I haven't kept track of who sells it, but if you're buying from US suppliers they usually call it "FAI Fuel".

SIG offers it in their Champion Fuel, scroll down to the FAI description. Can I ask why you want it, SIG claims it's a cheaper alternative without the methanol. Are there performance benefits?

Steve

Can you advise what the power/heat/cooling effects are on an engine with zero nitro?

Steve

Back in the day when our local hobby shop was out of fuel, my flying buddy and I used to make our own 80/20 drug store fuel with methanol and castor purchased at our corner pharmacy.  Not very exciting if you are used to nitro fuels but at least we could fly.

Almost all my IC engines are Stalkers of various displacements. They come from Molodavia I believe, where they are designed from the git go to run FAI fuel, with about 17-18% synthetic oil.

In my opinion, they run best on this fuel. They will tolerate 5% nitro, though not needed. They do not need Castor added. It only leaves a burnt on residue on top of the piston, (and elsewhere) that will have to be removed ( de coked) or the run may deteriorate.

Many imported engines will run on 0% nitro fuel, but knowing how we love to tilt the nitro bottle, and feel we must use castor on every engine, the manufactures make allowances in their designs to allow for our desires.

I like that FAI fuel is less expensive, and run fine on my engines of choice.

Almost all my IC engines are Stalkers of various displacements. They come from Molodavia I believe, where they are designed from the git go to run FAI fuel, with about 17-18% synthetic oil.

In my opinion, they run best on this fuel. They will tolerate 5% nitro, though not needed. They do not need Castor added. It only leaves a burnt on residue on top of the piston, (and elsewhere) that will have to be removed ( de coked) or the run may deteriorate.

Many imported engines will run on 0% nitro fuel, but knowing how we love to tilt the nitro bottle, and feel we must use castor on every engine, the manufactures make allowances in their designs to allow for our desires.

I like that FAI fuel is less expensive, and run fine on my engines of choice.

Hi John!
Very good people live and work in Moldova, our good friends, these are professional engine builders who build a lot of different engines and spare parts for them.
For example, engines for Brodak. B25 and B40.
Stalker engines are produced in Ukraine.
They really have an increased compression ratio and use fuel exclusively without nitromethane. They actually use 16-18% of engine oil of which half is castor oil and half is synthetic oil.
I will advise you to buy pure methanol that drag racers, castor oil and synthetics for 2T engines use that dissolve in methanol and stir the fuel yourself.
Regards
Ruslan Kurenkov

The only stunt type engines I've used started with a Merco 35 then an Enya 45 model 6001 (the early twin ringed version) then ST G51, Stalker 61RE, OS VF40/46 piped, Irvine 40RLS (piped) and Enya 61CXLRS. All were run with zero nitro. All would start with one flick so I doubt that equates to hard to start . Power was more than adequate even when running in a 4 stroke so definitely weren't leaned to the max. Needling may be more sensitive compared to using nitro but this is simply a matter of the different air/fuel ratio requirements where zero nitro gives lower fuel consumption. Given this lower fuel consumption I never use less than 20% oil simply to keep a decent flow rate of oil through the engine.

Apart from the Irvine, which has a 12.5:1 compression, the rest of my engines listed could benefit from raised compression to get the most from zero nitro and in fact I did that with the Enya 61 by raising it's compression from the standard 8.8 to 12.5:1 which, when fully peaked out, had a 26% increase in HP. I have no idea how much nitro would have been needed for that much gain.

     Essentially all competitive stunt engines in the USA are set up to run around 10-15% nitro in the summer. If you just put FAI fuel in it, it will be hard to start, needle will be finicky, and it will have to be run much leaner to recover the power. In many cases, you can't remove enough head gaskets to even make it work on 5%, because the head volume is still too much even if you had the squish band hitting the piston.

    Brett

I've fiddle-farted with Cox 049 engines to make them happy on 5% nitro.  You have to increase compression a lot -- removing shims doesn't do it.  I basically ended up machining a new head.

