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Thursday, November 12, 2015

RCGF 10cc Disappointing... Hope fades


UPDATE: Its running fine!  Read the UPDATE.

Well, the experiment using an RCGF 10cc engine has ended, and its a fail*... Many others have had a lot of luck with this engine, but its been a bust since I got it. I am so disappointed, I really like the look of this motor, and the service RCGF-USA has offered. There is still hope, but its fading.

*UPDATE (11/13/15): The engine may be giving me grief, but the service from Joe Nelson at RCGF-USA is exceptional! I woke up this morning thinking that the only thing I haven't done is bypassed the pump using a simple siphon feed. In my conversation with him he test runs them on a bench tht uses a gravity feed without the pump. It ran. this fits with my work identifying the pump as the likely culprit. He's looking at my pump pics too, but in the meantime he's sending me a new pump. I will test the motor without the pump and I wholly expect it will run. I will replace the pump when it gets here. He's made it clear if I want at anytime to send it back he will replace it with a new one.  We can't expect perfect parts, but with perfect customer service anything is possible!

I opted for it as it has a ringed cylinder, it uses the 30:1 mix, and has a standard muffler. It was priced similar to the Evolution10cc, which prefers 40:1, has a glow type muffler, and has a non-ringed cylinder that requires a tender break in period. The RCGF was just easier.









I got it about a month ago to go in my Sukhoi SU-26. I couldn't get it to start... I went through everything I could think of. I finally pulled the spark plug to check spark and the plug came out with its threads and wouldn't go back in (but it did spark). RCGF-USA took it back (I think it cost me $20 to send it by ground).  They had it a week, I wrote and found out that despite my email exchange, they had no idea why it was there and were waiting to hear form someone (hello, name and address on the box). Joe at RCGF-USA changed the cylinder head, got it running, and sent it back. I got it today, totally psyched to have it running. Installed, and... nada. Once again went through everything and just couldn't get it started. I isolated all the systems, electrical and fuel, and the only thing I found was a dry fuel pump. I put some fuel directly in the carb through the wide open throttle, and it turned over for a couple of seconds but there was no fuel to keep it running.  That was the only time that worked. I took apart the pump and it was bone dry. The Quickfire is wet, there is fuel to the pump, and I primed the line from the pump to the engine. I took apart the pump, and I tried changing the metal plate and the butterfly valve gasket order to see if it was put together wrong, and that didn't work. I put it back the way it was when I opened it. I couldn't find an exploded drawing of it to see the right arrangement, but the outer gaskets are clearly against the outer plates, so there really is not much variation left. It 's got a metal plate the Walboro's don't have with the butterfly gasket on one side, and gaskets sandwiching that between the outer plates that hold the metering line and the fuel in and out lines.



RCGF 10cc Fuel Pump Disassembled.

Then reassembled:









I have a couple of emails and a call message in at RCGF-USA. If they can't help me get this running and soon, I will need to return it. I don't see a point to trying an exchange for a different one, I mean this is a simple engine, and it ran when they had it, so what's left?

I really had hope to maiden her this weekend.

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