Killer Bees, They Look Legit to Me

Nice Killer Bees!!! I pick em up when they come well priced also because you can never have too many Killer Bees.
I like to tinker with them like put a Black Widow tank on.

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There is a date on the cardboard behind the engine. I have found 95 and early 96 to have the proper KB parts

Thanks for the info, guys. I'll have to take them apart again and look at them closer when i can. Am a bit more skeptical of the later-produced silver one. I've heard rumors that some of those were short changed on performance parts, even lacking the HD crank in some cases. I think the seller was being honest in this case and bought each of them new.

Thanks Brad i have a parts engine ni picked up that may bee a killer inside i will have to do some more looking into it .....  

The only part that is not obtainable is:
- Low weight thin walled piston with copper coating.

Potential other would be:
- Polished to a glass shine internal cylinder walls very high shine.
I say potential as someone with the right tools could rotary polish to mimic this feature.
But note the piston is key and it was matched to the cylinder.

All other parts are floating around and could be obtain to make a near matched clone.
I believe the case may have been polished for the crank to pass thru for reduced friction.
I failed to check that when I took the engine apart but heard it was done originally.

Thrust washer
Thrust plate
Back plate / NV
Performance crank
All easy to get but what is not is the dual cut exhaust with the lower one having a larger gap.

Finally got my Killer Bee in the mail today. Took 20 days to get here by boat. Con rod ball almost worn thru the top of the piston.  Someone scratched no. 16 on the crank case. Piston still very shiny as is the polished cylinder. Looks like very little wear but has excessive ball/socket wear and too much SPI.  Could this have happened from too tight clearance on piston to bore?

As long as that piston didn't make a hole through the top, keep running it. Just carefully tighten up that joint obviously. I even had one where the hole was through the piston and while the compression was down, once running, it was certainly a terrific engine.

Thanks Ken
When resetting the ball socket should I use the anvil, which has a depression in the center or do I reset it on a hard flat surface?  The piston to bore fit is snug all the way. I don't want to mushroom the top.

It took me awhile to realize that I had one of the little darlin's packed away.

Case is not anodized and there is no date on the cardboard backing that I can see, didn't take it apart.  Other NIB Cox engines I have are dated on the cardboard though.



Edit add:

This is strange. Cox teamed up with Sterling back in the day?

Look for the build date on the Manuel is where it was placed, to have one with the
low weight piston would be from 1995 to 1996.

After that they just  sold them with what parts they had on hand to include non anodized
crank cases. Both real KB had gold cases the only way to tell them apart quicky was black
for .049 and red backplate for .051. Yours may be the reincarnated 2002 version.
Less matched low weight piston, polished cylinder walls and anodizing was what they would sell.

Every genuine KB I have had has the date either 95 or 96 stamped here in the box.
Ive had 15 or so, i never even unfolded the paper, must be there too.

Bob, Sterling model company burned down in the 90's. Mr Manulkin was the founder and his daughter ran the company when he passed. After the fire, a few years passed when the decision was made to sell the designs. Estes made the purchase and produced a few of the Ringmaster models. Sterling was well gone during these times and essentially was a name of the past. R/C electric cars/trucks were making their debut and there was very little interest in control line anything. The Estes/ Sterling models were quite short lived.

Well, I tore them apart again tonight for a closer look now that I'm all schooled up on KBs. Just as I suspected, the gold one looks legit. The 1995 manufacture date was stamped on the cardboard insert. The piston was indeed the lighter thin-walled version and it has the correct HD crank. Unfortunately, the later-produced silver-cased engine was short changed on the go-fast goods. It has a standard crankshaft and the piston is the common thick-walled version and lacks the copper coating on the underside. It also lacked a manufacture date stamp. I have a KB crank to put in it but as 1/2A Nut mentioned, the piston is a tough find. I know I've seen a thread somewhere about lightening them yourself with a Xacto while turning in a drill press. I might have to look back into it. In the pics, also note that the "Killer Bee .049" graphic on the inserts differ slightly. The smaller text on the right was the original 1995 version.

I still think this engine was assembled, packaged, and sold this way when new, relying on the reputation of the original KBs to sell these newer, cheaper versions. Ya win some. Ya lose some.

Least you own 1 real dill pickle! You may opt to have fun testing them with the same prop fuel same
day and tach the difference. I did just that, of course I expect unloaded state to be even better as
the low weight piston takes it's advantages even further. I would imagine about a 1.6k spread.

