Ep 104: Gasoline Engines

[00:00:04] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron, I’m Tom and I’m dave. We are sitting here today to talk about a few things. The biggest thing we want to talk about is gas motors- yeah, converting them from weed whackers, setting them up, all that fun stuff. But before we get into it, dave and I went on a tri-motor flight a couple weekends ago. Dave, what do you think? Oh, it was very cool, wasn’t it? Yes, so I actually sat, or sat in the right seat in the

[00:00:36] Front because I said beforehand, if I ever get to do it again, that’s going to spend the extra money and do it. It was worthwhile, like I, I thought it was a lot of fun. I didn’t get to fly it, though. No, I feel much better. I feel as though he would have been okay, like not letting me crash or anything. But yeah, like I said, the first time I flew it, the guy that was up in the right seat said he got to fly it. So I’m a little jealous, but the first time you flew on it- you mean first time I flew on years ago, yeah. So whatever, what this pilot was, a jerk, I guess, but that’s all right.

[00:01:12] But I wanted still a cool experience. Oh, it was. So I want to play a little bit of audio- okay- from the flight so you can hear what the motors sound like, and I want to compare it to what the three motors for our okay, rc version are going to sound like. Dave, are you okay with?

[00:01:29] Reliving this moment I know it wasn’t a great experience for you oh I’m fine okay all right.

[00:01:34] And we’ll get to why it wasn’t a great. It’s not like bad thing, but okay. So here we go, hold on. Here’s the real one. It’s got such a cool sound. Now here’s what we’re doing. It still brings a smile to my face.

[00:02:11] I still think it sounds good and that’s going to sound much better in real life when it’s on an airplane. Oh, absolutely, I can’t wait to hear, yeah, what this thing sounds like. So you said, by the way, dave didn’t have a very good experience. Well, that’s what dave? Well, he didn’t tell me that, but

[00:02:35] Based on the conversation you two were having about your flight well it wasn’t an awful experience I.

[00:02:40] Just got to sit in the very, very far back of the plane and there was a lot of exhaust fumes gathering up in the back of the plane to the point where I started to get a little nauseous. So it’s.

[00:02:50] Like it’s time for this flight to end. Yeah, see, I noticed that too at the very beginning when, when they started up the, the front motor, the nose motor, at idle you could smell a lot of like gas and a lot of exhaust fumes and all that stuff kind of coming in. But once they started moving, once the plane started moving and the windows were completely open in the front, on the sides and stuff all that just kind of went out of the airplane. So I was like cool, it’s gonna be, it went to the back, went to the back, which is weird, because the first time, of course, I was back there with the restroom.

[00:03:22] Too. So there was no toilet in there, by the way. No, but there was toilet paper. There was, but the last time when we flew on that I did not smell any of that. So I don’t know if the vents were open.

[00:03:33] Differently or what, but it changed throughout the flight, I think it’s I don’t know how the air pressures went through the cabin or whatever, but there were times where it was perfectly fine back there, and then there were times it’s like, oh my god, I think I’m in the garage with the door open.

[00:03:47] Or door closed, not good. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty bad at the very beginning, like I said, but once we got moving I didn’t notice anything about it, so it was just weird. But the flight itself was great. Yeah, it’s. I don’t fly often like this was three or four, I don’t remember. I don’t actually get up in there very much. I’m not used to that feeling of going from like negative half g to positive one and a half g’s in like a split second and it was just like it was fun, awesome. But every time it

[00:04:20] Happened. I’m like oh, oh, shoot. So you would not enjoy the flight I took with the red baron team. If I could, if I could just get myself used to the fact that’s okay and the first thought that comes to my mind isn’t we’re going down, I would be okay. So, like I, I don’t know and what,

[00:04:39] Did you fly on that one? We went up with the red baron stearman team. There was three aircraft, open cockpit that would be. It was great, the thing that concerned me the most, and we flew a aerobatic routine. I don’t know if I could do. The thing that concerned me the most, though, was the other airplane 10 foot away from me. Yeah, yeah, that it’s like go away, you’re too close.

[00:05:03] A little too close for the comfort. Yes, that would be so cool, though. It was an amazing experience, though, flying a demonstration routine with the red barons. I mean yeah, yeah. So how do they clean the?

[00:05:16] Puke off of the cockpit of the guy behind you that would be that’s what I want to know well when we.

[00:05:21] Landed, the pilot up front said: did you lose something in flight? I was like no, no, well, something came back and hit me in the head. I’ll come find out. It was my name tag. Oh, so you did okay. So you actually did lose something. Yeah, I did lose something that he thought I’d lost a camera, or

[00:05:37] Something. So at least it wasn’t your lunch. Yeah, it wasn’t spittle, it wasn’t rbs from the morning. What spittle? Well, yeah, really, what do you? What gross saliva? Well, I mean, I guess, yeah.

[00:05:54] Anyway, yeah, so that was our tri-motor flight, I thought it was a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures, this time knowing we’re going to be building it, and I appreciate that, because I wasn’t there. Yeah, that’s that sucked, but that’s okay. It’s okay. The thing that really got me about this airplane is how simple it’s going to be to build, I mean, like the way things fit together. Like where I was concerned is how are we going to, or how are we going to get the corrugation around the rear stab at the fuselage, all that kind of stuff right? It literally gaps. Yeah, there’s just gaps in.

[00:06:28] The real airplane, so this should not be difficult at all. I don’t have to worry about perfect fitting. Tight tolerances are not an issue. No, not on the skin anyway. No, and the skin on this one- like the real one that we flew on- was really messed up too. It had like a bunch of like golf ball dents in it and stuff. I don’t know what. Did you notice that, dave, or not? Oh yeah, all airplanes had dents and dings in them. Didn’t make me feel too great, but I figure it’s old so it hasn’t crashed yet. So

[00:06:56] We’ll roll the dice. I got to see it. I got to see it fly like. I saw it flying around town while I was grocery shopping with lori. But lumbering around the sky- lumbering is a good yeah, that’s a good description. That’s what it was- windy that day too. So, yeah, I saw that goes blasting past you whenever he, whenever he turned it into the wind. Yeah, you could definitely tell that it was.

[00:07:17] Windy up there. I told dave, so I’m not used to being at real airports either. I’m used to the rc field and stuff. And as we were watching it- because we watched it do a flight before we went up in it and stuff- so we watched it take off, we watched it fly away and I told him I’m like I keep thinking who is flying this? They need to get closer. You’re not gonna be able to tell your orientation because I’m so used to seeing an airplane in the sky that you’re controlling, yeah, and I was like, oh, must be Reggie, wow, ah, got another dig in speaking of Reggie, by the way, so he called me after our last.

[00:07:53] Episode came out. We were talking about how we started the podcast and stuff, and I don’t honestly remember. He has it in his mind that it was his idea. Hmm, okay, do tell. Well, I know that’s pretty much about it, because he said something about: oh, I was the one that told you about podcasts and what I was listening to and stuff, and then I said there’s not a lot of rc ones, maybe you should do one.

[00:08:19] I don’t remember that well I mean maybe I don’t know I wasn’t yeah I know you weren’t there because.

[00:08:26] He was it was at work he stepped into my office when we were talking stuff but I don’t remember.

[00:08:30] That. So I can honestly say, though, when you approached me about doing a podcast, Reggie was never a part of that conversation: yeah, I know so, I don’t. So, I don’t know, I don’t know, like the.

[00:08:43] First, I can’t say one way or the other. The first time I was ever really exposed to a podcast was when cereal came out, and that was like 14 or 15, so I’m pretty sure I knew about podcasts before Reggie told me about him. But anyway, I know he is sitting listening to this right now and just getting more and more upset with me for not agreeing with what he said. So this is Reggie. There you go. I don’t know.

[00:09:06] If it was your idea or not. So which, by the way, if you have not gone out and seen the new top gun movie? I have not. Reggie says we all need to go see it, like as soon as we can, does he man? Yeah, I got that.

