Petrol Engine choice, DLE 30 or Zenoah G26?

[martin collins 1]

Just bought a Pacific Aero Gee Bee Model Y Sportster ARTF, wingspan is 82", flying weight estimated at 12-14 lbs. I fly mostly electric but am going the petrol route with this bad boy, and considering either of the motors in the title, the Zen seems to have a good reliability record and be easy to start but may possibly not give quite the required performance looking at threads i have read. The DLE has the power but i have heard of starting issues if left for 6 weeks or more (a couple of guys at my club have had to rebuild their carbs?) Any other suggestions or experiences with suitable engines, please no `put a glow motor in it`, i was done with glow years ago as i can`t stand the oily mess. Anything much larger than the two engines suggested is going to weigh too much and put the wing loading up and require tail weight. Thoughts appreciated..............M

[Gunnar Borseth]

Go for the DLE. I suspect the carb troubles your mates had was caused by ethanol in pump petrol. It will ruin rubber gaskets and diaphams. You can get rebuild kit for some carbs that tolerates ethanol, I believe, if you use pump petrol. In my club everyone uses Aspen premix. It contain no ethanol and gives easy starting. Albeit a bit expencive. Shell V-power 98 octane is also ethanol free, at least in my part of the world. Mix with good quality syntetic oil. Mineral oil can cause the diaphrams to stick and make the engine almost impossible to start if not used for a longer periode of time. 

 

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

Me to, Dle, never miss a beat,,,

[Cuban8]

How do you guys solve the problem of the terrible  noise that these engines make with their standard silencers? No way that  I could use these engines straight out of the box at either of my two clubs without causing a problem.

[Ron Gray]

@martin collins 1If I only had the choice between the 2 then I would go with the DLE. Carb problems in my experience more often relate to the Walbro diaphragm going hard but it’s an easy one to replace.

 

However, and I know you said not to say glow, but my first choice would be a Laser running low oil fuel. The ‘mess’ produced is really no more than that produced by any of my DLEs, in other words, not a lot.

 

@Cuban8totally agree with you about the noise. I have spent quite a bit on buying canisters for my DLEs but they still have that ‘edge’ to the sound which is annoying. So much so that I’ve either stopped flying them or are swapping the engines out for Lasers or converting to electric. And despite the fact that I fly on a site with no noise restrictions in place, the gassers were becoming embarrassing.

[Engine Doctor]

I had the same model with a Zenoah 45 magneto version up front. A perfect match. Great flying model and balanced no problem . I would opt for the DLE out of the two although it may need added nose weight unless you can fit batteries up front. See how it balances. The DLE is more powerful than the the G26 . Both reliable engines but model too big for the G26 and might be pushing it with the dle 30 ?

Only sold mine as pestered by a guy with more money than sense and regretted letting it go.

Weak points too watch out for are the UC mounting blocks . Mine split and found they were made from a very large grained sort of red wood that split very easily. Swapped them as they split for decent ply and no more issues.

Re the carb reliability. The fuel with high ethanol e10 will cause the diaphragm  to go brittle  quite quickly as will the e5 fuel but takes a while longer. Either remove the ethanol from your fuel or buy the Aspen fuel but a lot more expensive. New diaphragms are not expensive and simple to fit.

As for silencing , I found that a lot of the noise of petrol engines comes from the carb or induction. My GeeBee was fully cowled with a carb bend fitted and the exhaust ,  a standard Zenoah was extended to clear the firewall and was quiet for a petrol  model.

 

Good luck and enjoy

Edited April 29, 2022 by Engine Doctor