Seeking help Enya 61 CX / CXL

[Ralph Fichtl]

Hi everyone,
I purchased a new Enya 61 CXL S pro.  Upon receiving it I noticed some scratches at the top of the piston.  I added some oil and gently turned it over and noticed no pinch at the top dead center.  UGH!  I decided to try to run the engine to see how bad it is.  I needed an electric starter to start it.  After removing the glow plug the engine would only run for about five seconds.  I also noticed while the engine was hot it turned freely with no compression.

So that leads me to this post.  I tried a wanted ad in classifieds with no luck.

I'm seeking help in finding any type of piston/cylinder set ABC, ABN or ringed.  Please PM with details.

Appreciate your help.

[Miotch]

While I've never seen one, I'm a sucker for rear exhaust C/L engines, so I had to look it up.  It appears to be a ringed engine with a brass liner that’s nickel plated with a silicon carbide composite, like Nikasil.

Have you tried taking it apart and cleaning the ring and channel ??

[Dan McEntee]

 Do you have the specifications for the engine? You can take the engine apart, and check the clearance between the piston and the cylinder bore by itself, and also check the ring gap by putting the ring in the cylinder, and push it up near the top of the cylinder to check the gap. Check the cylinder to see if it's round or not. These dimensions will tell you the actual condition of the engine. Was the engine supposed to be new or used? It could be that the ring is just not seated yet or as Dave has pointed out the ring could be stuck in the groove.
  Type at you later,
   Dan McEntee

[Brian Hampton]

Ralph has the red head CXLS which is an ABC set up while the earlier version is the CXLRS which is ringed with the Nikasil liner. Also the red head has a one piece cylinder head while the ringed version uses a head button with plain machined finish.

I have both versions, both of them bought directly from Enya. The ringed engine is an absolute delight with huge (muffled) power and zero nitro fuel. It was so good that I just had to get the red head when it was introduced. Big mistake. On its first run on the test stand it started easily and ran nicely but had absolutely no compression until it completely cooled down. It did the same thing on several runs after that which had me baffled so I stripped it down and sent the piston and liner back to Enya with a description of the problem. Ken sent back a replacement piston/liner (no charge) so I fitted it to the engine and back on the test stand. Once again no compression at the end of the first runs so I gave up and put it back into its box where it remains. I've considered buying a complete ringed piston/liner but chances are they've run out of spares by now.

[Martin Quartim]

The 2 Enya 61CXL ABC Red Head I have has great compression. I have been using one and it has been working perfectly for the last 2 years, the only problem is that the head has lost its red coloring.

Back then I bought 3 ABC PL thinking to replace the other engines I have with Ring.  Now reading this post I decided to open the packages to check them out. One of them has a problem, the piston gets stuck at the bottom of the liner and will not go through. The other 2 seem ok.

Seems these PL does not have the typical Enya quality control.

Maybe Brain Gardner, or perhaps Dub Jett,  can make a batch of P/L for this engine if there is enough demand.


Martin

[Steve Thomas]

This doesn’t relate directly to the OP’s problem, but might be of interest. My red head CXLS came with an excessive compression ratio, IMHO. With only 5% nitro it was pinging under load, and stinking hot after flying (as well as pretty vicious to start). Adding a couple of head gaskets transformed it, and it’s behaved perfectly ever since.

[Martin Quartim]

This doesn’t relate directly to the OP’s problem but might be of interest. My red head CXLS came with an excessive compression ratio, IMHO. With only 5% nitro it was pinging under load, and stinking hot after flying (as well as pretty vicious to start). Adding a couple of head gaskets transformed it, and it’s behaved perfectly ever since.

Mine would not even run with 10% Nitro. My solution was to use 0% Nitro, which is a good thing for me as fuel got very expensive down here. The P/L fit of my engine is pretty tight so I use only synthetic oil. My other 61CX ABN side exhaust is not so tight and 1/2 Synth/Castor works best.

Martin

[Brian Hampton]

This doesn’t relate directly to the OP’s problem, but might be of interest. My red head CXLS came with an excessive compression ratio, IMHO. With only 5% nitro it was pinging under load, and stinking hot after flying (as well as pretty vicious to start). Adding a couple of head gaskets transformed it, and it’s behaved perfectly ever since.

That's kind of interesting to me because I checked both of mine after I bought them and the ringed engine had a compression ratio of 8.77:1 while the red head was 9.3 :1 so essentially the same but both are way below the compression that can be used for zero nitro fuel (which is all I ever use). The thing that really impressed me with the ringed engine was that from the first ever flight (SV-11) it was 4 stroking from release but switched instantly to 2 stroke as soon as the nose went up then instantly back to a 4 stroke. It continued with this 4-2-4 run even in sharp square turns, something I'd never experienced before, and did this reliably for many hours of flying afterwards.

OK, returning back to compressions again with the button head. This made it easy for me to make a much higher compression head to suit the zero nitro. I was aiming for 13.5:1 but on my last pass in the lathe I took off slightly more than I wanted and ended up with 12.4:1 so I figured near enough for now. In flight the extra power was quite noticeable, especially with the still instant switch to 2 stroking, so I was quite pleased with that. However, before flying I'd run the engine on the test stand doing back to back runs first with the standard button then immediately swapped to the modified button recording peak revs both times using the same plug, fuel and prop. Peak revs went from 8800 to 9500 which meant a 26% increase in HP but, probably more importantly, with the standard head the 4-2 break was only evident between 7800-7900 before a clean 2 stroke whereas the modded head went between 7500-8200.

The CXLRS (stunt) version comes with a low compression head button while the RC version (CXLR) has a higher compression button. The difference can be seen in that the low compression button has a small indentation like a punch mark around where the glow plug seats.

[Ralph Fichtl]

With little luck with the Enya 61 CXL S pro red head (ABC) engine, I've turned to a Enya 61 CX (non ring).

I'm using an APC 12.25x3.75 prop.  Using the stock Enya muffler engine was turning 9600rpm.  With an ES composite C/L pipe it turned 9900rpm.  Both runs the engine sounded like it was detonating.  I swapped heads to low compression and to me it sounded better, turning 9200rpm.  I did not try to shorten the pipe at 19.5 linear length.  Fuel is 10% nitro 20% oil.

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