Results: HQ 4 x 4.5

Real Cox Killer Bee  Made Date: May 31st 1995  
Best peak 25,516 /109 mph
Nelson plug and throttle sleeve. +776 rpm static over best
made up clone.

VS

Built up version: Cox Killer Bee Frame
Performance crank / thrust washer / thrust plate / back plate.
TD .049 Cylinder/ SPI / Nelson Plug / Throttle Sleeve
Best peak 24,740 / 106 mph
Mind you this is a darn good reedie config!

Thanks for the info on the Box text i did not know that , One out of two an't all bad at least it can bee fixed and flown like you own it .

Your silver case KB should run fine as a sport engine. Flyers like Nut can wring em out for all their worth and take advantage of the KBs high performance features.
In my opinion. I ran some of my KBs on 25%N and 5" prop and not much performance boost.

crankbndr wrote:Your silver case KB should run fine as a sport engine. Flyers like Nut can wring em out for all their worth and take advantage of the KBs high performance features.
In my opinion. I ran some of my KBs on 25%N and 5" prop and not much performance boost.

That's true. In my case, to be honest, I'm just a sport flyer. I fly average 1/2A sport planes at less than supersonc speeds and usually use factory Cox props on them. At 25k, the reedies can wear out pretty quickly or at least need frequent ball socket clearance checks. My Skydrill is now flying very nicely on a reedie I set up with a KB crank, KB backplate, TD head, and a Cox International Tee Dee cylinder/piston that is actually a Surestart cylinder with modded porting and exhaust which provides SPI. The performance of that engine is "just right" for my sport flying needs and I figure the silver Killer Bee I just aquired will probably be very similar in it's performance. The only disappointment is that I already had some more of those KB cranks, KB backplates, and TD piston/cylinder sets in my box for future build-ups of stock reedies. I could have gone that route cheaper than what I spent on the "genuine" later-produced Cox version of the KB. It's all good. I have another cool engine in the collection, another chapter of Cox history in the box that my kids will have no interest in when I'm long gone.

Here's my Skydrill flying on that engine with 25% nitro. Works just fine for me!
https://youtu.be/bQ5d1tC22eg

Troy those are the real mccoy!

TB its not that hard to get rid of i needed ,, try ebay. i feel your disappointment

Sorry I came off as whining. I'm OK with the purchase of the KBs. I knew that the later ones weren't up to par with the originals. Heck, Mr. Sitter didn't even mention the later model KBs in his book. I guess that should say something about them. I've paid more for less many times in this hobby. For instance, I paid somewhat dearly(to me, at least) for a TD .15 MKII Special since I wanted one for many years. It was loose without the original box and had some use on it with a few scratches which kept most of the collectors away. It turned over smoothly with good strong compression. After months of admiring it on the shelf, I finally tinkered with it this weekend only to discover that the piston had a broken skirt with a significant piece missing from it. Bummer! I have probably aquired the majority of my Cox engines from ebay over the years but have been taken for a ride a number of times along the way. It's all par for the course, I guess. Without avenues such as ebay, it would be much harder for us to aquire the stuff we enjoy so much.

I need to stop fiddling with all these little engines and get serious about checking out batteries, ironing down loose covering edges, and other chores to prepare for the trip to SMALL which is a little over a month away. Can't wait to see the gang there and spend another great weekend flying Cox engined models.

Troy do you still have your td .15? Ronald Valentine can make you 1 very easy. I purchased about 70% of parts of a Conquest 40 from Ron Young that hadn't even been machined. I sent them to Ronald Valentine a couple years ago and he is finally near completion and I'm very excited. It sport the Perry carb and the rear attaching muffler like it's lil brother Conquest 15. Hope you get to feeling better, happy flying.

Interesting option! Thanks for the heads up.

As a point of reference for info almost no one would ever want or need to know.....
Today, I weighed a brand new Killer Bee .051 piston and rod ( two rings on bottom of piston skirt) and a brand new TD .051 piston and rod ( one ring on bottom of piston skirt ).
The Killer Bee unit weighed 3.0 grams and the TD unit weighed 3.5 grams.
Both were brand new from the Cox inventory...
For what it's worth to anybody.......

Steve..............

Invaluable info for those crazy enough to tinker with such foolish things.