[00:09:19] Phone call last night yeah me too I’m actually set up for a four o’clock imax this afternoon.

[00:09:23] Yeah maybe he’s mad at me because he hasn’t said anything to me about it yeah he called me it.

[00:09:28] It was quarter after nine last night to tell me that I had to go see this movie, is it? I don’t know? Apparently it’s pretty good, I will see. I’ll probably first one. So I’ll probably see it when it comes out.

[00:09:39] Like on amazon prime or something like that I’m not a big theater fan plus I just I don’t know I like.

[00:09:46] Going to movies but I have a hard time sitting still for that long well the problem with and.

[00:09:50] I’m sure this one’s going to be the same way. Just because of how everything goes with movies nowadays is they’re not realistic. I mean like there’s so much sure, so many liberties taken where it’s like okay that, just that got stupid really quick. Yeah, I’m sure there’s probably that feature to this yeah movie as well. But I have a hard time just letting reality go and getting lost in fantasy for a while. But we’ll see that and I’ll say something that’s probably not very popular. I don’t like Tom cruise. He annoys me, yeah, so that’s a bad thing too. Why is that? Well, because he’s in the

[00:10:25] Movie well but I mean you can dislike somebody and still like the way they portray an actor or portray.

[00:10:32] A character in a movie I don’t even like personally don’t like him, I just mean as an actor. I’ve never like seen him in something. I’m like, oh my gosh, that was awesome. Oh, okay, I got you. So, yeah, weird, all right, moving on, moving on, moving on. I bought more bat air plugins, you did I. I bought 15 more. You bought 17, 17 more- enough to go with all my batteries. And dave, you said you have a bunch of

[00:10:55] Them already too. Yeah, but quite a few. I don’t have enough to cover all my batteries, but most of them yeah. I like the fact that I can check on the one in my flight box with my phone. That’s because I can find out what the charge is on my flight box out the field. It’s like: is it getting low because I charge it like once a year? Yeah, yeah, it’s just so handy. I mean they.

[00:11:16] Really I don’t know for the price of them I really like what they do yeah so do you do you.

[00:11:24] Have to use the bat air charger compatible charger you don’t have to no it’ll charge just like a regular.

[00:11:30] Battery on any other charger too, but you don’t get the, the data. No, it will still tell if it’s charged or not, like it’ll still go through cycles and all that stuff. The only thing you really get- from what I can tell from using the, the compatible charger- is: you don’t have to tell your charger what battery is going into it. It’s just a one touch charge. Yeah as opposed to okay. So kind of like let’s charge. Oh, now it’s a 3s instead of a 4s, and let’s charge at 5 amps instead of 3 amps. You don’t have to change all that stuff from spectrum. Yeah, probably, but just like a quarter of the price. Well, you just.

[00:12:03] Plug it in and it knows what it is what it should charge it at yeah and you just hit the start.

[00:12:08] Button. What if you take a bat air plug-in off of one battery and then forget what battery you took it off of and accidentally plug it into the incorrect battery and then you put it in the charger? Can it still like? Does it automatically detect the cell voltage, or is it just because that’s what you?

[00:12:25] Programmed it for so if you that’s because it’s what you programmed it for yeah so you can still.

[00:12:29] Charge a battery incorrectly theoretically and yeah theoretically you could it’s not going to save.

[00:12:35] A really, a really dumb person. I wasn’t going to say I know, but I mean like they’re, they’re made to stay on, so okay, they need to stay out. And the other thing too, like it actually, maybe it will charge it correctly because you okay. So like the actual plugins. I think that’s 2s is one plugin, then there’s a plugin that does 3 or 4s and then there’s another module that does 5s or 6s, so you can’t use just one of them. For any battery you have, you have to buy the correct cell count ones. Does that make?

[00:13:08] Sense. So if you put in, I guess, if you’re going to try and charge it to for it, like if you take it off and put it on another battery, it might know the difference based on reading the actual balance.

[00:13:22] Leads. Still, the problem is if you stay with the same cell count. That’s the problem. So I’ve got a 2s 280 milliamp pack and I’ve got a 2s 5000 pack, which I would charge at 5 amps versus 0.28 Amps. Yeah, if I took and flip-flopped- yeah, those bad errors- it would try to dump 5 amps into my 280, which would go.

[00:13:42] Well, no, not necessarily, because the constant, current constant voltage profile would taper off the like when that, when that cell count reaches that threshold voltage, it tapers off the amps that it’s putting in. So not necessarily right, yeah, but it would dump 5 amps into it for a while, not for long, I bet, hopefully not. Well, we should try that sometime, I guess maybe, I don’t know, probably long enough to swell the battery. I bet it’d be bad, no matter what. Yeah, well, but you’d like the little.

[00:14:11] 280 The e-flight ones is that what you’re talking about you can’t put those plugins on those I know.

[00:14:15] I was just using that. Like my charger ramps up the amperage like I don’t know if you’ve ever sat and watched your charger while it was charging- like as soon as it starts up slowly, does it? Yeah, it starts at like 0.1, 0.2 And then once it detects, I guess, the cell voltage, then it ramps up. So I don’t know my.

[00:14:32] 5000S. I charge at 5 amps and they start around 3 amps and it kind of ramps up from there. Cool, interesting, but anyway. So, yeah, I bought a bunch of those. You said you, you bought dave, you bought the charger also, but you sent it back. I sent the charger back. I never even was able to charge a battery on it. There was something wrong with the touch screen on it and it was scrolling all by itself, making beeping noises. Just it looked like it was possessed. Yeah, so like I guess I can see that.

[00:15:01] That charger seems to work okay for me until I don’t have the right power supply for it, like I’ve used a four cell 5200 pack to charge a smaller battery just to see how it goes and it’s done great. But I have to find an actual, real power supply to put onto it, which I have one out in the shop. I just can’t find it. I don’t know what I have it set on it. It goes back and forth between a couple things. I just need to buy one as cheap as they are on amazon anymore. It’s not worth not.

[00:15:34] Having one, but yeah, that’s that’s too bad, other than that, I like the charger, yeah. Yeah, it’s simple use if it would have stayed put. Yeah, I understand, and that’s it, like you didn’t just replace it you.

[00:15:47] Just sent it back and I just sent it back I’ve got my other accu-cell chargers and just.

[00:15:53] Don’t need another one no yeah I get it so but yeah I do like the little plugins so I yeah they’re.

[00:15:59] More handy to me than the charger is the fact that they sync up with your phone and give you like alerts and things like that. I think that’s really cool and it’s good that you don’t have to.

[00:16:09] Use the charger. So I still like the fact they will auto storage charge. Yeah, and you tested that recently, didn’t you? Yeah, I charged one of my what. I finished setting the rest of them up that I had, and one of them was that 4s 5200 pack and it said it was a little over a week. I think that it sat.

[00:16:25] Discharging but it got down to storage charge and then 5 000. It took it almost a week to yeah run down. I actually opened my closet and something was glowing purple in there. It’s like what is that?

[00:16:37] Oh yeah, oh yeah, I left the battery. Now I know what it’s doing, but yeah, it’s. It’s like I said, for those few things alone, I think it’s well worth the five dollars a battery I think it’s worth, and especially because when you get new batteries, if these die, you can put them on new ones. So true,

[00:16:52] Hopefully they’ll last quite a while. After you smoke one a battery- oh, I was like after you incorrectly charge one and it blows up in your garage, then you can take the bad air.

