SAITO FG-11 petrol anyone using, advice appreciated.

[martin collins 1]

Just bought a used FG-11 and have fitted it into a Flair Puppeteer bipe, i an new to 4 stroke petrol engines and Saito`s so have a couple of questions. The plug is difficult to get to without removing the engine, can i check the valve clearances without removing the plug to check for TDC on compression stroke? The valve clearance in the instructions says 0 for both when cold, is that a visual thing or do others have some way of checking that and not opened the valves slightly. Will be running it on 15:1 on a 13x7 APC prop and Castrol Power 1 2T oil which is part synthetic, would this oil be ok to use, i have been advised to use a good quality oil. Many thanks for any help or recommendations from those who are using them.

[Jon H]

i would say that 0 valve clearance will be impossible to achieve in practice as it will vary a bit with ambient temperature and you may end up with no compression at all on a cold day. I cant see why the standard 2-4 thou is unsatisfactory and my glow saito's never complain when i set them like that. If you do not have a feeler gauge to hand then a quick and dirty cheat is to run the adjustor down until it touches the valve, then back it off 1/8 turn and nip it up. Check you have some play, even if it is miniscule. 

 

Once set you need to check them annually at the most. 

 

As for the prop, i would favour a lower pitch in a pup. 5 or 6 inch for slow flight. if you can find a 15x5 that might work nicely. 

[Frank Skilbeck]

You shouldn't need to.remove the plug, just make sure it's well on the compression stroke. You could always use the ignition sensor and magnet as this will be a few degrees before TDC.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

"Close to 'o'' is what the instructions say, a bit of play is essential for the valves to shut properly.

As for oil, a minimum of 5% motul 710 2 stroke is what I use, quality full synthetic for me.

[Engine Doctor]

And please dont use any form of Castor oil. Its bad enough in glow fuel but with the higher running temp of petrol it will coke up almost diamond hard.

We used to add castor to our fuel back in the Rocker biking days for that super smell. Different story when it came to de- coke time 🤬. 

[Jesus Cardin]

A pair of suggestions regarding all the SAITO gas engines:

 

1.- For a clean running, without hesitations, you need -contrary to glow engines- to close the high needle as much as you can. If you open even just a few "clicks", be sure the engine will run rich. So very important to keep with the 5% high quality oil in your fuel mixture. At much, just open one single "click" when you get max revolution, but NOT two!.

 

2.- SAITO says small spark plug must be considered as dependable, and actually they are but I recommend after a day flights to take the plug out and clean it with clean gas or some contacts cleaner spray. Due to the relatively high oil content and the very small plug size, it easily and quickly becomes oiled and the engine will miss explosions when it becomes dirt. I have original SAITO spark plugs with a lot of years and flight still going strong as far as I keep them clean.