Weed whacker to glow fuel coversions.

[D.L]

Hi zoners,
Anybody had success with glow conversions? The compression ratio, fuel mix and a bespoke throttle are my main concerns. This is for an rc model.

[keebler303]

Why not just run gas?

Matt

[underthetire]

My only question would be why? Two stroke gas is sooo much cheaper to run. My dad and I are now only flying electric or gas. Once you got over a 120 size, the weekend fuel price for glow was getting out of hand, about a gallon and a half at 30 bucks a gallon, Vs about a gallon of pre-mix race gas for about 5 bucks. If this is for an aircraft, the weed eater motors aren't very good. Too heavy. You can pick up pretty decent 2 stroke aircraft motors for less than 200 bucks.

[eartaker]

I did get one running on glow fuel just to see if I could do it. You do not need to adjust the compression just the carb. You will want to run the engine a little more rich and use a hot glow plug. It can be done but will cost you a bit in fuel to run on a car. You could always run a high octane fuel with added octane booster. Or if you have a place where you can buy 100% nitromethane you can mix that with the gas for an extra kick. Mich want to give this a reading... Race Fuel - Power fuel additives

[D.L]

It's mainly to keep the weight down for a plane.
I know petrol is the only way for 15min flights, I might try and stay with that if i can bring the bulk of the motor down somehow.
Electric is nice and wow modern, but really, how many recharges are those batteries going to give? And 5min of flying is not enough time to make wings break off!

[underthetire]

Originally Posted by D.L It's mainly to keep the weight down for a plane. I know petrol is the only way for 15min flights, I might try and stay with that if i can bring the bulk of the motor down somehow. Electric is nice and wow modern, but really, how many recharges are those batteries going to give? And 5min of flying is not enough time to make wings break off!

I get 10+ minutes with electric. Batteries are less than 20 bucks from hobby king, and can re-charge 200-1000 times, so it is more economical, and no noise to piss off the neighbors.

[D.L]

10 mins?? wow, that's interesting.
I have already embarked on a ply/balsa/alloy fuselage so the petrol is on the go.
But i must buy some epp and have a play with brushless.
The main reason for the old school plane is my friend has built and crashed so many he now design kits in his head without any cad. He gets 10 crash rebuilds per fuselage on average. i decided this was the route to take for learning the most skills, i do have my eyes on epp / brushless - it's really 'hitting' the scene!

Maybe i could get some tips on mini transistor ignition, i know its all been done before, good for a chinwag,,,

[underthetire]

If you mare just getting in to this hobby, you really need to check out hobby king. They advertise here as well. All china stuff, but I've had pretty darn good luck with most of there stuff. I highly recommend the turnigy 9 channel transmitter/receiver for 50 something bucks. I actually sold my older jr radio once imstarted using it.

[D.L]

I know those 9x controls are a bargain, I wanted to get Hitec until I saw the prices. I heard lots of people are flashing the rom chip on the 9x with custom software, interesting, could result in smoke though!

[cforcht]

I would avoid glow fuel in the weed eater. the fuel consumption would be astronomical compared to gasoline/oil mix. you can fly all day on a gallon of gas. glow fuel would only get you a few tankfuls and probably only 10 minute flights per tank. with gas you do have to watch your flights times though. because the batteries will die long before you run out of fuel.

[D.L]

That's an good point, an uncontrolled plane flying away!

[cforcht]

I have seen a plane fly away before. wasn't mine. couple of the guys at our club jumped in a truck and tried to chase it down without any luck. it flew away into the sunset so to speak. about 6 months later a farmer called the guy who owned the plane and asked if he'd lost one. the plane had run out of fuel about 12 miles away and landed itself in the farmers field with no damage to the plane. good thing he had put his name and number inside the plane.