Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines
The Regular Stuff: Chat, Buy, Sell, Off Topic, etc. => General Discussion - Scale Model Gas Engines - Hit & Miss - Throttle Governed - Non-Compression – etc => Topic started by: marcuskeeler on December 09, 2023, 06:48:39 pm
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Great to hear your FL4-175 is running now Marcus, Just out of curiosity - what was was the firing order compared to what is the order on the CDI label?
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Thanks for sharing your adventure, Marcus.
I would also enjoy seeing it run.
Gil
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I like that a lot, wouldn't mind seeing that one running ;)
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Update:
Got it running, as it came from the factory. That is to say, all the wires mixed up... If I reorganize the plug wires to match the CDI label, it kinda runs as well. Very confused.
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Hi there guys !
So I've had a lot of experience (good/bad/indifferent) with the plethora of engines enginediy & Stirlingkit sell. I’ve fixed many issues with them over the years but I wanted to reach out to ask a couple of questions to folk that may know the answers....
It's a long story so buckle up, or just jump to the foot of the text to see the question - hehehehe
Story so far:
One of the motors I have is the Cison 17.5cc inline 4 flathead. I decided I wanted it to run on Gas, not nitro. I also got the Cison 17.5cc OHV engine at the same time.
I like to mount my motors on boards and make them look nice as well as run well.
The OHV motor ran straightaway with minimal persuasion.
However the Flathead just would not run. I had good spark, good gas and air, but never fire, not even a pop or bang. So fast forward a LONG time during which I messed with it endlessly, changing plugs, carb, timing, hall sensor, CDI unit. All this even though I always had good spark & fuel etc, but we try all sorts right?
I had the head off it 20 times but nothing wrong, I had compression…. Well, you get the idea.
Anyhoo, Stirlingkit didn’t want me to ship it back to factory for investigation; they said we could get it running via email. With respect, they imagined I was totally devoid of any mechanical ability or understanding, which proved to be very frustrating because they just kept sending me the same purile emails – “is the battery charged’ – “is there gas in the tank” etc etc.
Finally I obtained the RMA address from another forum member and just send it back blindly, forcing their hand.
After 4 weeks they sent me a video of it running and said that it was fine and said there was dust etc in the head stopping the valves from seating. I didn’t contest it, pointless, but that simply wasn’t true. Firstly it had never run and secondly, I’d had the head off multiple times and checked valve seating etc
Soooooo, I get the motor back. Now, I haven’t started it yet, I’m mounting it back on the board, but I have some observations I want to share….
Bearing in mind they said there was nothing wrong with it, the motor shipped back to me with:
- Different inlet manifold
- Different model carb
- The head was on backwards (I don’t think that matters on a flat head (in principle))
- The leads from the CDI unit were still on the plugs from the factory but the way they connected them was totally different to the firing order diagram on the CDI
Maybe that’s hard to explain, but the CDI unit has 4 individual plug leads coming out and they are all labelled. They had seemingly totally disregarded the firing order on the label and apparently randomly put the plug leads on.
Now I haven’t run it yet but the question is broader than being moot if it runs:
Do these hall sensor/CDI units issue HT to the correct plug at the correct time, or are they firing ALL plugs together and just relying on the fact that if they fire the plugs enough times through a rotation, they are all bound to hit eventually, as each cylinder cycles through the power stroke?
I know that sounds whacky but I can’t see why the motor would run with the leads all swapped around?