The Baby Bee will do OK on this plane and was the entry level 049 Cox offered once upon a time. It was more powerful and cost less than almost all of the 049s offered by the competitors. There is a downside to using this engine on a maneuverable ship like Kitten. You will lose fuel inverted.

The Texaco was designed specifically for a free flight event that required fuel economy above anything else. Thus it employs a special head with a larger combustion chamber to lower compression that has 5 cooling fins. It is also designed to use a larger diameter prop. It would need a specially designed control line plane to take advantage of its special properties.

Now we come to the Black Widow! Best choice for your Kitten! It has the larger capacity tank with the "stunt tank" filler tube arrangement and twin bypass porting in the cylinder for higher performance.

Robert 

Please note that the late production Black Widow engines do NOT have the 'stunt' tank.  Thus, they have the same issue with flying inverted as with the Babe Bee.   The older Black Widow engines with the vent tubes on both the top and the bottom of the fuel tank are great.

Great info guys.  Thank you much.  Gives me a lot to look for on these engines...  cheers

Much to my delight, I checked the Black Widow that I bought and it has the brass backplate and the bottom vent tube.  Since I would like to use and keep this engine, and since it is new, what fuel mix would you recommend I use for break in?  The instructions recommend three full tanks at rough rich idle.  What do you think?

You can also set up a Baby Bee to work inverted as follows:

1- NV, filler holes, oriented to inside of flight circle.

2- Fuel P/U oriented to outside.

3- Fill the tank up and start engine with wings vertically oriented.

4- Launch quickly once plane is level, and centrifugal force will take care of the rest of it.

Much to my delight, I checked the Black Widow that I bought and it has the brass backplate and the bottom vent tube.  Since I would like to use and keep this engine, and since it is new, what fuel mix would you recommend I use for break in?  The instructions recommend three full tanks at rough rich idle.  What do you think?

One other thing - Cox typically needs the piston/rod ball joint tightened after 10 runs or so.  It's been my experience that after tighten it once it seem to stay put.  The bad news it takes a special tool.  If you don't have one you may ask around - some one in your neck of the woods may have one and has had experience using it.  Some of the Cox experts on line may know more about this but it has always put the spunk back into a sagging Cox for me.

      

Yep that is what it looks like. Mine is an original tool made by Cox but the Xena tool is the same thing. IT takes a little skill to use one.  I have a small hammer that I use and I sneak up on the process to make sure I don't over tighten.  I keep tightening the joint till the "feel" of slop goes away. Man's hands and fingers are amazing when it comes to feeling slop in a rod. If you can feel any slop at all the joint is too loose. By the way the most important thing is to work on a solid serface.  The top of a wood work bench is too bouncy. I use a steel machinist vise that weighs 5 lb or so.  Best to work on top of a beanch vise or fariley large block of steel.

 

looks scary but I'll order one....thanks for the tip