  Exactly. I run what Dub and Richard call a "high-compression" head button, with one .003" gasket, and run 15% in the midwest summer. Short of making a new head button, or tig welding more metal into the head, it will be running in "meltdown mode" on 5% (which is how I managed to melt my pipe at the 2001 TT), and be a disaster on FAI.

    If people want to try it, go ahead, but in most cases, you will be giving up a lot of performance.

   There - I figure that this will induce a bunch of people to try it just to prove me wrong. See how diabolical my plans are?

     Brett

   I've been reading more about high vs low nitro , high compression  vs low compression & some of the combinations including hot vs cool glow plugs lately. Maybe I'll anoy my neighbors tomorrow running a few combinations in my back yard.
         John

I should point out that ethanol has a higher content of carbon and hydrogen than methanol. For the same volume, you get more power from denatured alcohol than pure methanol.

Back in the day when our local hobby shop was out of fuel, my flying buddy and I used to make our own 80/20 drug store fuel with methanol and castor purchased at our corner pharmacy.  Not very exciting if you are used to nitro fuels but at least we could fly.

That's exactly what we did back in the late 50s and early 60s. When Fox fuel was scarce my dad would take me to the local drug store (you know the ones that used to have soda fountains) and the owner would mix it up for us. If worked fine but we only flew Fox engines.

I noticed the same, looks a bit rough. Propably due to lack of proper tooling or skills.

This is a Retro .76 head. I think retro is a littlle more sophisticated desing than Stalker and knowing Yuriy, every detail is a result of lots of thinking and testing.
It is bell-shaped with squish clearance 1,0mm, that gives a 1,4cc head volume.
Titanium umbrella is 1,0mm thick (foot ø 2,0mm) and it's pressed to 4mm deep hole with 0,1mm interference fit. It's pressed to about 0,1mm below the rim of "squish band".
It has also a sort of thoroidal combustion chamber, the plug protrudes 0,6mm into the combustion chamber. In general it's possible to use a slightly higher CR with a thoroid shape. L

https://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=56012.0;attach=309968;image

Strange - you would have thought a more 'true' hemi chamber would work better - no empirical evidence except notion that flames don't tend to burn well into corners?

I don't think we have any flame front propagation problems with our engines. Considering we are talking bores less than 1' in diameter. When the engine has a 4" or larger bore running up to 10,000 RPM even with a 4 stroke that is 5000 firings a minute. That is 83.3 firings a second with at least a 2" flame travel requirement. A hemispherical combustion chamber has poor turbulence, therefore lazy flame front propagation. That is why Drag Race Hemi engines running Nitro use twin plugs.
Pat

I assume the umbrella is there to shield the plug from getting too wet with an incoming charge.

Best,   DennisT

One thing that occurred to me about starting on 0% nitro is if using a standard NiCad glow driver you are down on voltage. NiCad's are around 1.2 - 1.3 volts off the charger. Most plugs were designed for the old dry cell voltage of 1.5V. Simply going up to this voltage would give a hotter plug temp and easier starting. As a kid our club (Perth Amboy MAC, NJ club) had a guy that sold 2V wet cells. Some plugs could take this and in the winter you could really tell the difference.

One way to get there today is either use a Power Panel and get to at least 1.5V ish or there was a single cell glow driver (Hangar 9 glow driver d-c alkaline) that would use a C-D size alkaline cell which is 1.5V (don't know how many starts you get from this). Maybe there is a way to use an A123 or Life cell which is 3+V and some type of button resistor to get to 1.5 - 2V (I don't know what the value of the resistor would need to be or if a button design exists).   

Another little trick is to make sure the last loop of the glow element is at least level with the end of the plug body. This is a good one for Fox plugs as sometime it is back a little and the plug runs colder.

