Ageless 9 and 18 Radial

Home Model Engine Machinist Forum

Help Support Home Model Engine Machinist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Thank you

Both Oil pumps are drawing well from the supply ports. I am going to build a external oiling system that will ensure that these supply oil pumps stay fed. I need to have a leak free system.... It is an oily engine.... LOL
 
A lot of work but probably the best approach. I am also doing 2 at a time but only a pair of 9's.
Looking good!
I I think you are on the right track with a tank supplied oil system. As with our race cars you probably don’t need a full so called dry dump jus a positive supply pressure and s scavenge pump to keep the sump at some level. You are not flying and doing aerobatics. I can’t remember if the bottom cyl had oil drain provision but turning the engine backward a few revs should drain oil from the bottom cyl . Something I’d check for real as you assemble you nice engine even the big ones were turned over a few times to clear cylinders seems my FIL said something about counting blades before starting it would be bad to bend a rod with a hydraulic Ed cylinder. Even our racers get turned over backwards to purge fuel from cylinders . I haven’t seen many of the Rc model radials fly but I know they are pretty careful with the Moki radials. They are 5 to 7 grand so I don’t think it would be cheap to have repairs . Bad enough if you crash one . Th impeller on the back gives the gas a good mixing especially if you feed the gas into the impeller. It would be interesting to hook a wide band O2 sensor to get some idea of fuel mixture.
 
Looking good!
I I think you are on the right track with a tank supplied oil system. As with our race cars you probably don’t need a full so called dry dump jus a positive supply pressure and s scavenge pump to keep the sump at some level. You are not flying and doing aerobatics. I can’t remember if the bottom cyl had oil drain provision but turning the engine backward a few revs should drain oil from the bottom cyl . Something I’d check for real as you assemble you nice engine even the big ones were turned over a few times to clear cylinders seems my FIL said something about counting blades before starting it would be bad to bend a rod with a hydraulic Ed cylinder. Even our racers get turned over backwards to purge fuel from cylinders . I haven’t seen many of the Rc model radials fly but I know they are pretty careful with the Moki radials. They are 5 to 7 grand so I don’t think it would be cheap to have repairs . Bad enough if you crash one . Th impeller on the back gives the gas a good mixing especially if you feed the gas into the impeller. It would be interesting to hook a wide band O2 sensor to get some idea of fuel mixture.
As for oil lines check speedway motors or summit racing. They both have AN FITTINGS AND LINES SN 3-4 are Prakrit line sizes . You probably don’t need the super high pressure stuff. There are push on braided lines tag would look ver nice on you enging.
 
I am starting to build the Ageless 9 and 18 Cyl radial engines. I want to work these in parallel since many of the operations are similar between the two.

View attachment 123486
That would be absolutely cool to have two of these with black 3 blade props running on a test stand. You will be getting close to drag race operations you might need a crew maybe even a goose neck trailer and a one ton dual Ky truck trailers are called “ toy haulers” they have a garage in the rear. Usually 3 or more slide outs. You could have a complete shop in the garage area.
 
Thank you

Both Oil pumps are drawing well from the supply ports. I am going to build a external oiling system that will ensure that these supply oil pumps stay fed. I need to have a leak free system.... It is an oily engine.... LOL
rlo,
My (and other's) experiences with the oiling system in these engines is that the scavenger pump although larger can't keep up with the pressure pump and after several seconds into a run the sump is full of oil and the engine is smoking like crazy. The solution offered by Ageless, and it works well, is to add a drip feed valve between the tank and the line going to the pressure pump in order to choke off the oil supply. You'll find it can be pretty severely choked. It's also a convenient OFF valve to minimize oil leaking into the lower cylinders while the engine is stored. Like you, I don't like oily engines, but without pushrod tubes you're going to get oil sprayed over the engine during running - especially from the lower cylinders. I've given my radials a pass when it comes to leaks. It's a part of their character which like the smokey startups you soon learn to love. You might also consider an oil tank baffle to remove the air from the returned oil. It's pretty frothy although with the drip feed will provide a bit of time for the air to settle out inside an un-baffled tank. - Terry
 
Last edited:
As for oil lines check speedway motors or summit racing. They both have AN FITTINGS AND LINES SN 3-4 are Prakrit line sizes . You probably don’t need the super high pressure stuff. There are push on braided lines tag would look ver nice on you enging.
I hit up SummitRacing last month for some AN3 stuff. 😂 great minds think alike!
 