[00:17:04] Plug-in off of that one and put it on another one, or just after they die and don’t like, don’t actually catch on fire, but whatever. A couple things else I want to say really quick before we get on to our main topic. Actually, I guess we have a couple listener questions too. But first off, don’t forget we were taking july off. Yeah, so we’ll have, I think, one more episode after this before we take our little vacay. So if you miss us, go to the website, check out stuff, poke around there, see what all we have. The other thing I think I want to try and do, if you have links:

[00:17:39] To any rc vendors or anything like that you guys use, that you like, send them to me ronaldrcplanelab.com, or text them or however else you get to us. I want to maybe set up a links page on our website. Yeah, mostly because, like, we’ve done a few guest interviews in a guest spot or guest spots and all that kind of stuff, everybody that we have talked to has given us something else to look at that we have not been aware of, from gliders and steven zero and, just right, all these different websites and stuff.

[00:18:15] To go to. So send me the links. I want to look at them, first off because I want to know about them, and secondly, I’d like to put a, like I said, a page on the website. I think would be good. So, yeah, I.

[00:18:25] Think that’d be that’d be good because there’s like you said there’s a lot of things out there.

[00:18:28] That we don’t know about yeah and even googling and stuff won’t bring up a lot of stuff so.

[00:18:33] If of a link or you have a link that you guys like to use yeah send it to Ron he’ll put.

[00:18:38] It on a links page, a link repository, if we can, nice repository. Yeah, that made sense. Right, it did, let’s see. Is that everything on this? I think I covered everything. Well, I mean speaking of links.

[00:18:50] And where we get them we get them mostly from recording with guests and we recorded with a.

[00:18:57] Couple of guests last weekend. I forgot all about that. So, oh my god. So you came out to record and as soon as you got here, like before you left, you texted me: hey, should I bring anything? And I was like: no, we’re cool. On your way out, like when you were on your way out, I’m like, oh, he should have brought his little umx s-poc. We haven’t flown our umx stuff that we got at that swap meet and stuff. And you got out here and I told you’re like: well, I’ll, I’ll text laurie and she can bring it out and

[00:19:27] She’ll have no problem doing that so what happened what happened Tom well she brought.

[00:19:32] The box out. She brought my transmitter and the two batteries that I had guided her to get. I told her where the box was and she brought the box and the two batteries on my transmitter. I wish.

[00:19:44] I wish you could have seen your own face when you open the airplane box to see no airplane inside.

[00:19:51] Yeah, like a dummy, I had taken, taken it out because I was going to fly it at home or whatever, just never got around to it. I never actually put it back in the box, but in my mind I it’s a umx, that’s where they go. Just grab the box, it’ll be fine. Well, and then so luckily.

[00:20:07] Crystal was in town, yeah, so we had her swing by and pick it up. But like she didn’t know what to expect, we asked her to stop by your house to pick up an airplane, to bring it out to us, right, so we could fly it. And so in her mind she’s expecting like an airplane and she’s trying to figure where am I gonna fit it? I’ve got a couple people in the car already, I got stuff in the trunk and all that and yeah. So she saw the airplane, she said she giggled a little bit when she saw how big it was and she’s like, ah, plenty of room, yeah, yeah. So we got to fly them, so we got.

[00:20:38] To fly them. Yeah, they both fly pretty good. Actually, I think they fly great. I think we did okay, so I did just to check. I ended up flying four minutes on one pack and three and a half minutes on another one, so I don’t know which one was which when I charged them- and it doesn’t matter, because one of them actually like timed out before I saw how much was put into it, but the other one was 129 milliamp hours out of 280. So I’m figuring if that was a three and a half minute flight, I should easily be able to get seven minutes out of that. No problem, because that one I spent a lot of time at full speed.

[00:21:12] Yeah, that’s true. I think seven minutes on that will be good for a small battery like that and you can charge them at three c, so that should really only take it. Yeah, 20 minutes to charge. I.

[00:21:22] Haven’t. I haven’t charged mine back up, but I flew with the timer set at five minutes and still felt like I had as much power at the end. So when I check them I’ll let what they, what they, come up with, but I imagine it’s, it’s pretty safe at five. Probably go to seven. Yeah, I’ll be.

[00:21:38] Interested to see. Yeah, I think, little pits. I’ve got a five minute timer on it and the most I’ve ever ran that battery down is thirty percent. Yeah, down to three, oh, really, so, yeah, so they must be pretty and the pits can be hard. A lot of vertical lines and stuff like that. Yeah, well, yeah.

[00:21:53] Because it’s a pits and it makes you want to push the envelope all right so some let’s do you.

[00:22:00] Want to do listener questions. Yeah, we got a couple of those to get to before we move on. So first off says hello, Ron and Tom. My name is mark and I’m 13.. I’m getting interested in building and flying rc planes- cool. I recently got a hobby zone. Sport cub 2s was safe, but I’m searching to build and fly on my own. I’m greatly inspired by your podcast and would like to build a basic balsa plane with a wingspan under 20 inches and that can withstand and that can withstand some wind. I live in.

[00:22:32] Washington state and we get a lot of rain, snow and wind here, so I need to pick a plane that can withstand, or withstand a little bit of all that. It would be nice if you could or suggest some good.

[00:22:40] Plans to fit my criteria. That’s a tough one. Kudos to him. 20 Inches, yeah, for wanting to build his first right. Absolutely not his first airplane, but build an airplane, yeah, I agree. Plans, yeah, I think that’s.

[00:22:54] Awesome at 13 years old. There are a few things I think that you can do. First off, what I’m gonna say: well, and I actually back you up on this one, go on. Well, let’s stick. Yeah, I mean, you find

[00:23:06] Yourself a I think you found one on aerofred right yeah so if you google aerofred I don’t remember what.

[00:23:11] Their actual website is aerofred- is what you google. It might be aerofredcom. Look up stick and that’s stick with a k s-t-I-k. Yep, there is a plan on there that’s just under 16 inches. It’d be a good just starter plane to build, at least to get the idea on how to build things. Yep, your other option. I.

[00:23:32] Think is to look at willy-nillies and see what they have. Their stuff is really light though, so light and wind usually kind of don’t go hand in hand. I don’t know what you think day wind and

[00:23:44] Light not friends yeah what would your suggestion be wind and under six or in under 20 inches is not.

[00:23:50] Really friendly, so that’s like a challenge. Yeah, man, the wind thing is really killing me. Yeah, there’s tons of things out there in the 20-inch range. That’ll be great beginners aircraft, but

[00:24:02] The wind is just going to kill you. Yeah, and I feel his pain, by the way, because that’s how the wind has been here. It’s wet or rain wind, yeah, that’s. I mean, like yesterday I was outside and it was actually nice out, yeah, but the 27 mile an hour- the tops of the trees were just like bending almost in half. It was ridiculous how windy it is here now. Yeah. So yeah, no flying, yeah, but, but yeah, start with a stick.

[00:24:28] They’re all I mean. Even if it’s light, it’s still a pretty easy airplane to fly, I think. But short of a heavy pattern type plane, which is not a beginner airplane- no, it’s not something you want to fly, but the stick is: start with a stick, it’s easy to build and they’re a lot of fun to fly when it’s not real.

[00:24:45] Windy I would agree at that size and the asx3 if you can incorporate that somehow helps out.

[00:24:51] Tremendously with the wind yeah if you can get a spectrum receiver that has that built in.

[00:24:55] That helps? Yeah, for sure it does, but still, I know, I know it’s a crutch, no, no, no, I’m not. I’m for wind, it’s. It’s fine when you’re, when you’re learning, I have no problem with that. But it’s that, the 20 inch size, I think, is what’s going to be difficult with wind, just because it gets, I mean anyway.

[00:25:13] Thanks mark for contacting us that’s our suggestion a stick there you go we have a voicemail.

[00:25:20] To get to next. Let’s play that and you can answer it, because it’s about engines, okay, made to run nitro fuel. Okay, well, dave can answer it. Probably too well, the collective- you, that’s not me- here we go.

