No, no. I'm not going to let you guys slide on this one.
Granted, we all have our personal preferences for the type of run we want. When flying in Classic with my Oriental, what I want to be hearing is that iconic 4-2-4 dance from a Fox 35 and so I concentrate on making that brand and size of engine work in the traditional manner, even if my level of performance might go up using any one of many different powerplants.
But that was not the focus of the discussions concerning proper utilization of the 20FP when bolted to a Flite Streak or Skyray. If you want a traditional sort of run from this motor, Len's your guy, no doubt about it and you will have a nice package with which to fly.
Instead, the focus is on what powerplant do we know for certain will elevate the performance of a pukey profile to something quite closely--much too close for the comfort of many of us--approaching the levels of performance seen by your average PA model being campaigned by an above-average modeler in Expert PA.
Brett already told us of posting a 540 with his 20FP/Skyray, how David couldn't let that stand and with his first flight ever on the model eclipsed Brett with a 547. More recently and on the "OK, this is how to do it - 20FP" thread, none other than Doug Moon, a serious gear-head, one who is absolutely committed to high-zoot PA models, relates his experiences, which (I believe) resulted in a second-place finish in Expert PA, few or none at all flights on the model prior to the contest.
Hello!? What's it gonna take here, people?
Again, if you do not like the "wet" two-stroke style of run, or prefer a distinct break, or just do not like a heavily-muffled exhaust note, that's fine. Lots of choices out there.
And Jake is close to correct when claiming one setup can't work for all without consideration as to where they live. The problem here is that he has come up hard against the exception to the rule.
While I hope DMoon checks in here, I think it worthwhile to totally cheat, lifting one of my postings from above-mentioned thread. I do not want to beat anybody up here, but I will insist that all thoroughly understand the subject. From that point on, each can make up his own mind, and I have no problem with that.
"This has been a very interesting discussion, too bad it has gotten to be a little personal in nature, but with the severe disagreements seen, the high resistance to a "new" way of thinking, such seems to have been avoidable.
At least we got Brett fired up to the point where he listed the *entire* setup he has found to work. I'm not whining, but you guys got a whole lot more information out of him than I ever did when it comes to the 20FP. But then I didn't need much, having years ago just decided to take the man at his word no matter the topic.
Someplace there was a comment that "The List" sure has a lot of Don't-do-This to it.
That is a direct result of what I have experienced in minor degrees, Brett to a major degree. The conversation starts out, "I'm not getting good results and I'm doing what you told me to do." It *always* turns out that some seemingly minor thing has in fact been changed.
When this happens enough times, you tell them what to do and then reinforce it by telling them what not to do.
I think a major point here has already been alluded to, and that is that the tune-up Brett has outlined and Len's preferred tune-up **do not** deliver equal-but-different levels of performance.
Of course Len's suggestion will result in a nice Stunt motor which, when bolted to any number of competent profile models, will do nicely in Beginner and Intermediate, may even come up to the mid-pack level in some Advanced competitions. And if that's what you want, basically Fox 35-type running characteristics without all the vibes, you can achieve this with Len's tune-up or something similar. It will be fairly tolerant to fuel, props, NVAs, tanks and so on.
And you'll have a good time with it. I know, because that is the basic tune-up I used last year on my new-at-the-time ARF Flite Streak, fitted with a Stunt-normal, de-tuned 25FP.
On the other hand, following Brett's suggestions *exactly* as laid down will result in absolutely sparkling performance. While I was a little surprised to see Brett say it, what we're talking about here is a combination which truly can win every single Advanced PA contest in 2004, along with most of the Expert PA contests. And of the Expert contests it would not win--2004 NW Regionals, for example--the pit chatter would be all about how the R&D, building effort, piped 65s, deep-breather four-strokes and so on resulted in so few extra points over the lowly Skyray/O.S. 20FP which looks like a reject from a shop class for 8-year-old children.
If you're on the fence over this, haven't quite decided to take the same leap as Doug Moon, that's no problem. Nor is it a problem if you apply this thinking to the 25LA, even though neither Brett nor myself are ready to suggest it is a direct replacement for the 20FP, or even that all the tips for that motor apply to the newer 25LA.
I do, however, sincerely hope you are ready to be open-minded about this, along with recognizing the potential for a higher level of performance, not merely a Fox 35 run wrapped in Japanese packaging."
