Hello dear members.

I’ve just bought this fine old engine for my Graupner Fokker D.VIII.

Questions:
The first picture shows a metal thing which is located in the muffler (picture 2). It has an approx. 2 mm hole. What does it do, and what do I connect it to?

How old is it?

Thanks.

Before the days of mufflers people primed their engines through the exhaust port. This practice lingered on after engines came with factory mufflers, so the manufacturers provided a priming tube in the muffler for this purpose.

I have one, too.

David

Dave your engine don't look nuttin like his engin.

The engine to Lille-Bror are more like Enya 15 engine.

Yea , What he said.

yes, but the muffler is the exact same part. ...and that's what the thread is about.[>:]

David

Ohh touchy, touchy. OK everybody steer clear of Dave he's in a mood.
Hi Dave.

Cheers Borgnie.

Thanks for your imputs, gentlemen.

Any idea how old it is?

Dave? You know this kinda stuff doncha?

Hey.

Just got a reply from Thunder Tiger:
“It was discontinued at least more than 10 years ago. We are sorry that we do not have any data about it to offer.”

Thanks again, gentlemen [8D]

Hope to start her up this Friday on a test bench.

As some astute folks pointed out earlier, yours resembles an Enya and mine resembles an OS Max. The Taiwanese (and the Chinese) were basically trying to clone Japanese engines, at least in outward appearance, if not in metallurgy. I 'd like to know which one came first and if the change to copy a different engine was due to any sort of legal pressure.

David

G'day all. I first saw Thunder Tiger 15 engines back in the mid 1970s. I think they were made in Taiwan. They looked very much like Enya engines at that time. They were selling for less than AU$20 if I remember correctly. An OS or Enya 15 would have been about AU$30 at the time. There were also Fuji engines that looked similar but I think they were made in Japan. At the time I was too busy playing with Super Tigre G20 15 diesels and G15 glow engines. These cost about AU$40 to 45 at the time. The very elegant Super Tigre G15 RVD was about $90. They could be made to go really hard but tended to break crank pins. The Thunder Tigers of the time were very much entry level engines. They have improved out of sight in more recent times.

Hej!
Lille-Bror! Motorn du har är den första serien som Thunder Tiger tillverkade runt 1976-77.
Dessa motorer var kopior på existerande Enya .15 motorer. Tyvärr var Thunder Tigers tillverkningskvalitet då inte vad den är i dag.

Jag kommer ihåg att jag hjälpte en ny R/C flygare som hade skaffat en sådan motor och när vi äntligen fick igång den så spydde den ut svart olja och sedan var all kompression bort. Med andra ord en fruktansvärt dålig motor.
Hoppas bara din motor är bättre , fast jag tvivlar!!
Om du vill ha en tillförlitlig R/C motor så skaffa något bättre som t.ex OS .15LA eller liknande...vad som helst är bättre än dessa gamla TT .15 motorer. Tyvärr!

HEY Dave called me Astute. Well I think your Astute too Dave.[sm=punching.gif] And I thought we were buddies then you go and insult me.
Joe thinks I'm smart. He told me.





Hi Dave

Hello.

Thank you very much Mike109. Jaka also made a comment close to what you wrote, but it was quickly removed - because it was written in Swedish?
He wrote it was very hard to start and adjust, and when it finally began to run ok, there were no more compression left… I better use a lot of castor oil!

Hello again. The Enya 15 and the OS 15 II that I had about the same time the Thunder Tigers appeared were also pretty hard to handle when they were new. Mind you, I was pretty new with engines at that time too. I found that the OS was very easy to flood and that the Enya was very hard to start initially but once they both had a few runs under their belts , they ran well. The trick was to use "port priming" (ie just wet the side of the piston with fuel) and not to choke the engine too much. The Enya ran particularly well and we used it in combat at the time. The main problem with it was that it was to light compared to the English diesels for which the models we were building were designed. We were not very bothered by C of G and as a result the models with the Enya in them were very unstable. When we started using Super Tigre G15s, the balance problem went away. We used to run them on either 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 fuel with no nitro. I think I mainly used 3 to 1 which is 25% oil. And we always used castor oil. Synthetics were unheard of at that time. Bye for now. Michael from Oz

Hi!
Yes ! The comment I wrote was removed because I wrote it in swedish [].
The old TT .15 is the worst engine I have seen/run. No comparison to the Enya .15 or OS .15 .
Don't think 25% castor oil will do..or 30%. Use it as a paper weight.

Mike109:
Thanks again for your tips. I’ll keep them in mind, when I start the engine. I’ve mixed some fuel – 75 % methanol, 12½ % castor and 12½ % AeroSynth2. The engine is used, but has a fine compression so I hope it has many hours in the air, if it just don’t have lean runs.

Jaka: I’ll prove you are wrong!

Hey.

I started her up yesterday and today. Impossible to get the idle and transition right… That was until I found out the mixture is getting richer when you turn the air needle clockwise! (See picture)

Wonderful engine! Steady as a rock! Hope it will last a decade!

Thanks for your help gentlemen [sm=49_49.gif]

Yeah, weren't air bleeds great! A little nitro will wake this thing up if you need more power. I used to run a TT25 way back when. Not too bad if you got a good one. Good luck with yours.

Thanks Texas.

She turns only an APC 8/4 12300 RPM – not peaked. Time will tell if it’s enough. [sm=49_49.gif]

Cheers

Now the engine is mounted with the pipe on my Fokker and revs up to 13500 - 14000 RPM with the APC 8/4 prop (20/80 fuel). Should I use a APC 9/4 prop instead, or will that be too big? The cowl is 4,8" so my guess is, it brakes the airflow from the prop big time, or?

Hi!
Do you actually mean the TT .15 runs??

I remember helping a helped a newcomer with a TT.15 30 years or so ago, yes you engine is 30 years old and that engine was impossible to run properly. When you started it it belched black oil from the exhaust and stopped as soon as I removed the glow clip.
It did not have any compression at all...and it was new! We used 20% Castor oil and 5% nitro .
You have been lucky obtaining a working TT.15 engine from the seventies.

My TT .15 runs great. One of my favorites.