[00:25:35] Yes, my name is mike. I have a question regarding: I have a 91 surpass and I can’t find anywhere where the where their factory settings are for the slow and high speed needle valve. So that’s one question I have. And also I usually run 15, 15 or 20- 20 fuel, but I do have a bunch of 30- 30 fuel that I used in a ys 140 sport and I’m wondering: can I run that in a os one or os 120? So I’d appreciate your feedback on

[00:26:23] That. There you go, gentlemen. Okay, mike, well, I can. I can say- I think I’ve already answered via email- but yeah, the 30 stuff, I think I would not put that in an airplane engine. A little hard on plugs, yeah, very hard on plugs, it does make them easier to tune. The higher the nitro, usually that makes them a little easier to tune. But yeah, hard on plugs are probably going to run a little bit hotter too. Yeah, so what’s 30? 30 For? Well, that’s a 30 nitro and 30 oil, I’m assuming, which is a lot of.

[00:26:53] Oil for a model engine but yeah I just I wouldn’t run that so that wouldn’t be like special.

[00:26:59] For like rc cars or something like that I’ve never even ran 30 in the cars like I don’t know what.

[00:27:05] I ran 30 at a boat but I mean I’m talking about the oil like 30 oil a lot of oil yeah that’s that’s a.

[00:27:12] Huge mess I’m not I’m not sure what you would run that in honestly okay so don’t use that one yeah.

[00:27:17] I wouldn’t use it. The 2020 that you have, that’s what I run in all my ys’s and the satos run good on that too. I imagine the os 91 probably would run good on that as well. But I run all my os’s all the four strokes on 15. I run my own 15. So yeah, so, and as far as the needles go, I know if you do some googling you can find the manuals out there for these older os engines. I do it all the time. You may have to do a little research, but I can tell you that most os carburetors

[00:27:50] The low speed needle is usually flush with the with the outside of the of the needle housing, like if you thread the screw out till the face of the screw is flush with the end of that housing. That’s usually a good starting point for the low speed, and then I always start. Two and a half turns out.

[00:28:06] From closed on the high speed needles. Yeah, I’m a little different on that. Normally I would start three turns out on the main to set the low end. It’s pretty low tech, I mean. These numbers at least get you in the ballpark where it’ll run. It probably won’t run very well, but it’ll run. You can adjust from there. I’ll take and set my idle to where it would be an idle position on the throttle barrel and then I take and pull the fuel line off and I will take and blow through the fuel line into the carburetor and open or close the low end until I can barely get some air through it.

[00:28:43] Yep and that’ll get you in the ballpark where it will at least run yep and then you can adjust from.

[00:28:48] There 100, I agree. So there you go, mike. That’s our, that’s our recommendations. Awesome, so now easy peasy. Are you guys ready to talk about- yeah, what we all came here to do today: gasoline engines conversions.

[00:29:04] Sizing, yeah, setup. It’s all about gas carburetors and we all love gas. We share gas. So, by the way, gas is 488 a gallon all the way out here today. Oh my god, all y’all that made fun of me for buying a tesla.

[00:29:20] Yeah I never made fun of you for buying a tesla I was always very supportive because I was looking.

[00:29:26] At you didn’t mean I meant you I’m sorry I’m sorry but all the all the tesla haters out there when you.

[00:29:31] Look at me right now things like that I tend to think you mean I said those things right now when.

[00:29:36] I see how cheap it is for me to drive. I’m laughing all the way to the bank. It is, yeah, 488, that’s what it was. That’s what I saw on the station on the way out here. So we drove 490, some odd miles last week.

[00:29:49] Less than 14.. Nice, just saying. I’m looking at pulling a trailer up the streeter here in two weeks and I’m thinking my fuel bill for a hundred mile trip is going to be a hundred dollars at least.

[00:30:01] Oh that makes me nauseous I mean just oh that’s terrible yeah it’s like I’m almost thinking about.

[00:30:08] Maybe I’m not going now, but so, even though gas is ridiculously expensive right now, it’s not as expensive as nitro, which is why we’re here and this is what we’re going to talk about. Yeah, so nitro or gas engine conversions. So what we’re talking about is taking a weed eater engine, let’s say, and converting it for rc plane use, because we know rc planes are more fun.

[00:30:33] Than weed eaters so we should just tear all of our weed eaters apart usually when you’re running a.

[00:30:37] Weed eater, that equates to work, yeah. And if you’re running an airplane, that equates to fun, right. So yeah come. There’s two huge differences there. I did use my helicopter as a leaf blower on purpose.

[00:30:49] On purpose yeah I used it to sweep the driveway okay I can see that’s killing swords with one.

[00:30:57] Sound fun and work fun and yard work yeah so did you actually fly it above it or did you hold on to.

[00:31:03] It and just no, I flew it up and down the driveway blowing, okay, see, nice, okay, so not to get off topic, but we do that often, we do it all the time. So why would anybody want to do this? Well, lots of reasons why somebody might want to do this. We talked about one of them: the price of gas. So you can run- you can run a nitro engine for however long you can run it on, for thirty dollars a gallon, or forty dollars a gallon in the case of our ys-120s, or for eight bucks a gallon with, if you factor oil and all that.

[00:31:37] Kind of stuff in it. Probably less than eight bucks a gallon, honestly. Yeah, you can run a gasser, and they’re usually a little more economical too. They don’t drink as much fuel as nitros do. I’ve noticed that, yeah. So not only is the gas cheaper, they don’t seem to use as much of it. So that’s two great reasons to think about converting that old Ryobi leaf blower engine you got sitting in the garage to an RC airplane engine. And who would want to do it? Well, who wouldn’t want to do it right?

[00:32:07] Right, I mean, if you like airplanes- and we all do- you must to some degree like tinkering with them, right, true, to some degree, now, some more than others. And like you need an excuse to go tinker with airplanes, well, convert an engine. So there you go. That’s who you make it sound so easy. Right, you do, it really isn’t hard and I’m gonna get to that. So, yeah, like the, the five w’s, I wrote them all.

[00:32:38] Down, but basically it’s, it’s about saving money on gas. What, the five w? Well, the who, what, when, where? Oh, I had something clever right now, but I’m not gonna, because I’m looking at it now it’s like, yeah, that’s kind of silly, but like, really it comes down to saving money on gas and getting to spend time in the shop because it’s fun to do and less mess on your airplane, and yeah, and there’s another reason, see, yeah, yeah, so and they’re also cheap, right? Oh, absolutely, if you’re gonna throw that royal bee.

[00:33:09] Weed eater away anyway exactly or have to work with it I don’t know it’s just not as fun.

[00:33:16] And most of these things usually are like when we throw them away, like when we’re done with our weed eaters or our leaf blowers or whatever. It’s usually not because the engine is cashed in. No, it’s usually because there’s something wrong with the carburetor, the fuel line, that clunk thing is broken in the tank, or it’s usually never honestly the engine’s fault, maybe the carburetor maybe sometimes, but the- the engines are usually the. The power head right is usually fine. So instead of throwing it away, convert it for rc airplanes. I mean, it’s awesome, it’s fun and anybody can do it.

[00:33:53] Okay so you should do it well how I mean like what well I’m glad you asked oh god is that what we were.

[00:33:58] Waiting on, yeah, I mean to say wait for somebody to prompt me so I could get into. Oh well, Tom, how do you do this? Well, it’s, it’s actually not hard. So, basically, and you want to go as light as you can, right, because weight is always a factor with our airplanes- so you can go electronic ignition or you can keep the stock magneto ignition. Now, dave has lots of success, and I’m gonna let him talk about this in a little while, because I know nothing about setting up the, the magneto style.

