K&B .35 Stallion Acquisition

Robert, you are correct, I'd correct it. The 3/8" thick hardwood nose to 3/8" balsa fuselage butt joint only is a weak one. Plans have no joiner to keep together. Wouldn't take much to separate that. Plus, the Stallion is a heavy engine to begin with. That in mind, a new standard fuselage would be nose lighter and meet CG without tail weight especially with a heavier engine. Also, the wing joint is a weird one. My goal is not combat, where one might want a half dozen of these as backups. There, they were probably disposable, so weird construction didn't matter.

Sounds good George, Sometimes better to re-engineer things for better end result

rdw777 wrote:Sounds good George, Sometimes better to re-engineer things for better end result

Sort of, Robert. I find that a good solid Figure-9 is an equalizer in all things, same result no matter how refined the construction.

Got another Testor's .35 Red Head inbound, just shipped today, sort of a Christmas present to me. Even though it has weaker metallurgy than the others (used soft iron instead of Meehanite for the piston), it doesn't vibrate as much as a Fox.

Just need to locate my Utra Gray RTV sealant to make a gasket for the backplate. The sewing machine oil has now loosened up the crankshaft, flips freely. This engine has gobs of compression, hardly run. Essentially, I have a brand new engine.

Using the edge of a flat blade screw driver, I trimmed off the flashings from backplate surface edges. For some reason it had more than I have seen on other engines. Compared with the other Stallions I have, this one has a darker gray bead blast appearance, like that of the Testors Series 21 Black Heads. Yet where I scraped the flashings off and where there is slight wear from the nylon crankpin rivet, it is bright aluminum. Perhaps it was from the way it was chemically cleaned by the factory?

I am glad I purchased this engine for a very reasonable price even with shipping.

Now that the engine has had some time to allow the light machine oil to soften the congealed Castor in the crank plain bearing area, after flipping a couple dozen times accumulated over time, the engine now has a very strong compression pop and the crank in the plain bearing area has loosened up. It now freely turns over like a well oiled new engine.

I have several Tatone .45-.65 Peace Pipe mufflers, both long and short. Here, I have a short one. Although the mount area is wider, it actually appears right sized for the Stallion, generous expansion area. (In other thread, I mounted their .19-.40 Peace Pipe to an Enya .19-VI TV. It is a little smallish chamber wise to fit the .35.)

This larger muffler will provide decent muffling while helping the engine not to overheat while muffled. The annular exit appears to be 3/8" diameter, but it has an orifice ring inside with 1/4" diameter, which can be drilled out to 3/8". The 1/4" is probably OK for the Stallion.



Once I find a suitable width adjustable stainless steel hose clamp, will cut it into 2 pieces, drill, bend, mount, and cinch reasonably tight (not too tight to prevent distorting the aluminum crankcase), to mount the muffler.

Size comparison of the Tatone muffler with Sportster .20 and .45 mufflers. These Schneurle port engines have approximately the power of the older cross scavenge plain bearing cross scavenge sport engines of .35 and .60 size respectively. As one can see, the Tatone muffler, roughly same size as with the .20 Sportster is best suited for the .35 Stallion as the upper end. I would not use this muffler to silence an older .60, good way to overheat and ruin it. (Which, I gather a good number of folk did, giving the mufflers a poor rap.)


Here's another comparison of the Tatone .45-.65 Peace Pipe with the muffler of an Enya .35-III TV. The chamber volumes are proportionately similar in size.


The .29-.40 Peace Pipe would be a poor choice for a .35, here I have it mounted on an Enya .19-VI TV, with the smaller .09-.19 Peace Pipe next to it. The smaller muffler is a better match for a .09-.10 cross scavenge engine.

My dad had a Peace Pipe on his Stallion. Yes, it muffled it but it wasn't exactly thrilled to have it on there. This was on a large plane and he was using a three bladed prop as well. The big problem if I remember correctly was that the strap was somewhat interrupted by the venturi stack just enough to prevent it from sitting square. It was very close and with a little readjusting it would work.

Ken, was your Dad using the smaller .19-.40 Peace Pipe, or the larger .45-.65 one? So far, my only flying experience has been with the .09-.19 on an Enya .09-III TV. The Engine flew well with it on a 40" old foamie, a Hobby Shack Cessna 140 that was originally for a tanked .049 reedie. It ran well with the muffler. Chamber wise, it was about the same size as the OEM muffler.

(The Enya turned the plane into a really nice 3 channel sport plane. It moved out with authority on a wood T/F 7x6 prop. On an APC 7x3 plastic, it flew very .049 reedie like. I got the impression that some who didn't understand the torque characteristics of the Enya, that it developed its peak power at lower RPM probably were not happy with it when they tried to prop it like a Schneurle or an HB. I need to put that plane back into service, it was a blast to fly on Enya power.)

I plan to use some RTV sealant on the muffler, its seams and interface to the engine. This will act as sort of an adhesive plus seal against baked on Castor on the exterior.

