gt racing

i had my own fuel company & i can tell you therīs no secret at all.
we made very small amounts of purest fuel just for racers.
one maxed out to limits and one with slightly more oil and methanol.
even color was optional and is supersimple.
manufacturer keeping to make a magic world around nitro rc fuel, but there are no magical ingredients.

RCTecher12

iTrader: (1)

The only magical ingredients are the additives above and beyond oil, methanol, and nitromethane. Corrosion inhibitors are a bonus, but not necessary if proper after run maintenance is followed. Wetting agents are a bit of snake oil in my eyes. They say it makes he fuel flow better and disperse better.. Hardly noticeable to most operators. The fact that my homebrew fuel runs cooler and performs as well or better than a commercial fuel tells me those extra additives and wordy words doesn’t do much other than make it cost more.

gt racing

nope, no magical additives.
here is the list of ingredients:
- methanol
- nitromethan
- oil (in our case just synthetic german fuchs oil "Aerosynth3", of course there is & will ever be the endless castor/synth oil debate )
- optional > color

"runs cooler" is not automatically a good sign or means good quality fuel.
"cooling" comes from methanol, heat comes from nitro.

we tested everything you can possibly test.
our main field was 1/8 buggy. up to real 25% nitro we felt it was getting better, more than that it was getting worse again with more downsides than power benefit.
most fuels on the market are not even close to 25% "real" nitro.
stable idle and cool temperatures are coming from methanol not from nitro.
nitro is by far the most expensive ingredient so think about it...
that means, we tested with friends/customer and their tanks without them knowing whats in there. most of the average joe/club racer will decide for the "bad specs" fuel because it feels more stable, is easier to tune and engine runs cooler. AND because less nitro it will be even cheaper, right? YES.
the mediocre racer will not only notice no power difference from 15 to 25% nitro, he will even say the 15% nitro fuel feels better.
pro driver will feel difference of course, the more grippy, "poweruseable" tracks the more he will notice a lack of nitro in the fuel.
at the end we had lots of customers driving 1/8 buggy with 16% nitro fuel (which is commonly used for 1/10 on-road).
they wanted it, because it felt better in buggy and made power more useable and engine supereasy and stable.

99,5% pureness nitro was about 3 times cheaper than 99,95% nitro!!

clean work environment also a big point including filter methods and filling the final cans etc..

we had really small amounts to mix and a small number of customers, but we were honest about it and that pureness of course is expensive.
we had some very very highly satisfied customer, but we had to stop at one point because it was a crazy amount of work done by just 2 people just for love to that hobby and for fun creating some cool stuff.

btw. color is just casual printer color you can buy around the corner..

gt racing

...and to finally clear that, a thick carbon black built up engine internals is NEVER a good sign, more likely a sign for bad qualitiy fuel, no matter if castor or synthetic oil used.
we used highest quality castor oil and guess what, engine superclean, juuuust a slighty tan.
with synth oil engine life long it stays metal shiny as new.
(or dependent which color used slightly red or blue or whatever)

hope its ok for you to read & understand because its not my main language.
happy motoring and lets burn nitro for life

UrabusDenis

Excellent info here. My father and I have always wanted to make our own fuel, but we've found that coming by the ingredients in our country is very hard.

RCTecher12

iTrader: (1)

The higher the Nitro content, the richer the mixture must be for proper needle settings and power. My cooler operating temps (to me) indicate my fuel has more nitromethane than the equivalent commercial fuel. My fuel is mixed by volume. If my 20% Nitro fuel runs cooler than a commercial 20% Nitro fuel, either other components are contributing to higher operating temperature (higher friction and/or other components are combusting; oil for example) OR the nitromethane content is less. Lower Nitro fuels will lead to higher head temps due to the leaner mixture required.

Roelof

First of all, nitro is the cooler too! There is no secret about that. That engines become hotter with a higher nitro percentage is due the shifted ignition timing.

A lot of fuel companies advertise with "special designed oils for RC engines" (as we also see with greese, silicone oil etc) but are actually nothing more than good working oils from the oil market and that doesn't have to be racing oils or even motor oils, there are enough stories about transmission oils as well.

