Why castor oil?

So What are you using now, Ed? I'm a beginner and using Cool Power. In the one engine (Tower .61) which I still have and have used, that's what I've used. I sold a couple of trainers with LA engines that used the same juice. Never had any problems, but I used them for less than a year before I sold them.

Engines on the shelf and soon to get mounted are Evolutions, Enyas, Tower, OS 4 Strokes, OS 2 strokes, Thunder Tiger and Super Tigre. All are in the .40 to .91 range, and as I said most are new in the box except for a few older OS FP .40 models, some of which are slightly used. Since I've been running the Tower .61 on Cool Power, is there any problem with switching to something with castor? Should I, in fact, switch to something else?

Harlan

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Hi, Harlan. I'm glad that you are still here too.

You can buy Cool Power fuel with a dash of castor oil added by the same folks. It is called Omega.

I tend to use fuels that either are Omega, or are very similar, such as Wildcat, Tower (Wildcat again), etc.

When I flew pattern years ago, there were still a few engines being made that did not utilize bushings in the upper end of the connecting rod. These were the engines that had problems with Cool Power if there was an accidental lean run.

As long as the mixture remained in a rich two-cycle, these engines did just fine on Cool Power, but one little problem and the connecting rod's upper end egged out.

Some of the bushing Fox engines and ball bearing K&B engines (.40) did not utilize a bushed wrist pin in their connecting rods. K&B did finally bush the connecting rod's upper end. What a difference.

Buy Morgan's Omega instead of Cool Power and you'll never have to worry about it again. I run Omega in my four-strokes too.

Ed Cregger

And to think I thought all my "accidents" at the flying field were caused by flying too low..

">>> There was a time when I had had it with the tedious clean ups and the

Looks like I'll be taking this case of Cool Power back and exchanging it for Omega. Thanks for the education ........... again.

Harlan

"H Davis" wrote

You can also get castor oil for engines, in pure form. I get that, and add it to synthetic fuel.

Castor oil has well documented advantages, and anything said contrary to that is not to be considered as truthful.

Use castor, and add life to your engines. Protection against lean runs and long term inactivity are two of the best reasons that exist.

I am, and always have en an advocate of using castor oil in my fuel. Many years ago, most of us ran Dukes Fuel, which had the entire oil

100% castor oil. It was good, but one does not neet that percentage of castor. If I am given or acquire a gallon of fuel, such as cool power, (I prefer Omega or other castor blend fuel) I add at least two ounces of castor oil to it and the results are excellent. One can buy pure castor industrial grade from Sig. There is another point for using castor oil in your fuel. If you are running a four stroke engine on pure synthetic, you are going to find the bearings do not last very long. The reason is simple, the ONLY lubrication in the engine below the piston, bearings etc., is from blow by..that is, only combustion products and a small amount of fuel blow past the piston down into the crankcase to the bearings. There is no other lubrication that makes its way down there. This combustion product usually leads to the early demise of the bearings in the four stroke. It ruins the bearings and literally eats them up. But.. using a castor blend fuel assures that there will be some castor oil that makes its way into the lower crankcase, coats the bearings and other moving parts and ensures long life. I have had four strokes that ran for years with no ill effects and no bearing failure using a castor blend fuel. Case closed. Frank Schwartz

Both Fox and K&B enlarged their wrist pin diameters as well. I learned this when I tried to replace the rod and pin in an early K&B .40 and ended up having to buy a piston too. Same thing when I replaced an early large frame "tall back door" Fox .40 rod.

Geoff

It's like using gas to BBQ versus charcoal. There are plenty of reasons to use gas - even heating, instant on, instant off, burn as long as you want. Charcoal takes time to start, might burn out before you are done cooking, might flare up and burn your food, etc. But cooking with gas just lacks something. It's like kissing your sister, there is a pizaaz that is just not there. I'd never cook with gas - its charcoal or nothing.. And if the engine doesn't make noise and spit fire and smoke, spray castor oil all over everything, it just isn't the same.

Now that is a fellow I admire. I, too, love the noise, fire and smoke and oil all over....and electric planes just don't do much for me... nothing there to get excited about. Heck, you turn them on and you turn them off...very antiseptic...no challenge...no excitement.... I've tried electrics...and he is right...no pizazz there at all... but spin the prop, finger or starter..it bangs, fires, smoke comes out and it is off and running...oh, joy! It's alive!! Fun, fun, fun..... Frank Schwartz

>

Hard to get all excited about an electric. I have some, I build some, I fly some, but I love my noisy liquid fueled birds. Like you said "It's alive!" Fire, smoke, and screaming people notwithstanding.

Here's an interesting excerpt on the subject...

Personally I switched away from Castor when I started running primarily 4 strokes a couple seasons ago. Just don't need all that gummy crap inside my valve train. Now I run full synthetic only (even in my 2 strokes) but I'm just a sport flyer and I have a pretty good handle on how to tune my engines so I just don't run my engines lean. I have had it happen once or twice on a couple of the 4 strokes whilst still getting them tuned properly but I quickly corrected the issue and never let it get to the point of any sort of damage. Of course I'm dealing with OS and Saito, which I've found to be hard to hurt if you take just a bit of care with them. I've seen some lesser engines destroyed by very minor "mistakes" that I used to make frequently when I had little experience with these engines. So maybe that's why I haven't had a problem.

Also, I note that every gas engine I've seen run at our field (and a couple of these guys are high placed regional competitors) runs on pure synthetic and gas engines get hotter than our Glow engines right???

Jack