Helicopter Engine Tuning
|
Tuning for all hirobo engines are still viable When Hirobo announced that they were introducing a new .36 heli engine some months ago we all looked forward to it with eager anticipation. The power figures looked right, and it had a good solid appearance. We were not disappointed when the first examples arrived, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, so we put one in a Sceadu .30 in short order and went flying. By this time there were plenty of bad news stories on the internet, so I won't say it was without a small amount of worry that we fired it up for the first time. Well, we needn't have, because it pretty much ran a treat from the first start. Since then we have around twenty hard hours on one engine, and some hours on two others. NO PROBLEM! Like all engines, it has it's own little idiosyncracies, so here is what works for us: * We always run straight castor oil fuel for a litre or two in a new ringed engine. Remember that with modern engines most of what you do in the first 15 minutes is run in the big end of the rod. Bedding in the ring will take around 5 - 6 litres of fuel. The settings will gradually get richer, but go slowly and BE PATIENT! We have found that a slightly hotter plug, an OS A5, for example, can help during this initial running in period. * Our usual fuel contains 15% nitro and a good quality synthetic oil, BUT, we always run 2% castor oil regardless of the remaining oil content! I won't get into the synthetic vs castor argument, but if you have doubts I can show you engines with hundreds of tanks of fuel through them which are in current use! *Don't try to set the idle until you have 2-3 litres of fuel through it. Even then, you will need to keep refining things for a few more litres. You just spent the money on this toy - invest a little time in it's future! |