, using a CH ignition & the stock carb. Why did I do it? Just to see how it would work out. I already had the ignition on it, had run it on 10 % Omega and FAI fuels. All I had to do was replumb the fuel system and lean it out a bit. Easy. After that season the super Tygon fuel tubing was hardening, so I had to replumb the fuel system anyway; so just to see how it work out, I replumbed the system for alky. Ran the engine on ignition for a while, then went back to glow.

Now. ~20 years later it's running on glow, as well as it ever did. Seems like the gas didn't hurt it a bit.

CR

Charley

My Feedback: (2)

I suppose you're implying that a gas conversion will require a different carb. In my experience that is not true. I've run a Saito 1.5 and a ST 3000 on gas with the stock carb. Just leaned it out.


CR

SrTelemaster150

Still, the point is that the gas conversion is NOT "less complicated". It's great that you were able to get the alcohol carburetor to work W/gasoline. My experiments showed that the alcohol carburetor was not well suited to gasoline or E-85. Oh, it would run OK, but it was very touchy & need constant fiddling
.

The only way i could see an alcohol carburetor working well W/gasoline would be to modify the needle. I considered that but the 20% loss of power W/gasoline made it not worth while for my use.

SrTelemaster150

You are making assumptions. Yes, I tried gasoline on my FA150. It was not very user friendly compared to methanol, powerw as down by 400 RPM over CDI/glow fuel & CHT was 60°F hotter than Methanol/CDI. CDI/methanol runs about 20°F hotter than GI so the total increase for gas was 80°F.

You ran gasoline for 1 summer. I doubt that it was anywhere near as many hours as I ran mine on CDI/glow fuel. I ran a gallon of 15% Cool Power a week through that engine for over 2 1/2 seasons. I have the piston that I took out of that engine when I made in into the FA180HC. I will get a picture of it & post it. No varnish on the skirt (no castor in the fuel) & very little carbon on the crown or ring lands.

Alcohol runs cooler & cleaner than gasoline. THAT is a fact, not "conjecture"!

Rudolph Hart

Sheesh! will you guys quit writing like this? i already had a headache and now my eyeballs are aching.A good dose of castor to both of you

retransit

My Feedback: (18)

Okay, let's try this. A club member flies a U-Can-Do with a 1.25 Saito, fairly rich. He experienced a severe resistance when the prop was turned. Upon disassembly of the engine it was found to have galling in the big end of the rod. A new rod was ordered and compared with the old one. Apparently a design change took place. Anyone else come across this problem area? The new rod is on the left side in the photos.