ORIGINAL: Cougar429

I took a diameter rod that fits into one of the lifter holes and tapered the end. This fits a hole Saito already has in one cam face and will hold the cam aligned when dropping it down on the motor. If you look from the rear with the end cap off and ensure the crank rod is pointed straight up while dropping on the cam housing it should fall in line.

p.s. I have not had a reply from Rv7garage on his 62. Anyone else have one spare in good condition?

ORIGINAL: NM2K
Something I do not understand is why the manufacturers aren't taking advantage of one of the fundamental characteristics of man (male) and that is that we men (maybe women too - but I've never been one, so can't say) is that we love buying into modularized systems. Said red book, mentioned previously in this thread, would be a big seller here in the USA if it was well stocked and the price kept reasonable.

Harley Davidson motorcycles sells the Sportster with the 882cc engine as the baseline engine. You can buy kits to upgrade said Sportster to an engine of over 1200cc's, IIRC. Again, a modularized approach.

Ed Cregger

ORIGINAL: earlwb

The model engine companies have been evolving towards the disposable engine concept. Where if something goes wrong, you throw it away and get a new one. The marketing people get involved with the planned obsolescence of the engines by having the designers constantly change something, obstensively, to make it better than the older engine, so you'll be inticed to buy the new one. Some companies tend to ''encourage'' this too, by having very expensive parts and or lack of parts,.so you'll be ''encouraged'' to buy a new engine instead of repairing the old one. Of course Saito has been providing parts so they aren't one of those companies though.

But since it has been more or less proven already, everyone would want the bored out high perf version right off the bat. So the base model would not be selling very well at all. You can see that effect on people with a .20 engine versus the .25 engine. If yopu present the user with a choice betwen a .20 and a .25 engine, the buyer will invariably go for the .25 because of its perceived performance edge. A similar thing happens with the .28 which people bought over the .25. That led to the .32 which sold over the .28 and on to the .35 which sold over the .32's and on to the .36's which tend to sell better than the .35's do. So people would want the bored out high perf version and turn their noses up at the base version.

But then a Saito engine with extra high compression, a full race cam, larger carb, plus being bored out more too, would likely be almost unuseable to the average modeller as it won't be any fun to use, unless you were pylon racing. It is quite common to see someone, who doesn't know better, try to use a pylon racing engine for sport flying and then complain about how crappy the engine is and how poorly it runs and it doesn't develop any power.

ORIGINAL: NM2K




Ah, but think of the sales leap that Saito would experienced if they sold the basic engine and then offered the high perf stuff you mentioned as part of a modular block of optional gear.

Disposable engines won't sell for folks buying Saito engines. Granted, some of the cheaper brands sell just fine that way, but I just don't see Saito being considered disposable.


Ed Cregger