Jump to content

Taking the Petrol Plunge


Snorbitz
 Share

Recommended Posts

Engine on and plugged in. The yellow hook thing if you're wondering under the silencer is connected to the choke lever so i can operate it from the front with the cowl in place. I cut the exhaust at an angle to be proud of the cowl but still roughly follow the lines.

Edited By Shuglu on 16/08/2010 23:55:51

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Advert



Inside the fuz the fuel tank was secured and the other electrical goodies started to go in. You can see the strange angle the throttle cable passes through the f/wall at but it works just fine. i fitted remote switch control...they look like pitot tubes on the outside. I think they are better seen on a later photo.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And with everything connected up. The opto isolator is cable-tied to the underside of the panel between the fuel tank and the retract valve switch. I wrapped it in foam to be safe. Its a shame you can't see it on here but you can see where abouts it is i hope. The small white tie is the position. You can also see the yellow foam i am using for the battery mount. They slide in from this side and are secured with a closing panel and yet more cable ties.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


The rest of the fuz interior complete with air bottle and reciever all wrapped up in blue foam. The 2 plugs tied up at the top of the pic to the air filler valve are battery monitors but i've run out of y-leads to plug them in at the moment but i'll be closly monitoring the voltages inthe early stages anyway so its not a great problem.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What i will photograph is the cut outs to the cowl for the exhaust and additional air vents i've cut in the bottom of the cowl because to be frank there's little or nowhere for the hot air to escape on this model and we all know where that leads!!. I went for an Irvine 82mm ali backplate spinner to finish and i'm very happy with the result. It was easy to enlarge for the big prop and balanced ok. I know its not perfectly scale but it looks good enough to me. If theres any q's please fire away....i would also like to hear any views on the interior in case i've made any school boy errors. Cheers.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All up she weighs 6.77kg with 400ml of fuel on board so its no feather but i think the engine has loads of grunt so shouldn't be too much of a problem. Landing could be fun though.
For a week now i've been trying to find a window in the weather to maiden her but still no luck. Wednesday is my next chance so fingers crossed. It was just a bit too windy today for my liking.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheers Timbo....it seems to have taken a long time to put together for an ARTF but having never built anything this heavy with retracts/ignition etc etc i've maybe just gone to belt and braces lengths to get things right. I don't even want to talk about the rx system switch failure i had during the final stages of the set up. It brings me out in a cold sweat to think what could have been!!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's some pics of the cut outs in the cowl....as you can see the Zero has a "big mouth" but she only just goes in without too much chopping around. My mind tels me that i need to do some more cooling vents going by the 4 x the size of the entrance hole rule.


There is a gap all the way around the rear of the cowl but its still not enough.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You may also require some baffeling in the cowl. As it is the air coming in the cowl will take the path of least resistance and go the crankcase side of the engine and not through the fins of the cylinder. A plate across the front of the cowl to block off the cranckcase half plus, maybe ,some internal plates directing the incoming air through the cylinder fins. Placing a lip in front of the exit holes causes a partial vacumn after it and helps suck out the hot air from the cowl. Like HERE .
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well i flew the Zero for the first time today. I did a couple of trial taxi's and i noticed that it was already geting light on its toes so after some more preflight checks i just went for it.
It only took about half the strip to get airborn and when it lifted off it pointed itself more or less straight upwards..YIKES!!!.luckily the engine has so much power that it didn't matter so i dropped the nose back down a bit and gained some height before tinkering with the trims. It took all of my available down trim to get a level flight and the dive test confirmed it was a bit tail heavy...very strange as i'd got the C of G bang on to the instructions......so i did a couple of circuits and brought her in for some slow passes to check conditions for landing etc....The tail wanted to drop as the speed bled off so it was a bit hairy coming in the first time!!.
I had trouble filling it up with petrol to start with and when i had the bonnet off to install the lead i found i'd put a cable tie on the filler hose too tight....stupid boy. The rudder push rod needs some mid-length support as i can hear it clanking around when its on the ground but other than that everything seems to have gone ok.
80grams of lead has now been added into the engine bay and its a lot better. Another 20grms should have it sweet i reckon.
As for the engine performance...its absolutely awsome and so far hasn't missed a beat....it does burble a bit on low throttle but the response is instant and the sound is perfect above 1/3 throttle. I'm running 30.1 ratio petrol/oil mix at the moment and its still mineral oil and not sythetic. I haven't touched the factory settings on the carby jusy yet and will see how it goes for a bit before doing that. 
The weather's looking good for the weekend so roll on Sunday!
All in all a massive.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shuglu here's a couple of pictures of the radial cowl and baffling on my H9 Sukhoi with a ZDZ 80 motor the baffling is made from 6mm Depron and therefore very light and just glued to the inside of the cowl with No  Nails glue, runs much cooler with the baffles
 

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...