[00:34:29] Ignition, but they’re a little bit heavier because you have the weight of the flywheel and the coil pickup and all that kind of stuff but you don’t have the weight of a battery. So there’s a couple of different ways you can go. You can go electronic ignition or you can keep the stock. What do they call it? It’s not cdi, what is magneto actually? Okay. So you have to consider maybe what the application is going to be like if, if you’re really concerned about weight, you might want to think about converting one to cdi or electronic ignition. Or if you’re putting it like on a world war,

[00:35:03] One biplane that usually comes out tail heavy. Anyway, you need nose weight. Why not stick that reliable magneto ignition on there? And it’s really simple to do. You’re going to basically just like, once you get the engine out of the implement, let’s say it’s a. Well, in the case of the Ryobi, it was a weed eater, right? So I took everything apart that would come apart, right, and then anything that wasn’t necessary for either mounting it to an airframe or using the ignition. If I was going to use the

[00:35:33] Ignition. The stock ignition gets either cut off or milled off, or however you want to get it off there, get it off there. Usually the what. What you find is the crank cases have molded in flanges that are designed for mounting things like shrouds and the outer shields and all that stuff like that.

[00:35:55] There’s a lot of lumps and bumps all over them for mounting who knows what exactly so if it’s not.

[00:36:00] Necessary for either mounting the engine to the airframe or mounting your ignition. Cut it off. You can, and you can do that with a cutoff wheel, with a dremel, you can do it with a, with a angle grinder with a cutoff wheel or, if you’re really fancy, if you have access to a mill, you can chuck it in a vice and mill it off. Luckily for me, I worked in a machine shop, so all that was easy for me, like I made all my own parts and stuff. But it doesn’t have to be that fancy. It really doesn’t like. If you’ve got a, a cutoff wheel mounted to a four inch grinder, get after it, just cut all that stuff off.

[00:36:34] And then, okay, do yourself a favor, smooth down all the edges after you’re done cutting them. Why you don’t want to cut yourself? Well, I mean sharp edges and fuel lines running around inside of a cowl don’t usually work out too well with the vibration and stuff. So, okay, ask me how I know that. How do that? Well, they tend to develop leaks when they get holes in the lines.

[00:36:56] But yeah, once you’ve got it out of the implement, you’ve got all the stuff cut off of it that doesn’t need to be on there anymore, and then you just need to think about what you want to do for ignition. If you’re going to keep the stock ignition magneto style and you have access to a lathe, you could do yourself a favor by thinning down the flywheel. It doesn’t need all those fins on it. When it’s inside your cowl it’s going to get airflow moving through it. So if you can chuck that in a lathe and cut that down and make it thinner, so all the fins are for cooling. Yeah, oh yeah, they’re designed to move air through those shrouds because those weed eaters and

[00:37:29] Stuff. They’re encased in these plastic housings and stuff, and they’re they’re. There’s no air moving over them other than what they generate themselves. So that’s what those fins are for. So cut them all off. If you can make that thing as thin as you can, as light as you can, don’t do anything with the diameter, though that’s important. Yeah, diameter has to stay the same. Exactly. Why is that? Well, because it’s set to run under the, the coil pickup. Right, if you thin that down, then it’s running, okay. Yeah, so don’t do anything. Besides that, the magnets are embedded usually in the flywheel, so

[00:38:01] If you cut those off then you can’t trigger the ignition. Grinding your magnets off, I’m not good, yeah, don’t do that. But you can definitely thin it down, cut all the fins and stuff like that off, and probably there’s mounting bosses for like the recoil starter or stuff like you don’t need any of that, so take it off. Okay, so you can save yourself some weight doing that. And then you can save yourself a lot of weight by just getting rid of all that and making yourself a prop adapter and set up an electronic ignition. And that is really the ultimate gas converted weed eater motor, which is what

[00:38:36] The Ryobi is. And so why is that? Well, because you’re taking an engine that wasn’t designed to run on electronic ignition and you’re making it now run on a, and that, to me, that’s pretty cool, because now you’re worried about timing and all that stuff. So yeah, and I’ll talk about that too. So, if you want, okay, okay, so yeah, if you want to set up the timing on, how do you set up the timing on the electronic ignition? Well, you’re going to need a few things, right, you’re going to need the ignition, which is available from several places. You can get a, you can even use a factory dle or da or whatever.

[00:39:11] Which those are a little more expensive. But I use ch ignitions because you can buy a single cylinder ignition- I think last time I checked was like 70 bucks, yeah- which is actually not very expensive I think, especially if we’re going with a modern electronic ignition. But so you’re going to need the ignition and you’re going to need some way to trigger right that ignition and you’re going to need a battery to run it. So triggering an ignition is basically what they use- is a magnet embedded in the prop hub that spins underneath the hall effect sensor.

[00:39:46] And it’s all fancy schmancy talk, for basically just a magnet that has to be positioned at a certain place at a certain time. Is that how magneto ones work too? To a certain extent, kind of. But a magneto one also generates its own electricity. Well, yeah, I get that, but I mean, that’s how it gets, that’s how it triggers it. It’s using a whole magnet. Okay, yeah, so, and to do that you need a prop hub, and that’s probably the toughest part of the whole conversion process. If you’re going, electronic ignition is either making your own, which is not hard to do, especially if you have access to a lathe and a

[00:40:21] Chunk of aluminum. But you can also. There are some companies out there that I think still produce prop hubs ready made for you, or they can if you ask them to. So if you’re talking about putting,

[00:40:35] A prop hub on instead of the magneto flywheel how do you take that off is that screwed on is that.

[00:40:41] Pressure fit. Is that so there’s? There’s a couple of different ways. I’ve seen those. So on the Ryobi it was I believe it was a threaded arrangement. So the, the crankshaft came out of the engine with a, with a stub basically, and then there was a bolt that went into that, the nose of that crankshaft, that bolted the flywheel to the, to that whole assembly. Okay, and I think I think the hub I machined was it was held on, I believe the same way, and then I just board counterboard a hole in it.

[00:41:13] To put a, put that in, put a stud and then what the holes inside of it? For a spinner, I think. But either way it’s, it’s, it’s not hard to do. Like if you’re patient and you have it sounds like it’s hard. Like, to be honest, it sounds don’t understand that. And if it’s too difficult, there’s lots of machine shops that would do this sort of work for you. I don’t know what they charge. I’m sure it’s not probably cheap, but in the long run it’s cheaper than four gallons of nitro fuel in the case of a, a flying season, yeah, but it might not end up being cheaper than just buying.

[00:41:43] An already absolutely true gasoline engine unless this is unless you’re starting with.

[00:41:49] An engine that you got for free. Well, true, but I guess my what I’m saying is this isn’t for everybody. This isn’t exactly. If you just want to go fly, if you want to do that. You don’t like tinker. This isn’t the conversation, right, that you’re going to want to actually go and do?

[00:42:02] Right, somebody, somebody who doesn’t have the, the time or the- I don’t want to say patience, but some people- yeah, some people don’t- don’t really get their kicks off of this sort of thing. So, yeah, probably be better off buying something off the shelf or just do it to try.

[00:42:20] Or not to actually rely on for an airplane. If you have something you’re throwing away, just see about converting it and see how you can do it without needing it for anything else. It’s kind of- yeah, I mean like I would have fun doing it, just to try it, and if it doesn’t work, don’t tell anybody and just throw it away.

[00:42:37] So I mean, like I said, there’s, there’s just different levels of yeah with as much as you’re talking about, don’t it’s just? It seems overwhelming, I think, and I don’t want it to come off that way.

[00:42:47] Yeah, no, I, you’re right, you’re right, you’re absolutely right. If you, if you don’t have the resources to do it, then yeah, don’t, don’t sweat it. Go, because there’s- let’s be honest, there’s lots of good options out there ready-made for rcus that really have pretty economical. Honestly, I think so too. So, yeah, don’t sweat it if you don’t like want to try this, but if you got up for the challenge, it’s worth it, I think, because in the end you have an engine that you can now put in an airplane and say that: hey, I built that and the airplane, yeah.

