Tom Dixon No Nitro fuel

[RC Storick]

[Peter in Fairfax, VA]

According to this article, there was a chemical plant explosion in China in March, and the plant produced nitromethane.

https://www.jqknews.com/news/164888-Sound_Water_Explosion_A_Lane_blocked_by_a_hard_roadbed_has_been_lifted_at_least_70_metres.html

[George Albo]

Guys,

This is an excellent video with good info. Thanks for doing this!

[Fredvon4]

I tend to disagree with Tom in only one regard in this interview.... Nitro Methane is used a LOT in USA industrial applications

Nitromethane is used to stabilize other chemicals and aerosol propellants.

Glow engine use IMO is probably the least amount of consumption, in fact I could probably say surface car Racing is not even in the top 10 of Nitro Consumers.....BET money DuPont, and BASF use a scary amount....( Yes Virginia...like on Breaking Bad, we learn that a train tanker car holds 6300 gallons of all sorts of bad mojo chemicals.....)

Point is the industrial users get first priority for the scarce commodity.... SIG ...I bet...could get all they want....with a higher bid....just a gut belief.......TORCO never ran out...just jacked the price from $52 delivers to $78 delivered.....jest saying.......wish I knew Riche's brew owner personally....bet he KNOWS the true skinny

[RandySmith]

Hello
A little bit of  alternate ./ accurate information  .
Many 61 size engines Run 13  to 13.5  even 14 inch props with little problems , and many have ran 13 inch 3 blades on PA 61s, The are equivalent of a 15 inch 2 blade , the recommended prop for the  DR 61 is  a  13.25  2 blade, However  some will not !  But not all are limited  to 12  12.5 props
K77 is a close as possible copy of the  pa 75
Kaz and many others  use  nitro in the  K77, 5% is a good place  to start, a 13.5 x 4.5  3 blade is a good starting prop.
Nitro is  a very GOOD  thing for model engines, and  makes the engine  easier to needle, easier to crank, and can give the motor a much  larger envelope to run in.  AS said  many engines are setup to run FAI  fuel, They can be made to run well, but even pilots that use them  will many times  add a small amount of nitro  to help make the engine more friendly , 1 to 2.5 percent is what I have seen
The pipe description is  wrong, for stunt or speed, Most people in RC  or  CL stunt  are  using a pipe and are NOT concerned with sub Port induction, that most engines  do not  have, So NO one now days use a pipe that is tuned  to charge thru the crankcase by tuning it to pump a charge under the piston. Typical speed applications have a wide blow down period between exhaust and intake sleeve port, The reason why, is so the can  charge the engine thru the exhaust port over the top of the piston, This is done by tuning the pipe to get the pressure wave bounce back from the rear reflective surface ,to arrive  just as the intake port shuts, but while the exhaust  is still open, This actually acts like a mini supercharger  and  raises the amount of charge in the cylinder. You can get a huge power increase doing this, You also can run a long pipe and get the pipe to help your cycling in Stunt applications, This is particularly useful in high winds, plus give a small boost uphill and  runs off the pipe downhill, slowing it down.  It also make for a very quiet setup, and helps  keep oil off of the  air frame, this  results in longer life for models

Randy

[RC Storick]

how it works

[RandySmith]

how it works

That is  correct,  as  I stated  it charges  the top combustion chamber, not  the crankcase bottom

Regards
Randy

[Brian Hampton]

A very interesting video for me because I've never used nitro so have a fair bit of experience with that fuel. However I've always been aware that virtually all engines have compressions suitable for use with nitro so can't take full advantage of just methanol so about 8 years ago I decided to try an experiment using an Enya 60X to see what affect raising compression might have. Standard compression was around 9:1 and on a 12x6 prop peak revs were 11700. Without going into all the details of how I did it but as I gradually increased compression the peak revs began to rise until eventually I got no more increase in revs. At that point the compression was 13.5:1 and peak revs were now 12500 which, using the cube law for power, equated to a 22% rise in HP. This was all done with the same hot glow plug but even better results may have been achieved by going to colder plugs to retard the ignition point which would have allowed even higher compression.

About 4 years ago I bought an Enya 61 RE (the original ringed engine) and after using it for some time in my SV-11 I decided to raise its compression too and see what happened. This version (unlike the later red headed ABC) used a head button so it was quite easy to make a new button. The original compression was 8.75:1 and on the test stand peak revs were 8800 but with the new button (at 13:1) peak revs were now 9500 which meant a 26% increase in HP. Another difference was that originally the 4-2 break ranged between 78-7900 but the new button ranged between 75-8200 revs.

[RC Storick]

That is  correct,  as  I stated  it charges  the top combustion chamber, not  the crankcase bottom

Regards
Randy

I knew what I meant, but you know I am not perfect in stating every point  Not that it matters

[Brett Buck]

This actually acts like a mini supercharger  and  raises the amount of charge in the cylinder. You can get a huge power increase doing this, You also can run a long pipe and get the pipe to help your cycling in Stunt applications, This is particularly useful in high winds, plus give a small boost uphill and  runs off the pipe downhill, slowing it down.

   This last bit is the key takeaway for stunt fliers - it's not just a (very reliable, passive) supercharger, it's an frequency/rpm-dependent supercharger. It supercharges at some RPM, but not at others.  At some RPM, is has negative effects, that is, it reduces the power at that RPM. That's how you can use it as a regulator. It's remarkable that many people still don't grasp the subtlety of that effect, and, you don't really need to understand it on that level to make use of it.

      Brett

[RandySmith]

I knew what I meant, but you know I am not perfect in stating every point  Not that it matters

Hi i just wrote what is actually happening  , Many years  ago  speed  flyers  used to have engines  with sub port induction,.. meaning the piston skirt was short and uncovered at the bottom of the exhaust port, many believed they got a boost from the  engine seeming to engulf part of the unburned charge at this area of the exhaust port, it would charge the bottom of the engine crankcase, how effective that was is questionable in most application, but nether the less , pilots  used the sub port pistons  and  liked it .

Regards
Randy

[RC Storick]

Tom's seminar was about fuel not pipes or big mufflers

[RandySmith]

Tom's seminar was about fuel not pipes or big mufflers

Yes I realize that, hence the reason I commented on Props, and  Fuel, Although it's correct that some engines like smaller diameter props, I pointed out many will turn large props with ease, and  Even though  you can run most anything on FAI fuel, Many times, even engines  that are designed for  FAI fuels, are better with some Nitro, Just ask Orestes !,  He add small amounts of nitro in his  Discovery retro engines
And The pipes we run are  not  just large mufflers,  "if"  ran properly, If not  then  yes, they can be  large mufflers.

Regards
Randy

[Lauri Malila]

I knew what I meant, but you know I am not perfect in stating every point  Not that it matters

You don’t want hot, unused gases under piston. Sub piston induction works (and is limited by rules) in some classes where enginesare used WITHOUT a muffler/tuned exhaust.
The idea is to suck fresh air to bottom end between exhaust pulses. L