rlo,
My (and other's) experiences with the oiling system in these engines is that the scavenger pump although larger can't keep up with the pressure pump and after several seconds into a run the sump is full of oil and the engine is smoking like crazy. The solution offered by Ageless, and it works well, is to add a drip feed valve between the tank and the line going to the pressure pump in order to choke off the oil supply. You'll find it can be pretty severely choked. It's also a convenient OFF valve to minimize oil leaking into the lower cylinders while the engine is stored. Like you, I don't like oily engines, but without pushrod tubes you're going to get oil sprayed over the engine during running - especially from the lower cylinders. I've given my radials a pass when it comes to leaks. It's a part of their character which like the smokey startups you soon learn to love. You might also consider an oil tank baffle to remove the air from the returned oil. It's pretty frothy although with the drip feed there will be plenty of time for the air to settle out inside an un-baffled tank. - Terry
Tubes would look good on this. Thank you for the heads up on the frothing issue. -RonO
 
Any tramming error will show up whatever size tool is used, I would say that Tormach is trammed exactly in all directions.
as far as the oiling system goes I’d have to dig out my drawing set I don’t remember the thread or opening sizes . The scavenge pump needs to be quite a bit larger as the oil is aerated rather than liquid. You also need an unrestricted air intske. I woul surely look at AN fittings as the braided hose looks nice and you can get red blue clear or black aluminum fittings unless abused these don’t leak you could even get ones that have o ring seals these are what we use on the racers. The hose is quite flexible even in the smaller sizes you cn get push lock fittings so hose assembly is quick and easy I’d think a #6 would be ok for return line and 3 or 4 for feed lines bush rod tubes would save a big mess LOL
 
as far as the oiling system goes I’d have to dig out my drawing set I don’t remember the thread or opening sizes . The scavenge pump needs to be quite a bit larger as the oil is aerated rather than liquid. You also need an unrestricted air intske. I woul surely look at AN fittings as the braided hose looks nice and you can get red blue clear or black aluminum fittings unless abused these don’t leak you could even get ones that have o ring seals these are what we use on the racers. The hose is quite flexible even in the smaller sizes you cn get push lock fittings so hose assembly is quick and easy I’d think a #6 would be ok for return line and 3 or 4 for feed lines bush rod tubes would save a big mess LOL
If you want to see how modern cars that used dry dump you may want to look up the system used on corvette and some Camarillo cars . It’s kinda intimidating . . Generally a round tank wig internal-baffles and drain holes will strip the oil and air. Our race tanks are pretty simple as there isn’t a need for constant circulating oil the tank is just a large reservoir then a place to pump the aerated oil so it can be drained in a few seconds. This is 70 weight oil full of nitro so a pretty big mess. Certainly not very green however used oil is placed in drums and allowed to settle then sent to recycling center. The nitro will settle out but usually not reused . As it still has oil in it. Somewhere I recall that castor oil is stil used in model engines it will definitely be a good mess it doesn’t wash off easily and leaves a brown sticky mess around exhaust. Many years ago mode glow fuel had lots of castor oil it smelled ice but was really hard to clean up I have a single quart of it I YHINK use in the freezer for some forgotten test I was going to do .
Anyway good luck on your oil systems .

Byron
 
Question.... Float carbs or venturi carbs??? I hope this does not stir the pot.... lol
I think all three have been used. Somewhere I think the original cushman car by is now available. Float style plain Venturi carbs works bu you need constant fuel pressure . Small engine car by have pulsating vacuum pumping built in . By the engine they are a float car by but you will still need a small fuel pump.
 
Decided to go with the Cushman carburetors after talking to Lee with ageless. It seems like I shouldn’t try to re-design something that’s already been figured out. What’s cool is they already mount up to my existing housing since I’ve built the housings to plan.
image.jpg
 
Sometimes it feels like I spend more time making tools and fixtures than actually building the engine. This is a very meticulous part of it where I have to go through and re-check tightness on every single little 3/16 inch nut holding the cylinders on to the crank case.
9FEA7A0E-FBE4-4036-B45C-27C25CF758D1.jpeg
A3FF6A2A-7318-4C88-A4DA-961DCFDA2D48.jpeg

I had second thoughts about the brass nuts being used. So I decided to double nut them with steel back up. It solves the problem of vibration coming loose and also it doesn’t look that bad so we’ll see how it turns out. There are only 432 nuts to check…. 431… lol. It is relaxing work.
677C17DD-6B7A-43FF-B679-1DEB704D382A.jpeg

All the valve work is done and gaps are set. I will reset them all again after motoring prior to starting.
 
