control line flying with diesel conversions

I made several attempts at using diesel conversions on a Cox babe Bee. Early attempts failed me due to crank pin and shaft breaking. Over the past few weeks, I took out my diesel heads to give it a go. First up was the Davis Diesel heads with the Teflon discs. I had a heck of a time with these. However, I've made terrific runs and flights with them. Lose the head gasket in your engine. This is what I believe was proving to be most problematic for me. Just use the disc. My plan is to use the engine in a free flight plane but I was really familiarizing myself with it's characteristics today. I have to say I'm glad I didn't give up on this. I melted two discs which wasn't quite the same as blowing them out due to over compression.

In order to get the plane maneuverable, I had to lean the engine up but also backing off the compression as much as I could to maintain smooth higher rpm's. While my flights were not as fast as glow, I was using a Master Airscrew 6x3.5 prop, this was giving good drive but not a lot of speed. However, it looked terrific going through at a nice steady pace especially the wingovers. It really left me with a sense of accomplishment as I've tried this before and my success wasn't like today.

I also tried the RJL Mecoa head, this particular head wasn't as gratifying as the Davis head. The RJL seems to offer easier starting but maintaining steady rpm's wasn't as easy. The RJL head also didn't offer the performance I was getting with the Davis setup. I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of those Teflon discs but they do work. I have some shim stock to try and substitute it for the Teflon. All in all, I was proud to say I got some very successful flights. Ken