[00:43:24] Kind of what I’m saying. No, just a couple quick notes about the prop, though, or the prop hub. You need to make sure that it’s at least long enough to cover all of the- the shoulder, if you will- the unthreaded portion of the crankshaft, the, the snout that comes out, and you also want to make sure that’s not so long that it covers too many of the threads that you don’t have enough threads to then put your spinner back plate if you’re using one of the prop, and then the washer and the nut and all that stuff. So, anyway, and then also make sure it’s the correct

[00:43:55] Diameter. You want to make sure that the prop hub is at least as big a diameter as your propeller hub. That makes sense, because you’re smashing the propeller, oh again. So you want to make sure it’s the.

[00:44:08] Same diameter or bigger. So the hub of the propeller needs to actually ride on the entire hub for the motor. You don’t want that to be smaller or else it’s going to get smashed. Exactly gotcha, okay, and then?

[00:44:20] And then setting up the ignition is not, is not rocket science either. I made a degree wheel which is nothing more than a big circle with a bunch of degrees delineated on it. Yeah, and you’re gonna set up like a clock looking kind of thing. Yeah, it looks like a clock, except it starts from zero to 360 with. I think I had mine set up for every five degrees or I don’t know, maybe I had a degree or a mark at every degree. But anyway, make it 10 to 12 inches in diameter, make it easy.

[00:44:50] To use and then fashion yourself a pointer so that you can point to a number when you’re at top dead center, and top dead center is like the position where the piston has moved as far up in the cylinder that it’s going to go. And at top dead center you want to align your magnet and your hall effect sensor roughly 28 degrees. 28 Degrees before top dead center is a good starting point to set up your ignition.

[00:45:19] And so when you’re putting your hall effect sensor on then how much adjustment do you have like degree.

[00:45:23] Wise, it depends on the sensor that you use. Like, I use the dle sensor, I think, on the Ryobi, and it has a slotted bracket. Yeah, so I just- I think I take that back- I used a, a hose clamp, I think, because it has a little shoulder on it too, and I clamped that to the snout, and you can adjust that with the loosening of the hose clamp and moving it and tightening it. So that’s the case. You have 360.

[00:45:48] Degrees exactly of being able to figure it out, but, like for ones where you’re actually screwing in and mounting, like the, it usually gives you about 15 degrees. Okay, 15, I think. Okay, yeah, adjustment yeah.

[00:46:01] It might even be more, I don’t know, and it’s really not hard, like you don’t need that much. Like 28 degrees is about, like the standard. I think that’s about where all of them kind of, and when I say you might want one or two degrees either side of that, you’re not going to, you’re not going to go to.

[00:46:16] Like 40 degrees no okay no which actually makes sense if you think about it but yeah so yeah.

[00:46:22] There’s definitely a sweet spot and that sweet spot is five degrees, maybe six degrees total. So okay, but yeah, and to do that you just what I did on my Ryobi is I counterboard a hole in the in the circumference of the prop hub and I bought one of those little eighth inch rare neodymium- yeah, that’s it- and I just jb welded it into a little pocket. I machined into the circumference there of my prop hub, so kind of like the same thing we do when we’re trying to.

[00:46:52] Use a magnetic hatch or something on their plane yeah same idea same thing I can you want to flush.

[00:46:58] Or slightly below flush so that doesn’t hit your hall of x sensor. And then, yeah, you just line those two up, the magnet and your hall of x sensor, at 28 degrees, and off you go, and that’s when it knows to fire. Yeah, exactly, interesting, yeah, so you just. And part of the fun of it- at least for me anyway, part of the fun of it- is figuring all that out. Yeah, making, either making a mount or figuring out how I’m going to mount the, the sensor. Let’s see how do I want this magnet to line up? I know, in the end, I know what needs to happen, but making all the cool things line up so that

[00:47:32] Happens in the end is part of the fun for me. Yeah, I get it. That’s awesome then. And then one last note about conversions. Usually they come with a carburetor that has like a primer bulb on it or somewhere in the system. Generally speaking, I don’t like those, I don’t use those. You totally can, I mean, because if the carburetor works in a weed eater, it’s going to work on your airplane, but they’re bulky and they you have to some of them. You have to find a place to mount your primer bulb, because some of them don’t always mount right to the carburetor. Yeah,

[00:48:02] So I just use- I think it’s a wt 978, I think is the one I wrote down in my notes. Yeah, but there’s other ones too, like if you look at the walbro carburetor that’s like on a dle 30. You can use that carburetor on most engines from 20 to 35 cc’s and it’ll run just fine. So I like to use those because they don’t have the primer built in and they have adjustable needles. That makes sense.

[00:48:27] There you go. That was one thing. So way back when, when I had that rcgf-15 on the skybolt, it was having problems when I first got it running and stuff, and you were out here helping me with it. And what surprised me is that’s an RC airplane motor that was built for rc airplanes, yeah, and we were able to go to farm and home to buy the rebuild kit for the carburetor. Yeah, that’s something that I was not prepared for. Just the ease of replacement parts, yeah, so pretty cool. And you’ve talked.

[00:48:59] About before just replacing full carburetors for eight or ten bucks off of amazon I mean you can.

[00:49:06] Find the carburetors ready to go they’re usually walbro clones but yeah they usually run just fine.

[00:49:11] Yeah, so that’s pretty cool. That’s amazing to me, like I still can’t get over that. Just, it’s the same carburetor and it’s so easy to fix. If something goes wrong, diaphragm goes out, anything like that. You have parts readily available, which in this hobby I’m not used to. Yeah, I’m used to a special trip somewhere I used to doing yeah, yeah, but I like that a lot. I mean, in the end, most like rc.

[00:49:36] Gas engines they go. They go back to basically being implement engines that have been converted, by a company at least, but I mean, they have their roots in the home market anyway. So, yeah, why wouldn’t you be able to go to farm and home and get parts for them? I think it’s

[00:49:56] Awesome, that’s true, but I just like said that it’s weird. That surprised me when we did that. Yeah, so, dave, we’ve we’ve talked a little bit about magneto, are you? I’m sorry? No, go, go right ahead, okay. So, dave, we’ve talked a little bit about like magneto ignitions and that kind of stuff, and you run.

[00:50:12] Magneto on a lot of years right yeah I have one electric and capacitive engine and the rest of them are.

[00:50:19] All magneto because see, like I can go either way, like I see the pros and cons of magneto and I see the pros and cons of the regular electronic ignition. But so many people just kind of do on magneto ignitions and stuff because, oh, it’s not high performance, oh, there’s so much weight, oh this.

[00:50:39] Oh, that why I mean, like, I like my magneto engines. They are stupid, simple, right. I don’t have to think about them. I rig an on off switch to shut them off so I can safely flip them or whatever, and that’s it. I don’t have to run, I don’t have to find a place to put the ignition module- that’s a big one. I don’t have to have a spare battery so I don’t have another battery to deal with. Yeah, I don’t have to troubleshoot something else. Basically, if magneto engine works, it’s going to work for its entire life.

[00:51:13] It probably. Yes, if- unless something stupid happens to it, yeah, that magneto is going to work for the life of the engine. Yeah, I’ve seen I’ve seen so many people pulling out modules and diagnosing bad modules and so forth. Yeah, Ron and I are both shaking our heads. That’s what we dealt with now. Electronic ignition does have a advantage, and when it comes to starting, they usually run a retarded spark. Make it easier to start, yeah, but I’ve never really had too much trouble starting.

[00:51:45] Any of my magneto engines. I’ve got one that can be quite cranky and has to be persuaded with a starter from time to time for the first start, but once it starts for the first time of the day it’s fine. Yeah, plus, I usually need the extra weight in the world war one stuff or short nosed aircraft- yeah, I’ve heard that a lot. Yeah, and so why deal with the extra battery and all that other stuff when it’s just right there and the weight you need’s right there and good to go? And

[00:52:17] Let’s be honest, having the big flywheel on there, that little bit of extra weight really makes for nice idols. Oh my, my, as I know is take over and you can see the propeller. Yeah, you can watch, yeah, you can almost watch the propeller as it’s, as it’s going through the arc at idle and that’s, that’s a. That’s actually a great pro, in my opinion, for magneto ignition, that the low, smooth idle you get.

