Hi Guys,
The DS .61 RE seems to be doing just fine now. The engine is in a modified Trivial Pursuit, one of Ted Fancher's designs. Most of you know the Trivial Pursuit, but I just had to throw a plug Ted's way. I originally built this plane around an ST .60. When finished it came way too heavy, to me anyhow. I sold the plane to a friend and he put a PA .51 with pipe in it and then I bought it back. It flew great, but I just wasn't happy with the pipe set up, I'm old school and old too, so what I really wanted was to fly this plane with the traditional grunt and growl of a .60 engine.
I had a DS .61 RE that was in another plane at the time. I decided to strip the Trivial Pursuit down to bare wood and refinish it. It was a good plane, just needed to be lighter. I retrofitted the DS .61RE in the nose, which really didn't take that much work, although there was some doubt that after drilling out the motor mounts and resetting the mounting holes that it could cause some problems, I went ahead with and there are no signs of any structure failure. After the refinish, I took 6 ounces off the total weight and this is significant believe me. Finished it all back in Brodak dope and it came out fine.
I've had problems getting the "right mixture" of prop, fuel, nitro %, head shims and venturi size all together at once to make this engine happy. The engine really likes to turn a big prop, its happy, very happy with a Rev-Up 13 X 7, turns it like it was nothing, but, the plane isn't happy with this prop on it. Put a Bolly 12 1/2 X 6 1/2 3 blade on it, and the whole package just came together. Its pretty much set just like a Tiger .60 now, thanks Randy. Running SIG Champion 5% fuel, .300" venturi, PA .61 NVA, SIG Idle bar plug, have 5 head shims to get the same compression as my ST .60's are, had 7 in it running 10% fuel and couldn't find a needle. Anyhow, its all working now, I'm happy, the plane is happy and the engine is happy, we be flyin'. Should be ready for the Northwest Regional's in Eugene, Oregon over Memorial Day Week end. Hope to see you there Walter.
Gerald