Nice work! I will be making one of those wrenches pretty soon.
Interesting. The drawing with that tool was the first page in the set I got . I looked it ove pretty closely even with double vision you would think I could see the round shaft . I had the cad program up and running I looked s number of times
So I modeled both flat and round . I could have made a simple phone call but being stubborn I decided to just use logic. I thought it might be easier to just make itout of flat stock. I modeled it both ways now I see yours and I like the round shank better. I’m sure it took a lot of extra chips. I also looked on Amazon but the length was not available I had not deteriorated this far jet so I thought I just alter an existing wrench I did find one and planned on just machining the end and TIG welding it . I too looked at double nut fastening as opposed to nylon nuts . I suspect nylons would have caused studs to back out with them creating a real problem in limited space .

So you have done a beautiful job on you engine ost a running video . I also would have used the bushman carb with a fuel pump regulators for low pressure sr notorious for being in reliable . Our race cars use a thing called hi speed lean out valve. These are brass with stainless tapered “ slider” and variable springs as well as screw on jets an AN 6 size is about as small as they get but you make a smaller one . They use shims under the spring to adjust pressure we use a low pressure gage to measure and set the pressure . I’ve got two sets of washers that I use for spacers . You could probably make one ou of brass and stainless taper slider. These are tri angular and fit pretty precisely in the body . You could probably make a large enough one out of 10 mm brass hex stock and 1/4-40 ME threads PM research has this stuff here in THE USA easy place to do business with fast service I enter PMRsearch steam to get to model stuff . Are you goingvto make valve covers?
 
I agree with redesigning something that apparently has worked many times before . Some times there real is a better way . Sometimes it’s just a personal preference . I try things first then maybe make alterations or make special. There usually was a good reason for the engineer or designer creating things. Arbitrarily changing things without concrete thought maybe make a lot of extra work
Interesting. The drawing with that tool was the first page in the set I got . I looked it ove pretty closely even with double vision you would think I could see the round shaft . I had the cad program up and running I looked s number of times
So I modeled both flat and round . I could have made a simple phone call but being stubborn I decided to just use logic. I thought it might be easier to just make itout of flat stock. I modeled it both ways now I see yours and I like the round shank better. I’m sure it took a lot of extra chips. I also looked on Amazon but the length was not available I had not deteriorated this far jet so I thought I just alter an existing wrench I did find one and planned on just machining the end and TIG welding it . I too looked at double nut fastening as opposed to nylon nuts . I suspect nylons would have caused studs to back out with them creating a real problem in limited space .

So you have done a beautiful job on you engine ost a running video . I also would have used the bushman carb with a fuel pump regulators for low pressure sr notorious for being in reliable . Our race cars use a thing called hi speed lean out valve. These are brass with stainless tapered “ slider” and variable springs as well as screw on jets an AN 6 size is about as small as they get but you make a smaller one . They use shims under the spring to adjust pressure we use a low pressure gage to measure and set the pressure . I’ve got two sets of washers that I use for spacers . You could probably make one ou of brass and stainless taper slider. These are tri angular and fit pretty precisely in the body . You could probably make a large enough one out of 10 mm brass hex stock and 1/4-40 ME threads PM research has this stuff here in THE USA easy place to do business with fast service I enter PMRsearch steam to get to model stuff . Are you goingvto make valve covers?
 
All the valve covers are made. I still have a lot of valve adjusting to do in my future. They will go on after the engine is running. I need to polish them up too.[ATTACH type="full" width="317px" alt="01F459BF-735E-4C63-BCF3-

Nice work. They will polish up nicely1DFF5E4F8E14.jpeg"]139541[/ATTACH]
 
I would have used hex socket head cap screws to hold the cylinders to the case so I could use a ball-end hex driver at an angle to screw them in and tighten them :) !!!
 
Back
Top