[00:52:41] With them. Yeah, and see, that’s why, like I understand, you can get more performance out of these other engines that are like completely designed for rc applications, like vas and all that kind of stuff. But if I’m not flying a plane that needs all the extra performance, yeah, I, I don’t get like I don’t know if there’s just something I don’t know or why I should worry about not having a magneto engine. I.

[00:53:06] Mean, let’s be honest, I mean, the majority of us probably don’t need as much power as we have. Honestly, right, I mean. So, yeah, I? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know how to answer that.

[00:53:20] Question: well, like I said, you talk to almost anybody and they will all the time. Well, magneto ignitions, that’s. They’re just so heavy, they’re so bad, they’re this, they’re that. Cdi is the way to go, blah, blah, but it’s like there’s no actual reason to why they’re, they can’t back it up with. Okay, here is why for me to be like: okay, I understand now they don’t accelerate as fast.

[00:53:43] As a ignition engine, because you got to spin up that flywheel. Yeah, so it takes longer for that flywheel to spool up. Conversely, they don’t slow down as fast. So you get the 3d. Pilots are not going to want this because they want that fine throttle control, yeah, for hovering and so forth, whereas with my stop with pipes, who cares if it takes a quarter second to spool up? Big deal, yeah, and I, I understand.

[00:54:09] That. I mean that makes sense to me, but I you just don’t hear people when you talk to them and have conversations with them in general. I know it’s a generalization, but I’ve not heard a lot of people say these engines are great for that, they’re fine, for if you’re going to run something to where you don’t care about a lot of power, it’s always no magneto, just a line. No, we don’t do that. That’s, that’s old school, that’s bad, that’s not worth it. Yeah, it’s like those, the what the cheetah g 42, 42s that I got 20 bucks a piece? Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was the only reason I bought one of them.

[00:54:44] Came with a jump start. Yeah, and I have no clue what I’m going to use it on, but 20 bucks a piece, how can you?

[00:54:48] Not actually just buy it and have it sit in it. I think when you, when you bite the bullet and you build your first world war one biplane, I think these things are going to be awesome. I don’t know.

[00:54:57] If I’ll ever do that I’m just teasing but I can see like a big stick or something like that just a.

[00:55:01] Lazy flyer. I think what most people go to is the weight, because they can be a little heavier, and the- the ease of starting. I think is. I think is are the two biggest complaints I’ve. I frequently hear, but like, like you said, they’re not that hard to overcome. Yeah, so, yeah, like when.

[00:55:21] I was talking to the guy at the swap meet about buying them. It was pretty much like he told me nobody wants this. If it doesn’t get sold today, he said, just throw it in the lake. It’s like I and see that’s, that’s kind of what I get off of these and it’s like, well then, should I not? I don’t, but now for 20 bucks, I still feel as though it’s a good motor. For 20 bucks, I mean it would be an

[00:55:44] Afternoon fun, just mounting it on a bench and running it, and we should probably do that. I’m more. I think about it. Yeah, we’re gonna do some more of that stuff too, because I need to run that diesel motor you’re talking about, yeah, but anyway, so once you’ve got one converted, yeah, the setup is pretty much the same as any gasser. It’s super, super easy. So what’s set up for a gas? Well, I’ve been blathering on dave. You tell us how do you set up a gas engine.

[00:56:08] Well, the nice thing about a gas engine is tank position really doesn’t matter. No, isn’t that sweet. No center line, nothing to worry about on the CG if you want to. I’ve actually contemplated putting one sideways in the in the aircraft, really, yeah, it was that software papa’s building for ed. Oh okay, he wanted to smoke tank in it too and to get both tanks in it. If I could mount them sideways, it was going to work better. Oh, it’s, that’s the beauty of a gasser.

[00:56:35] With the pumped carburetors that you could do that if you want to it doesn’t really.

[00:56:39] Care, yeah, which is awesome. The nice thing again with this tanks pumped carburetors is you don’t have to worry about flooding the engine filling them so you can put a simple t in the line, yeah, and use just a fuel dot right to fuel the car tanks, yeah, so a simple two line setup with a tank is all.

[00:56:59] You need you don’t have to do the three line setup if you want to have a fill line or whatever yeah.

[00:57:03] Like a force of habit I usually do but oh do you okay but you don’t have to I don’t have to it’s.

[00:57:08] Just, I’ve already got it plumbed. When I realize if you have a fully cowled in engine, let’s say a nitro, you pretty much have to run a three line setup because you don’t want to take the cowl off every time you have to put fuel in it. So I mean you almost have to. But on a, on a, on a gasser, yeah, you just run a simple t and a plug dot. Yeah, it could be as simple as a screw in the line. Really, yeah, done that, yeah, yeah, me too. Got one on the bench right now with that way. So, yeah, so the tank is easy. You want to make sure you use tygon fuel tubing, that’s, that’s right, and a conversion stopper, and that’s.

[00:57:42] Yeah, I forgot about that. Dubro 400 conversion stopper- it’s dubro. And solvent tanks: yeah, it might fit some of the metric tanks as well. I haven’t tried it. Yeah, because they squish. Yeah, yeah, but dubro 400 conversion stopper and tygon fuel line: yeah, some people use the black neoprene line. I don’t.

[00:58:02] Care for that stuff. It gets hard real quick. Well, I found over time like if you touch it crumbles, it crumbles and then leaves black stuff all over your hands. Yeah, which? Yeah, that’s gross.

[00:58:13] Ucky yeah the yellow tygon works great yeah it lasts for several seasons it does it does get hard.

[00:58:20] Like over time but it still works that’s the thing still works it doesn’t seem to get brittle and.

[00:58:24] Break I think it would if you forced the issue yeah probably a lot of it has to do with how long.

[00:58:30] It’s sitting out in sunlight, like I’ve had going back to weed eaters before, where it sat outside for a few days at a time and you go to use it and it’s fine. Then, after a year of doing that or so it, they get hard, yeah, and then when they break, they just shatter. They just shatter, but they, yeah, like.

[00:58:49] You said they still work up until then. Yeah, so yeah, they do lose their flexibility, like if you’re clunk in the tank. It doesn’t seem to flop about as freely as it’s supposed to, but if you keep an eye on it, it’s every couple years yank it out there. That’s what I was.

[00:59:04] Going to say every year or two that I mean for as simple and cheap as that is that might be a good.

[00:59:08] Thing to do like on your yearly checkup yeah and another good reason to get in the shop and tinker.

[00:59:13] Yeah, and you check your tank anyway every now and then. Yep, oh, yeah, absolutely, because you never know the fuel lines, like I said, just it’s good to keep an eye on them, yeah, so the tank is easy, the, the.

[00:59:25] Fuel line is easy and how do you tune them dave like what’s your process well actually I have.

[00:59:31] One that I’ve never even touched. Isn’t that awesome. It’s got the factory tune on it and it runs just fine. Yeah, but seriously, it’s just like any other two-stroke gas engine or glow engine or whatever. You set the high end first for wide open, back it off just a touch and then bring it back to idle and adjust idle so you get a smooth idle and a good transition. If you’re familiar with the nitro two-stroke then you can easily tune a gas and they’re nowhere near as sensitive. Exactly.

[01:00:00] What I was going to say. They’re really, really forgiving in my opinion, especially the ones that are set up with the electronic ignition, because you’re not trying to keep a glow plug lit, so they’re a lot more forgiving of maybe an overly rich condition and you set it and you forget it exactly hardly ever have to like. Once they’re set, they’re usually good to go and they’re good in cold.

