Carey Shurley
Veteran
Location: Orlando, FL
My Posts This: Topic Forum | well, you should of course work on what you want to work on.
but these glow motor conversions come out every coupla years. The results always seem to be the same. There isn't enough cooling surface area on the motors to support the higher heat generation of gasoline or related fuels. They work in airplanes because of the enormous amount of air moving over the fins. But they haven't been very successful in helicopters, just search back through the RR archives for data.
The fact that this is a 4 stroke leads me to believe it will be even more problematic because the lower RPM turns the fan even slower. Historically even the glow versions of 4 strokes have been marginally successful, they just run too hot. KCORDELL was one of the more succesful users having campaigned them for several years, I suspect he can chime in about his experiences with 4-strokes. They sure sound great but are tricky to make work consistently. Maybe if you put some additional electric fans on the model you might overcome the heat but then the complexity level is starting to get silly.
I think I saw an OS conversion somewhere where they basically redesigned the motor with much more cooling surface. THAT might be the ticket to make these conversions work in helicopters. |
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