YS-56SR Needle Tuning

[johnjonfenomenon]

Hi guys. This is my first experience with the YS engine and i am not sure if this was made to run this hot. I got my idle needle running so that the temperature reads about 170F consistantly, and now I am trying to tune the idle needle. The factory recomended settings of 2 turns out yields alot of smoke, but my temperature readings during flight reach about 220F at a hover. Is this too high? I try to richen the mixture up so that it will fall in the 160 - 180 range but doing so decreases power and runs soo rich that the heli wont even lift off the ground. So am I safe to assume this engine is designed to run this hot? My readings are coming from a telemetry unit from the DX8 attached to the head.

Coming from tuning a os50, I lways tried to keep temps from 160 - 200

[tS8103]

If you are at hover and have a temp of 220 then something is wrong. I have a couple of questions:
Are you still on breakin?
What are your needle settings?
Are you using a fuel magnet or lynx M.O.A.S.
Have you checked your fuel lines for air leaks
is your check valve positioned correctly

With your mid 2 turns out you should not be hitting these temp at hover. I would recommend setting your high at 1.5 turns out, and you mid at 2 turns and leave your idle at the factory setting. Always start your tuning with the high, then go to your mid. After the mid is adjusted you may have to go back and readjust the high to get your needles in sync. I always adjust my idle needle last. Also as a side note myself and others have had issues with this engine leaning out when using the moas of fuel magnet. It would run fine initially would lean out when I beat on it. I have recently changed back to a clunk and header tank and so far no more leaning issues.
Tone

[johnjonfenomenon]

Hi im still breaking in.. and I immediately landed when I saw temps escelate to these levels as I knew something was wrong. From what I've been reading they should be in the 160 - 180 range for hovering and on the high end never go past 220.

I am using an align 3 way filter, I am not using a fuel magnet and am using the stock align weighted fuel inlet.

I tried playing with the hover needle so that at a hover I only reach around 170, but at this point it is running so rich that it is flooding the engine and cannot get anypower out of it to lift off. I never tuned the high needle setting as I am not to that point yet as I need to tune the mid setting first.

I assume my check valve is positioned correctly as the line is towards the tank as indicated in the diagram. Plus when I remove the fuel tubing I can here the air leaving the tank.

I have not checked yet for fuel line leaks, I will do that later. Or i will just go ahead and replace the fuel lines just to be safe as well as install a new fuel filter.


My needle settings are as follows:
Idle: 3/4 turn to get me 165F at idle
Hover: 2 turns open
High: 1.5 turns open

[weaselbean]

I just got my first YS56 from a guy on RR he said its got about a gallon and a half through it? But i'm wondering? I took the pipe off and looked at the sleeve and it seems to have a very fine x shape honing pattern in it so I'm wondering does the YS56 sleeve come like that or has this been a rebuild with new piston ring and this guy just honed out the cilyinder wall? Also It don't want to run on a brand new OS#8 plug it will start and idle but sonn as I gas it it dies? But I can leave my glow ignighter on it and it will stay running with the OS#8 in it? So I put a Enya #4 in it and now it runs without the ignighter on it? So WTH? It says in the manuel OS#8's will work but they don't seem like a hot enough plug? And that honing pattern really has me wondering if this is a rebuild or if that's the way it comes from the factory?

[Hotwings]

os 8's work perfectly, put the needles back to factory settings until you break it in. the cylinder comes crosshatched when new, probably never broken in, you certainly DON'T set midrange first! Your idle is probably tooo lean and affects the mid range, PUT THE DAMN NEEDLES BACK TO FACTORY AND BREAK IT IN. i have 5 ys 56's and they all run great on OS8"s and factory settings until i started to fly very hard.also YS needs 30% fuel to operate properly, you can fly on less nitro but needle settings will vary greatly. Ron