Additives? Normally it is not needed and even unwanted because they do not add performance and milage. The trend is there that some fuels have a low normal oil content and do compromise that with a low content teflon oil or any other low friction fluid. In that way they can use a total amount of just 6 to 7% oil and create space for 3 to 4% more methanol for a better milage.

Oh yes... A black piston does not have to be bad. We have used Shell Racing-M for a season. The inside of the engine was all black but the berformance was better, the lifespan of the engine was good and the temperature was OK.

gt racing

Fuchs Titan Aerosynth 3 is what we used after all tests done.
itīs actually developed just and only for nitro rc engines. BUT from todays knowledge i would most likely add a small amount of high quality castor. later tests after we shut down production showed even better results to me with Synth/castor mix.

we saw a lot of engines running strong with a lot of black built up, BUT itīs not what we wanted.
itīs always a proof of bad quality ingredients fuel.

gt racing

pureness is a key factor is what we figured out.
you take 99,5% pureness nitro (which "sounds" good in the first place, right?).
a 5L (5000ml) bottle full of 99,5% nitro has only 4975 ml Nitro in it and 25 ml garbage.
that's A LOT!!
if you take nitro with 99,95% pureness its only 0,0025 ml garbage in 5000ml (5Litres).
same with methanol of course...

it will affect the overall feel and the longevity of the engine a lot. we tested it all back to back again and again...

KINGZJ

iTrader: (4)

My take on nitro fuels. Been racing nitro for the past 20 years

Back in the day the choices were Odonnell and everyone else. Odonnell fuel was hands down the best. From Gallon to gallon it was always the same. Engines lasted very long and you always had a nice coating of goldish oil left in the engine and when wiped off the engine would look brand new. Something changed and it started to suck.

Switched to Byrons very good luck running Byrons never any fuel issues. Just a bit of a pain to get by me.

Tried the vp craze wow that was a mistake that stuff is garbage. Bearing issues within the first gallon and very inconsistent from gallon to gallon.

Now running Bones Brew. This stuff is great. reminds me of Byrons/old Odonnell. Absolutely no issue thus far and I can get it mail order which is even better.

I see many people struggle with Nitro. Most of time its a fuel issue that turns into a screw turning nightmare. Keep your fuel fresh and stored in a cool dry dark place. It always drives me crazy to see a guy that from week to week struggles and you look at his pit spot and his fuel is sitting in the 90 degree sunlight all day long. Their is a reason you see some pro's very protective and consious of their fuel. Fuel bottles being stored in coolers and the gallons tucked away.

Fuel I would like to try is the flashpoint. I have heard nothing but good stuff. Also not a fuel that is on the shelf around me. But for now its just better to run what is working well which is BONES BREW (please dont change your formula)

NitroVein

The oil has a big impact on the running temperature, with some oils I can get lean bog with quite low temperatures. But you would need to blend all the different mixes yourself to know if there is any difference, comparing different mfg fuel will not tell you that much, I agree on that.

The ability to cool is dependent on how much energy it takes to evaporate the substance.
After that you need to look at the air/fuel ratio, and that's why nitro will cool more then 2 times the amount of methanol when used in a combustion engine.
Sure, you're also releasing more energy in the same period of time so the excess heat will balance most of that out.

One reason why you "testpanel" might have felt that the low nitro fuel tuned easier could be that they ran some commercial 25% fuel with a somewhat hot glow plug.
Then when you test a true 16% vs 25% fuel you will not get the right results.
If the engine is setup correctly I have yet to see more trouble with more nitro when it comes to tuning.

NitroVein

If you only used that oil and no castor, then that might be a reason why you got the results you saw.

The best oils I've tried leaved the piston black at the crown, it has no correlation to the quality.

Cardiak

iTrader: (1)

You said that you had issues with VP fuel. I believe VP makes Flash Point's fuel.

KINGZJ

iTrader: (4)

Didn't know that. I hope that's not true. I thought many company's use vp methonal. Someone once told me vp doesn't even make their own fuel

timjs

Fuel is such a touchy subject. Everyone is an expert.
There's so much opinion and placebo in this hobby.. just like anything else, I suppose.