Diesel Engines

WingingIt74 wrote:They intrigue me, but I know nothing about them...

They fire due to compression alone no glow plug spark ETC just compression.
They run on a mix of IPN,Ether,Kerosene and castor.
Usually but they will eat almost anything you feed them, canola oil mixed in, regular diesel if kero is not availible, naptha gasoline.
They are great!

Do you buy fuel or mix it yourself, I assume you can do either?

nitroairplane wrote:They fire due to compression alone no glow plug spark ETC just compression.

I know that part

WingingIt74 wrote:

nitroairplane wrote:They fire due to compression alone no glow plug spark ETC just compression.

I know that part

What do you want to know about them?

Where do you get fuel or how do you mix fuel?

WingingIt74 wrote:Where do you get fuel or how do you mix fuel?

Fuel.
Eric clutton, Redmax, aerodyne and Davis diesels development are the US suppliers.
I recommend clutton as he uses a really good mix.
Do not use an electric starter on a diesel!
Mixing fuel.
Get ether, get kerosene, get castor get IPN and mix them.
A good place to start is even amount of castor, ether and kerosene then 2% IPN on top of that.

WingingIt74 wrote:

nitroairplane wrote:They fire due to compression alone no glow plug spark ETC just compression.

I know that part

The term - "Compression Ignition"

What is IPN?

Isopropyl nitrate.
If you can't get that amyl nitrate, amsoil cetane bolster or equivelant.
Check out this great site!
http://www.cafes.net/doctordiesel/

nitroairplane wrote:Check out this great site!
http://www.cafes.net/doctordiesel/

Eric Clutton (Doctor Diesel) is a neat guy. Met him at S.M.A.L.L. a few years ago (and ended up with a PAW 55 (.03) diesel among other things ). He had a Spitfire with him (similar to the one pictured on his site) and some one asked why the roundels on the bottom of the wing were larger than those on the top? He explained that the German gunners had poor eyesight and thus they needed the larger targets to get a clear shot. Then he muttered “Anyone that paints targets on their airplanes wants looking after”.
Al

These used to be very popular in Poland, with many russian types available, as well as some native polish ones.
They will run on almost anything, as long as the fuel contains 30-40% ether. The self-combustion temerature of ether is about 40 degrees centigrade, as far as I remember, rendering a glow plug unnecessary. Typical fuel will consist of kerosene, ether and castor i roughly equal amounts.

The engines feature a screw-regulated counter-piston which is used to change the compression rate. Different values of compression are needed for startup and normal operation, as well as for different types of fuel.

Nowadays the diesels are not popular anymore. One reason is that it is problematic to cotrol the RPM - the throttles are fairly ineffective. Also, ether, being a psychoactive drug, is very hard to obtain.

Throttling shouldn't be a problem on diesel engines but there is a little more tuning involved when you have an easy access to the compression ratio too;