Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Glow/Nitro and gas engines, propellers, fuel and other stuff associated with making lots of noise and thrust.

Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby spitfire2010 » Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:04 am

Hello to all,

I recently purchased a plane from Hobby King even though the shipping was far to expensive. (I will be reviewing and passing that info to RCMODELREVIEWS)
The plane is meant for electric however i beleive that it should be able to comfortable handle an 4 stroke ASP 61. I have coated the timber frame in a very light coat of fiberglass epoxy and will strengthen the firewall to my liking. i like to over engineer everything however im not sure what to do with the following and give the many years of experience that bruce has i though i would ask here.

I have brought a 330ml fuel tank
1) Should this be mounted horozontaly or vertical, cross ways or long ways.
2) What is you prefered method of setting up the fuel pickup and should it be able to acess fuel in both asscent and decent.
3) Anything else you want to add here i'm all ears.

ASP 61 4 stroke.

1)There are 3 nozels on this engine however i can't think what the one under the crank case does. There are also 2 other nozels, one on the carb and muffler.
2) Anthing you would like to add about these motors id love to hear .

Any advice or pitt (haha) falls you can think of. i'm all ears.

Ian
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby RCModelReviews » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:05 am

spitfire2010 wrote:I have brought a 330ml fuel tank
1) Should this be mounted horozontaly or vertical, cross ways or long ways.

It should be mounted running from front to back of the fuselage -- with the bung-end to the front.

2) What is you prefered method of setting up the fuel pickup and should it be able to acess fuel in both asscent and decent.

I'm not sure what you mean there but the fuel tank will have a flexible tube in it and a clunk (weighted pickup). The clunk ensures that the fuel pickup is always in the fuel, regardless of the model's orientation. ie: when flying right-way-up, the clunk will sit in the bottom of the tank (as will the fuel) but when flying inverted gravity will pull the fuel and the clunk to what was the top of the tank.

If you're still not sure, have a look on the Net, you'll find plenty of illustrations. But *only* use two tubes into the tank, not three. One will be for the clunk line and go to the motor's carby, the other will be the vent/pressure line and go to the engine's muffler.

1)There are 3 nozels on this engine however i can't think what the one under the crank case does. There are also 2 other nozels, one on the carb and muffler.

The nipple on the crankcase is just a breather -- it's there to allow excess oil to be blown out of the crankcase. You can either just leave it bare or run a tube down so that the excess oil will drip clear of the model.

The nipple on the carburetor is for the fuel -- that goes to the clunk line on the tank

The nipple on the muffler is to pressurize the fuel system and goes to the vent line on the tank.

2) Anthing you would like to add about these motors id love to hear .

Ah... there is so much I could say about motors :-)

Follow the manufacturer's instructions regarding break-in and you should be right. Use a fuel with 10% nitro and at least a little castor oil. Run the engine rich for the first few tanks on the ground.

I plan to do some "how to use a glowplug engine" series of articles and videos as soon as the weather improves around here.
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby spitfire2010 » Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:21 am

Thank you you have answered my questions.

But wait there's more:)

I used corona dsss with the turnigy controler. Works well and I've never had an issu..... I won't finish the sentence, murphy can read. Does dsss have any fail safe that you know of and how does one rig a kill switch. How does the kill switch.

Would be good to find a club where I can fly one day so I could get advice from members.

Btw I'm very unimpressed with the pitts instructions and construction is mediocre at best. The best plane from EP is the extra 260
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby RCModelReviews » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:29 pm

There is no persistent failsafe on the Corona receivers I tested -- but I see (in another thread here) they have changed the design slightly. Perhaps the new ones have a decent failsafe -- I don't know.

As for a "kill switch", all good glow engines will stop if you fully close the carburetor barrel. Most transmitters have a "kill switch" capability so you simply program one of the switches to move the throttle barrel to the fully-closed position.

Unfortunately, some of the cheaper Chinese-made 2-strokes tend to leak so much air that they won't stop when you close the throttle barrel but I've seen that problem with any of the 4-strokes.
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby spitfire2010 » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:08 pm

I read something recently where you suggest a F-Type glow plug for the four stroke engines.

Why? Whats the diff between normal and an F type?
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby RCModelReviews » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:52 pm

The OS-F plug is specially designed for 4-stroke engines.

it is longer and has a hotter filament. This is needed because the 4-stroke only fires once every two revolutions so a regular plug will tend to cool down too much between combustion strokes.

Most 4-strokes will run with a regular plug but they won't idle nearly as well and they become far more sensitive on the needle valves. You *must* use a proper 4-stroke plug if you want your 4-stroke engine to run reliably.
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby spitfire2010 » Sun Sep 26, 2010 11:37 pm

Itas taken quite a few weeks to get the pitts to a point where it was air worthy. Very flimsy and in need of a stack of reinforcement. It still needs quite a bit of work but for now is quite flyable.

The C.G was set at the leading edge of the lower wing as discussed in a forum elsewhere. Engine was tuned on the ground and them richened up a little to allow for it becoming a little leaner in the air.

It rolled down the runway at a great pace and then went virtical and into a loop and at this point i was a little worried that the plane wasnt coming home with me and I immediatly called for the co-pilot to assit with the essential jabbing at controlls and then it dawned on me to pull back in the throttle a little. The engine is going to reqire a bit of down thrust so i've dialed in 2deg to start with and we'll see how it goes.

Then i began to fly, out of trim yes, but it was managable. Started trimming out the alerons followed by elevator and things were looking ok. no electric plane can compete with the sound and smell of the little nitro engine. After flying around for a while i touched down with a fairly good landing.

What a day. At last, this is what Model RC is all about.
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby RCModelReviews » Sun Sep 26, 2010 11:43 pm

Congratulations!
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby spitfire2010 » Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:11 pm

Bruce, you'd probably be the best person to run this by.

Pitts is trimmed out for level flight. Just doing lots of circuits which is my trademark for about 20 flights of a new plane. every flight i'll do one thing extra live a roll or loop and see if anything weird happens or somwething gets damaged etc....you ge the drift.

when i throttle up the nose lifts up and we start going up. i have put in about 5 deg of down thrust but ideally i dont want any more.

what else would you suggest and what am i missing. i can obviously mix in elevator with throttle but i'de rather figure of what the issue is.

ian
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Re: Ep-Pitts 42" Gas Conversion

Postby RCModelReviews » Mon Oct 11, 2010 10:45 pm

I answered this in the other thread - but if you don't want to add more downthrust then you'll have to consider re-rigging the incidence of the tailplane and moving the CG slightly backwards. This will make it more touchy on elevators but it will reduce the tendency to pitch-up somewhat.

Personally -- I just get used to holding a little forward pressure on the elevator when flying a bird that behaves like this.
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