[Hotwings]

also, the midrange needle is the long one, the high speed needle is the short one, some guys get them mixed up. you will not need to move the idle needle more than 1/8 turn +/- to get good idle usually, the lenght of the flue line to the check valve is important also 35mm, Ron

[paulmedford]

Ron, You seem to know about these engines very well, I have a question, I have a ys 56 and i broke it out, I live in the tropics with hot weather, my engine runs ok, but when doing tic tocs it loads up.. well at least it sounds so. I am running cool power 30%, and my needles are:

high..0.5
Mid..1.75
idle 0.5

is my high too lean? or is my mid too rich? as i am afraid to lean high ( factory says range is 0.5 to 1.5) for more power. Also I had a rear bearing failure at 4 gallons!! i thought only os had that problem! i since put a skf rear bearing.Doing well ran four gallons since. Do ys engines normally get rear bearing failures? Thanks..Paul

[scootr]

These are quite different to OS motors needle wise. The high should be set and forget, and the mid only need some tweaking here and there. Start with 2 turns out on the high needle and 2.25 turns out on the mid. After you are happy with the high needle leave it alone! Big climbouts are the best test for the high needle I think. Now you can adjust the mid or "hover needle". My mid needle is about 1.5 turns out and it is awsome!
Also DO NOT use a OMI fuel magnet. A metal cluck seems to work best I have found. Not sure why but it has stopped the surging it use to suffer.. Also mine seems to run a bit colder (and likes it) than my old OS 55.
If you can get it worked out you will be a very happy camper.

[paulmedford]

how important is the 35mm lenght tube between the crankcase and check valve? because i remeasured mine...and it was 80mm! could his be the cause of the lack of power? and why 35mm i wonder how they came up with that number

[paulmedford]

Ok so I found out that the 35mm distance is important because when too long the engine just doesn't tune right and tends to run a little lean, I sorted out the needles, so I have 1 1/8 on high 1.75 mid and .75 idle, make plenty power, minimal bogging...since it's due to my poor collective management!

[johnjonfenomenon]

I think I finally figured out why my needle settings were so far off from factory recomennded. Turns out I was needing to run richer than factory due to the fact my rear bearing are completely siezed. This was causing stress on the motor and therefore casuign it to run hotter and thats why i needed to richen up. I should have know since when i try to start it I hear a dink dink dink dink dink.. SO I am rebuilding the engine and going to try factory settings again.

[Pinecone]

Idle is not typically set by temp, but by the pinch test.

With the engine warmed up, reduce it idle, then pinch the fuel line to cut off fuel. The engine should run 3 - 5 seconds, then speed up. If less than 3 seconds or it just dies, the idle is too lean. If it runs longer than 5 seconds before speeding up, it is too rich.

[Debrooker]

Hi all,

i thought i would resurrect this thread, by running this past you guys:

Yesterday i had some strange behaviour which eventually led me to blowing a hole in the piston head.

My engine is new with about 6-7 tanks, and the needles were set as per instructions. In the middle of a full pitch climbout (N5 running 12 degrees pitch), the engine started to gradually bog, then on the offload the engine quit. I had been using these settings quite successfully up to now.

After 10 minutes of rest started the heli and as i transitioned from hover, the engine would quit. It must of did this 5 or 6 times in succession. So just to be sure I changed the filter and glow. Did the same again.

So I opened the high end up 1/2 turn, and success the heli was flying again with good smoke, so did some gentle pootling around then tried some full pitch climbs again. After a couple of these the engine note changed to quite a low drone and then the 'pop'.

I'm about to replace all the damaged parts in the engine, and obviously keen to learn from my mistakes on this engine, so guess my question is - did my full pitch climb out in the first instance likely caused some damage to the engine? Reading around (after the fact) seems to suggest that the YS requires a longer break in period than i was allowing for.

Please feel free to be brutal in yor responses .

[paulmedford]

how is the rear bearing when you pulled it apart? Mine failed at about 3 gallons