Unfairly vilified engines.

[extra slim]

Some Enya engines are marvellous I agree, but many are good solid workhorses..15,19,29,35,45 etc The FSR OS range to me are still some of best ever made, and the FX, particularly the 25 is stella... hence me scraping OS just a tad above, but I get where you are coming from.. Not much in it.. The trend is actually that if its Japanese, you cant go that far wrong.. was there a dud Japanese engine ever??

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Big fan of Enya myself, Webra are up there for me as well.

 

Edited By john stones 1 on 14/10/2020 11:44:06

[Matt Carlton]

The best engine I owned was an old Irvine .36 red head. Pre-dated the plastic carb era. Ran brilliantly, seemed nigh on a par with a .40 but a lot lighter.

I had an old MDS .15 with a tuned pipe which was ridiculous.

[gangster]

Mention has been made of the plastic body carbs that Irvine used. I only ever had one of those and in general I was happy with it and recall no problems apart from when I first fitted it. It was on a mongrel engine The very first model Irvine 40 but with MK 2 front housing and bearings and crankshaftand what a fine fast engine it was. I then decided to treat it to a new carb , the old one was battered. Fitted it but could not get the engine to richen up. The more the needle was unscrewed the leaner the motor got even with no needle at all. So I resorted to my standard plumbing test I blew down the fuel pipe. Pretty much solid block. So plan B was I sucked. Something hit the back of my throat. The bit of plastic swarf that was causing the blockage. On the same thought I have know modellers who always took a new engine apart and washed it all before they ran it. Anyone still do that?

[gangster]

Mention has been made of the plastic body carbs that Irvine used. I only ever had one of those and in general I was happy with it and recall no problems apart from when I first fitted it. It was on a mongrel engine The very first model Irvine 40 but with MK 2 front housing and bearings and crankshaftand what a fine fast engine it was. I then decided to treat it to a new carb , the old one was battered. Fitted it but could not get the engine to richen up. The more the needle was unscrewed the leaner the motor got even with no needle at all. So I resorted to my standard plumbing test I blew down the fuel pipe. Pretty much solid block. So plan B was I sucked. Something hit the back of my throat. The bit of plastic swarf that was causing the blockage. On the same thought I have know modellers who always took a new engine apart and washed it all before they ran it. Anyone still do that?

[Alan Gorham_]

Posted by Matt Carlton on 14/10/2020 11:56:40:

The best engine I owned was an old Irvine .36 red head. Pre-dated the plastic carb era. Ran brilliantly, seemed nigh on a par with a .40 but a lot lighter.

I had an old MDS .15 with a tuned pipe which was ridiculous.

99% certain the Irvine 36 was introduced well after Irvine stopped using plastic carbs and not before....

[J D 8]

Plastic/nylon carb Irvine's were the first ones made. I have a 20 that still runs but had to ream the carb body a bit to free up the barrel

[gangster]

JD8 No the first Irvines made had metal carbs. The first engine they made was the 40. I had one of the earliest ones my mate and I went into the LMS and ordered 2. I believe the next motor was as you say the 20 which did have a plastic carb. The 40 was soon superseded by the MK2 with a whole lot more robust front end

[Former Member]

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[Former Member]

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[Matt Carlton]

I found a review of the Irvine 36 which I had. Much more recent than I realised. 1994 in fact. I thought it was older. Still, you live and learn. Interesting performance though.

[Nigel R]

Irvine started with an alu carb then went to a plastic one, late 70s / early 80s I think. Then the plastic was fairly quickly changed for better plastic, but still plastic. Then they hit a real sweet spot with the Jetstream alu carbs (late 80s?) which they stuck with until the brand was run into the ground by OS.

The 36 was a gem.

[Andy Stephenson]

The Irvine 39 was the best of the bunch significantly lighter than the 40, it was bored and stroked from a smaller size until no more could be wrung out of it.

A.

[Martin McIntosh]

Over the years I have owned very many different brands and sizes of engines, mostly good but some bad, the bad ones being bought after I restarted the hobby in 1998.

I bought an excellent JR computer set then went to a show and got a kit for an aerobat, retracts, the lot, including an MDS 48 which had the usual glowing, best thing since whatever reports in the mags. Very noisy little so and so and the carb slot was mis machined to make a letter P causing it to stick at full throttle, easily filed out to shape. Nobody in my new club could get them to idle but I found that with a cooler plug and 10% nitro there was no problem at all.

