Worse than the drunks urge to drink

[Peter Nevai]

I don't know about anyone else but I have this insatiable compulsion.
A nice new (for me anyway) engine sitting there staring me in the face.
Wanting to be touched, handled, examined.
And if that's not enough somewhere perhaps by some ancient evolutionary racial memory comes the urge to flip.
First you just tweak the motor by the thrust washer until the piston closes the exhaust port and you get the first feel of back pressure.
It starts out innocently enough, just tiny little tweaks rocking the crankshaft back and forth, just a smidgen of a try out.
Soon a voice in the back of your mind starts seducing you. Mount a prop on it. Engines are not complete with out a prop. They look soooo much better sitting there with a propeller attached. They were meant to be that way, with a prop, all business, ready to go.

So you install the prop and that seems to satisfy the little voice...... for the moment.
Soon the engine whispers, pick me up, touch me, feel me, play with me.
And you promise to yourself "Just one flip" only one, just to get a feel for the motor. And I have to check for potential manufacturing defects right?

Next thing you realize is that somehow that engine has no compression to speak of, is all loose and wiggly. You somehow had a complete blackout not remembering that for the past two weeks you were absent mindedly flipping the engine through, while watching TV, Reading computer blogs, Enjoying your morning paper and cup of coffee.

Been There Done that ....and more than once. And I am starting to hear that little voice starting up again.

[Wynn Robins]

you lube it before you play with it right?  HA

[FLOYD CARTER]

Sounds like someone examining a new Fox 35.

F.C.

[Dennis Adamisin]

HA! My Dad used to talk about how he would give my brothers & I new engines to flip over the winter - to break them in for the spring!  I readily acknowledge that my electrics do not give that same flippity-flip satisfaction..!

[scott matthews]

My second OS 25 just came today, and she is tempting me really bad to mount a prop on her and feel the compression. Maybe the next trip down stairs and I will sneak her down with me to check it out. I need help too.

[Garf]

Why do you think I never bring engines into the house. They stay safely in the garage.

[John Stiles]

Heck, that's how I break in all my engines! Now...who was that guy that makes rings Frank something wad'n it???

[Dave Hull]

Peter,
I feel your pain. There is only one sure cure. You have to give up your fixation with glow engines--sell them all!--and only buy diesels. These will talk back to you, and make you respect them. You won't idly twiddle their propellers any more. You will flip with a purpose--a need for combustion--or you won't flip at all....

If you have come to that point in your life that you want to get well, then you are ready to make serious lifestyle changes. You have the strength to master even a "glow" compulsion, and be a better person.

McDivot

[wwwarbird]

 Being vastly outnumbered by them, my engines have historically ganged up and forced their desires upon me.

 As a result of this, I believe that there are no unflipped engines in my current inventory.

 It's not my fault, really.

[PJ Rowland]

Get a room.....
 

[Bob Reeves]

Guess someone has to say it.. If it's an ABC engine resist the urge, I've heard turning it over cold even if oiled can damage the piston fit...

[Peter Nevai]

After exhaustive research, which in my case amounted to reading the replies in this thread. I have concluded to follow the recommendations of 9 out of 10 doctors.
The only known cure is to install the engine into a actual model airplane. This completely relieves the prop flipping syndrome. This is partly due to the reduced portability factor as you can't easily sit and watch TV with your 600 sq inch stunter in your lap. And partly due to the fact that the airplane has now taken ownership of the engine and demands that you only touch the prop when you want to fly.

Hog wash you say!

At this stage the prop flipping syndrome is tempered by a whole different set of even more powerful set of emotions that even drunks understand.

FEAR.
FRUSTRATION.

At the flying field where the true prop flipping should take place, Where it will actually unleash the true nature or the engine and put it to use.

Either you are terrified that the dang thing will chop your hand off. (So you wanna flip? I'll give you some FLIP Buddy!)

Or after flipping the damn thing for 12.374 hours straight and the #$@*^%$@#&^%%$#@ thing wont start! Pissing you off till you are a hairs width from tossing it into the next county.

(Wassa matter I thought you liked flipping)

At which you flip the model, the engine the whole dang package something else......................The bird.

Below is the devil that is attempting seduction.

[John Miller]

Peter, your course is clear. Get that new plane finished up, and mount that beast. It's the only way the obsession will pass.

[john e. holliday]

Yes diesel engines will cure the flipitus syndrome.   I would be working on planes getting ready for the coming weekend and friends would come over.  They would see an engine laying on the bench and pick it up and start flipping.  Being as they were diesels I started lubricating with the old WD-40.  Doesn't take much for the engine to burp after a few flips.  Wouldn't work for the glows, so I started leaving the glow plug out of them.

[Larry Cunningham]

HA! My Dad used to talk about how he would give my brothers & I new engines to flip over the winter - to break them in for the spring!  I readily acknowledge that my electrics do not give that same flippity-flip satisfaction..!

I believe that we could fairly easily simulate the flippity-flip experience on electric motors. Even a Fox .35 mode that decides it will be hard to start or rich out in outsides.. ;-> Or a Cox .049 mode that insists on running backwards half the time. Or a diesel mode, that does a lot of popping before it surges and starts. Or an OS .40FP mode that leans out after the outside loops and runs away for another 10 minutes.

Whatever you want. A SMOP (Small Matter Of Programming).. All at the flip of a switch!

L.

"I looked up my family tree and found out I was the sap." -Rodney Dangerfield