[01:00:20] Weather and hot weather. They don’t very, very much, not too much. The nitros have got a significant swing on the idle in cold versus hot weather. Yeah, I can tell which airplane I flew last well, january, versus one I flew last week. Yeah, it’s going to be way out of whack. The gas doesn’t really seem to care. Now. I do have one gas engine. I do run way out of tune on purpose on purpose. I know which one you’re talking about too. It’s the my line decker, which doesn’t need as a no 23 in the nose. It’s way too much motor for this airplane, but I leave it way out of tune. So

[01:00:54] It cracks and pops and carries on in flight just like the real one would yeah and it sounds cool like.

[01:00:59] I think it sounds cool yeah and it doesn’t die because no it just keeps on so well yeah and that other.

[01:01:05] Thing you brought up too was the glow plug versus spark plug much cheaper yeah and lasts.

[01:01:11] Much longer, lasts quite a bit longer. Yeah, yeah, even in the eindecker with the rich setting, I’ve never changed it. I’m sure it’s way carboned up by now. Yeah, but still, I mean, I still brush runs. I was gonna.

[01:01:26] Say: yeah, you can even pull it out and run it through a sandblaster or something. You have a good enough to run, whereas with a twenty dollar glow plug, yeah, you don’t get to do that, it’s good. Or?

[01:01:37] It’s bad so dave what are your thoughts on I know like how I like to leave them but like do you leave.

[01:01:43] The carburetors wet or do you run them dry I shut it off and drain the gas out of it yep that’s it.

[01:01:48] Carburetors wet, leave them wet. Yeah, well, that keeps the- the what’s where I diaphragm- from drying out. Yeah, at least so leaves oil on it, exactly. Yeah, because there’s oil in the fuel like.

[01:02:00] There is with nitro, but that, that little bit of synthetic oil or whatever it is that we put in there, keeps that. Diaphragm supple is the word we’re looking for, which is a good question too. What kind of oil do you run? So I buy the pre-mixed stuff, I pay. I pay the extra money. I buy the pre-mixed stuff, but most guys I know they either run clots or redline. I like the smell clots has got. Yeah,

[01:02:24] I do too. I run redline. So okay, there you go, although I’ve been wanting to go fly and didn’t have any oil, and I had my generic weed whacker oil in the garage and that works. Mixed up a gallon of generic weed whacker oil- I don’t have some off-brand- and it works. Engine and care any ashless.

[01:02:39] Oil will be fine. And, speaking of ashless oil, no crud on your airplane. Yeah, we talked about that already, but that’s so. I have to admit, like being a nitro guy, I still love nitro. But yeah, these no mess, yeah.

[01:02:55] Well, and yeah, I’m not gonna go back to the nitro thing again. So, anyway, I think I’ve said like every freaking episode for the last- I don’t know how many- that yeah, if you like nitro, that’s great, right.

[01:03:07] That’s all I’m gonna say so how do you what’s your starting procedure so it’ll be different between.

[01:03:13] Magneto and electronic. The magnetos is pretty simple on the aircraft that I can reach the carburetor, I jam my thumb over the carburetor inlet and open it wide, open throttle and I flipped, making sure the ignition’s off. Yes, I flip it through by hand until my thumb gets wet and then I take and

[01:03:35] If it has a choke I’ll leave it fully choked, full throttle, and flip it until it coughs and gags a little bit. Usually it takes five or six flips. Yep, once it coughs or gags, I bring it to idle. But idle trim all the way up, shut off the choke and usually once again, within five or six flips it’s up and

[01:03:57] Running, yeah, and by putting your finger over the, the inlet, you’re making sure that all of the suction that is coming, it just speeds up. The choke is: yeah, it’s sucking from the tank and not we’re getting fuel.

[01:04:08] To the carburetor now. Like my d7, it’s fully cowed. I cannot get to that carburetor, so I have to rely on the choke to do it, and that’s the one that occasionally will need the starter to draw fuel up to it. Does the choke plate have a hole in it? Yes, it does. I’ve thought about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:04:24] That silly 40 cc twin that’s on my s-box. Same thing: why would you put a hole in the choke plate like? I don’t get that. I’ve never figured that out. So I’m going to solder that hole close and that’ll.

[01:04:34] Make the process, because I mean it chokes just fine with my thumb over it, why not exactly? But I do like that check, that I can check, make sure it’s got fuel in the carburetor. When my thumb’s wet, I know there’s fuel in the engine. Yeah, true, but the fully cart cowled is a little more difficult. It takes a few more.

[01:04:49] Flips just because, yeah, but no biggie, yeah, I use the. I use the same process with mine, mine are all electronic ignition, but the same process. I close the choke and turn the ignition on. I don’t even fiddle with trying to prime the carb, I just flip it until it coughs and gags and then, yeah, turn the choke off, turn it idle, flip it until it’s running, and that’s easy, I mean.

[01:05:13] Piece of cake yeah I mean there’s not much more to say unfortunately it’s so simple because we.

[01:05:18] Know gas is the way to go. Yeah, it is. I mean it really is. It just makes sense. I mean I’m a nitro guy, but the gas stuff it’s just sizing in: the bigger, yeah, the bigger airplanes. It just yeah, it just makes.

[01:05:32] Sense to me just a much more reliable operation is the big yeah and economical okay so what about.

[01:05:42] Converting nitro engines to gasoline. Is that a thing? It is a thing. I’ve never done it, but yeah, they’re the ch ignitions. They make conversion kits for existing nitro engines. I don’t know what the lineup is because I haven’t researched it because I’m not interested in doing that. But yeah, for some of the larger nitro engines absolutely makes sense to convert them, if the if, if there’s one out there and there’s some conversion kits for, like sato multi-cylinder engines I know.

[01:06:14] Morris mini motors. I think he’s out of the uk somewhere. He does a lot of that, that kind of stuff, and he uses ch ignitions for those, and those things run awesome, at least according to his youtube.

[01:06:24] Videos that’d be awesome yeah I would like that a lot mm-hmm yeah so a gas radial that would be.

[01:06:31] Gas I mean you can buy them radio yeah you can buy them from sato that way now too but.

[01:06:36] Yeah, cool, it’s thousands of dollars. Yeah, but the sound: yeah, we still need to get somebody in our group to get a mokey, a mokey 400 or even 250, but yeah, anyway, anything else. Just wanted to say.

[01:06:54] One more thing. So what makes a good donor, like if you’re going to do an rc, oh gas conversion, basically, basically anything in the 30 cc range seems to be the most popular, like home light, I think. They make a 25, that’s pretty common and pretty reliable. The Ryobi 31 and then pulan makes a 42, so anything in that range. When you get bigger than that, yeah, just buy, buy it, yeah, dle or da or whatever. So and engines to stay away from, like I said in the like.

[01:07:27] At the beginning here. Most of these things don’t die because of the engine. They die because either the owners neglected the carburetors or the or whatever. So but stay away from anything that doesn’t have a lot of compression, like if it doesn’t have good pop when you pull it through, then yeah, stay away from that. That was real, that was really it. That’s all I want to say. Okay, dave.

[01:07:47] Anything else? No, all good, sweet. Don’t know if we forgot anything. If so, we’ll. We’ll have to. We’ll figure it out next time and somebody will tell us. Yeah, like I said, don’t forget, we’re going to be taking some time off. Our next episode will be our last one for a little while, for a.

[01:08:04] While so about a month, exactly a month, actually. Hey, I just wanted to mention also, since we’re, yeah, talking about that, if you want swag- we haven’t hit this up in a while- but if you want anything with the RC Plane Lab logo on it, there’s a link on our website to the swag store. Mm-hmm, Ron and your t-shirt reminded me that’s why. Oh yeah, Ron is wearing his RC Plane Lab t-shirt.

[01:08:26] It’s so comfortable looking, looking stylish. Oh, that’s the important part. Yes, stylish and comfortable, exactly anyway. Okay, well, everybody, thanks for listening, until next time. I’m Ron, I’m Tom and I’m.

[01:08:39] Good night. Good night, we hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions or to give anything back, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.