Next worst out of the box was an Irvine 36 which had zero compression and I gave up trying to start it (with a starter) after an hour. Next time out I got it to run and after a very long running in period it became a reliable if not too powerful motor.

An NGH 38FS would only run at 3/4 stated RPM and the camshaft failed after about 20min running. All of them I have seen are as bad as you can get (again a glowing mag report).

Got a PAW 55 R/C which is the hardest to start diesel I have ever owned and expensive too.

Top of the good list has to be Laser, Mills, Webra 91, Speed 60, OS 91FX, OS 25FX, ST 61 XRE, West 36 and for sheer power OPS Ursus 60 Risonanza. The Webra Speed along with HP 61`s were great most of the time but required a regular bearing change.

Earlier motors like AM were very good but DC ones utter rubbish. Cannot fault the Cox range.

I have an SC40 which is very good indeed but their 32FS is badly made.

[Nigel R]

Moral there must be don't believe the hype.

My Irvine 36 was brilliant, there must have been something fishy with yours. Mine had a ton of compression, started off a backflip easily and was very reliable, after one bench run and a handful of flights to settle in. One of the two best motors I owned from years back (the other being a 61 RF which I stupidly sold, along with the 36, to fund other youthful activities).

The two 39s I have stashed for a rainy year have so much pinch I don't want to even turn them over without getting them up to temperature.

[extra slim]

That is a lovely list of good uns Martin and I concur.. I forgot about HP, only had silver streaks, both were good, I would have liked a gold cup.. Envious of your ST 61 XRE. Cox, yes, AM Yes.. DC No.. we are much aligned.

Do I recall correctly that the irvine 40 MkII had a plastic backplate as well as carb?. I recall the old fella splashing out on one, as one of his first brand new purchases, only to conclude it was a dog, and it was replaced in a hots with a HP40.

[Andy Stephenson]

Some Saitos even had plastic backplates but this didn't matter so much as there is no crankcase pressure on a 4 stroke.

A.

[Matt Carlton]

On my other thread is an Irvine 40 MkII, which certainly has a plastic backplate. That seems to be a rubbish idea, as it looks ready to split where the bolt holes are drilled.

Had a look at HP engines yesterday. Gold cups look good, but work out a bit expensive with import duty as there's no UK distributor apparently. Ditto a few others that Mecoa have available;

Mecoa

[Nigel Dell]

Matt

Keep an eye on eBay as HP’s do come up there fairly regularly, I have a few, mainly Silver Stars as they come up more often, mostly 40’s in my case although I do have one SS 61 I do have one of each of the 20, 40, 120 and 2 off 61 Gold Cups, when rebuilding some of the eBay finds I got the parts from Mecoa who were excellent to deal with, since the lock down however the postal service they are able to use is a tad expensive, normally around the $12-15 last order was around $25 but this was due to covid and the service available but I was ordering quite a few parts for various engines which made it viable for me.

[Brian Hammond]

Please don,t forget Oliver Tiger ,perfection!

[Martin McIntosh]

Thanks ES,

When I gave up flying competitions I got hold of one of those ST`s brand new for next to nothing. I preferred to use a TK fuel pressure system which the MAG carb could not handle so I substituted it for a Dynamix. Ran it for 9 years inverted in a Dalotel and it started first time by hand every time. No maintenance required but I killed it in a crash.

I have since acquired two more, built from spares by Motors and Rotors. Probably the best engines I have ever owned. One is currently in a Curare.

[Tim Flyer]

The worst engines I owned were Veco 19s in the late 70s . Decent compression lasted a very short while . When just run in they were ok but they soon became very weak and I got through a number of them. I think the Vecos had poor cylinder fit. At around the same time Webra started producing their Speed 40 with Schneurle porting . This was an incredible engine for its time and had performance as well as reliability and responded well to a tuned pipe. I remember their 60F and R also being great engines . I still have my Speed 40 which still runs nicely.

[Nigel R]

"Do I recall correctly that the irvine 40 MkII had a plastic backplate as well as carb?"

Yes. It works fine unless you overtighten the screws.

[Tim Flyer]

By the way I thought Rossi plane engines are still available ?

**LINK**

[Former Member]

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