Between various tasks on the house, decided to clean up the exterior of this used but unmodified (no cutting or filing ) muffler.


Adding lipstick to a pig? I dunno, I love pigs.

There is some madness to my wanting to test out the Stallion on the Tatone .45-.65 Peace Pipe muffler. I have also an R/C version that I acquired, 3rd one in the photo, where the Peace Pipe would provide some back pressure for idle, but cut the bark in flight. I still need to clean it up, carburetor is frozen in congealed Castor oil. I have a 66" 1941 Vanguard 66 F/F repro kit by Al Lidgard F/F Services out of Fresno. The .35 Stallion R/C would be a good engine for it, because of its heavier weight with muffler, mild horsepower (around 0.42 BHP) and it's ability to swing larger props than what someone on RC Groups recommended, only a .15 engine. (If it had a narrower cross section like a PAA F/F, then, perhaps it would be worth trying the smaller engine.)

https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=4963



Living at higher elevation, I lose some power due to the thinner air, so going up on engine size makes up for power loss at elevation. Plus, I believe in using props to scale down power if necessary. The Stallion should be able to turn a 11x3 prop with ease. The Vanguard, although competitive for its time, wasn't the most aerodynamically sleek aircraft. A 10 or 11 inch prop puts more air past the fuselage cross section than an 8" propeller would.

1) Stallion I've been working on; 2) Stallion I restored; 3) Stallion R/C to be worked on.

Over the past week, I have been randomly flipping the prop on the first Stallion in the photo. It has loosened up quite a bit, has like new compression. My flipping it here and there is like having a spinner.

For us engine buffs, hand holding a model engine and flipping its prop is basically our spinner pacifier.

Just finished installing the missing ratchet spring for the needle valve salvaged from a Testor McCoy .35 Red Head parts engine. This completes my 2nd K&B .35 Stallion engine, with like new compression, should make a good C/L engine.


The world of CL is full of compromises. Appreciate all the inputs from Ken and others who were experienced users with these engine.

This engine may have been an unloved child (thinking of Diana Ross and The Supremes' song Love Child, 1968 )



in some modelers' eyes because in the "circle" was unable to do the cherished (reminds me of Cherish by The Association, 1966)



4 -2 - 4 break, a legendary preference amongst the stunt crowd,  along with its wider beam width making it tougher to be a replacement engine for existing aircraft. But, interestingly enough, there were those who were able to make do with its so called misgivings, and put the engine to useful work, with longevity that the Testors Red Heads only hoped for.

Yet, I was able to get my venerable Enya .15-III TV to do a 2 - 2 - 2, a lean 2 to wet 2 to lean 2 break, which surprised me. I heard this engine is no different. So,

now I have another future task.

ticomareado wrote:"Thanks, ticomareado for the engine's historical business side info."

You're welcome. Now you do the math on a $3.98 Baby Bee run through the same distribution channel.

@ticomareado, hope you are doing OK after all the Covid craziness past couple years.

A little story, I remember the U.S. military hobby sales stores run by the recreational services entities on the military bases in the mid 1960's to mid 1970's until they discontinued model airplane activity sales.

Then, because active military were lower salaried, (my E-1 Private monthly gross was like $88.00 per month back in Fall1972), sales was basically wholesale plus a small surcharge I believe to cover administrative expenses.

A Cox .020 Pee Wee retailing for $3.95 sold for like $2.25. A Scientific kit retailing for $1.25 sold for $0.75, ditto for all the other supplies.

So, I can believe the sales formula you were discussing.

OTOH, the Cornet variety store across the street from where we lived in Biloxi, MS in the mid 1960's sold all Comet rubber powered kits at retail.

I bought a good number of them, because their cheaper kits were less than a dollar.

Recently, I put my Enya .35-III TV next to my K&B .35 Stallion. Just eyeballing, looks like one could be swapped out for the other. Ken had commented on a potential problem with the Stallion, is that it was difficult to swap to other .35's after a build like the Fox (and McCoy Red Heads) because of the engine's wider crankcase width.

I wonder if perhaps this may also have been a K&B motive for a wider crankcase, besides supporting a beefier, more robust crankshaft.

George, your correct and it will swap with minimal work. I've done this on some profiles and I used the Mccoy Red head in .29-.35 variant, I did in fact use the K&B Stallion and the Enya .29 5224 which is the same as the .35 case. Keep in mind the K&B and Mccoy were competing for the same thing. They were introduced as low budget entry level engines. In my opinion the K&B quality wise is better. It doesn't surprise me that they're almost identical in width. I also believe it was the luck of the draw that the Enya just happens to fit. The Enya .35 even dating back to the early .50's used the same bolt pattern. Duke Fox's intention was to put O&R out of business and he did just that. The Fox .35 is the same bolt pattern as the O&R because that was how he captured the modelers attention. Swap out your archaic turd of a engine for the new Fox .35 and enjoy. He also wanted to keep things somewhat in house so to speak. The .19, .25, .35, some .40's of the early period Fox's all use the same bolt pattern.