Best,  DennisT

https://www.atbatt.com/enersys-hawker-cyclon-single-cell-2v-5ah-x-cell-battery/

If you never played with these very low cost 2vdc lead acid primary cells you are missing out....5ah makes any rayovac D cell seem like a button cell

I use either wire gage/length or high Amp resistors to bring down to 1.7 volts....only fine filament cox types heads will not tolerate over 1.5 vdc....all others seem good slightly  above 1.5 if you don't have a Amp feedback system like RCATS....my favorite

https://www.rcatsystems.com/store/lithium-glow-driver.html

most reliable igniters I know of except Howard Rush's home designed feedback source

topic was 0 nitro fuel...by now most should understand to run FAI fuel efficiently requires an engine designed for that fuel.....you can indeed force a Cox .049 TeeDee to eat that low energy fuel but why--- when they start and run so well on 35% vitamin N

oops you all were talking stunt ship engines...my bad....I bet most 60% nitro boat engine guys are wondering also....

very broad range of interests....in fact Glow fuel costs drove much of the RC market to bigger craft and Gasoline engines

just grumpy can't fly no more guy pontificating...carry on

..I think it was this one. L

[quote author=Dennis...plug on glow driver with the 1.2V NiCad it pretty much explains why. BTW, Hanger 9 does have a D size plug on $10 on eBay, what plug do you like to run?

Best,    DennisT
[/quote]

Dennis,

I rather choose the plug that works well with the engine, rather than with glow driver🙄.
At the moment I like most the Merlin #2004, luckily I have a good stock as Mr. Merlin has passed away. L

After running Stalkers almost exclusively for about 20 years, and using 0% FAI fuel with all synthetic, I am a bit bewildered by the concerns  being voiced here.

Engines designed to run 0% nitro are not, in my experience, harder to start than other engines. I start mine in the following way.

I place my finger over the venturi, and flip through 6-8 times. After this prime I flip through as i lift my finger from the venturi, thus sucking in that last slug of fuel into the engine.

Next, I flip through an  additional 6-8 times to atomize the fuel in the engine.

The engine is now ready to start.

I attach the  nicad glow driver, and while holding the prop firmly, I'll slowly pull the prop through, and feel for the "Bump".

No bump? Start over from the top.

You have a bump, then rotate the prop  until you feel it come up to compression.

Signal a start, if your making a competition flight.

I use my fingers and hit the prop clockwise back to, but not through, compression.

I get almost 100% first flip starts this way.

Unless you are running an old Classic engine where high castor fuels are needed, 10-15% synthetic/5-10% castor is all that's needed for many modern engines. Speaking of Stalkers, I've never run more than 18% all synthetic. (normally, 17%)

I feel that I'm getting the power I need, and I'm still running my first Stalker regularly with no problems.

John Miller

After running Stalkers almost exclusively for about 20 years, and using 0% FAI fuel with all synthetic, I am a bit bewildered by the concerns  being voiced here.

Engines designed to run 0% nitro are not, in my experience, harder to start than other engines. I start mine in the following way.

   The problem that you are missing is that people are talking about running engines *not* designed to run on FAI fuel - which will have all the problems described.

    Brett

I used 2 Enya 45 6001 during 3 years with 0% nitro 11/6-12/6
I have not any problem.
 When the weather is cold , engine done reduced rpm when i turned off a glow .
 After this .
I lower head on the lathe , the gap allowed me it . with this tune pattern  engine works good on summer too . On the Como.51 and Fox eagle  60 pattern too.
 When i used  hemihead Enya 45-6002 on my second Enya 45 6001engine, i listen another -specific growl and no more.
 Working  , power  so as first engine .

For a long times Ussr modelists  used single type of glowplugs KS-2 (80% Pt 20%Iridium) for more types engines and they successfull learned tuned the engine mode by changing of compression ratio.
Use of nithromethane accepted as additive is harmful to life motors.
 In the Ussr never been trading of fuel for models engines ( diesel  glow and nitro too). People made own fuel for self .

Be brave - tune compression ratio !
 Use 0% nitro !


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