Originally Posted by
Storydude1
If you could saturate the entire engine without running it, yes. Too bad a heater will leave the head hot, the block warm, and the crank and conrod cold.
Heat dissipates from a larger concentration to a lessor one. Heat is also transmitted by convection, radiation or conduction. convection and radiation heat the engine with a "bulb" type or heat gun type heater. Conduction by a wrap type. This heat travels from the outside into the motor. Because the sleeve is in contact with the block, it starts to heat after the block. then piston and crank(through the bearings) and finally conrod.
I'm talking ANY Heli motor. I have NEVER seen an air guy preheat ANYTHING but a cup of Irish coffee.
Only car guys preheat engines. Air guys just start them and run them...
Like I do, have done for 20 years and still do. I have running engines from companies not even in business anymore. Very Early ABC engines. Like from 1981.
And to answer your question, any race team interested in instant raw power do NOT preheat engines...IE Any Top Fuel engine. Longer time at the line heating engine=less power is made from that engine. Old bracket racer trick. Stage late to make the other guy gain a few * in engine temp and produce a tiny bit less power.
Well i could be wrong here but to answer ur ?, All of the heli/air motors are ringed and that is why the preheating is not done. Now if there are any that are abc motors for them and you are getting many years of use out of the, the only explanation that i can think of that is different from car guys is, car guys run consistence tanks at a time, for example a car guy will run 1-2 gallons practicing, 20 - 45min at a time, then on race day pratice/qual/main.
Some which will run 1-2 gallons on a race. so they will compare the amount of gallons they get on a motor and not time.
I think air guys are not running tank after tank without shutting down the engine, they mostly fly 1 tank stop flying sit around with others talk/warm up their coffee, drink beer lol and have fun. Some may jump out and fly more then others but some dont, it is a little different then cars because when u are driving at a long period and get tired they keep going, if the crash no big deal, with the heli/air you get tired and mess up u crash "Big deal".
Now with preheat it is all to do with abc motors and ringed motor are not as critical for this method, but would not hurt to do it!