What is the distiction between.........................

(rare) 1973 engines have...

• silver stunt tank
• silver narrow crankcase
• metal backplate
• red driveplate
• thin walled cylinder
• high compression 1702 TD head
• came with silver spinner

The pre 1996 engines have...

• black or silver aluminum stunt tank
• plastic (post '90) or metal backplate
• black crankcase
• hex drive snap starter or round (zero drag) with snap start cam or zero drag
• #1 or slit cylinder (early 80s)
• standard 325 head
• early engines came with red rubber spinner, mid-later came mostly with red aluminum spinner with the silver spinners every so often

Post 1996 engines have...

• black plastic 8cc (non stunt) tank
• black plastic (non stunt) backplate
• silver crankcase
• hex drive snap starter
• #1 cylinder
• standard 325 head
• came with a silver spinner

It is hard to be able to tell with the post 1996 Black Widow engines. I advertise things as post 1996 because that is when Cox was acquired by the Estes Corp.

After that, in the year or two after, most of them still had the 'stunt-style' tank and the correct cylinder. The only thing different was usually that the engine was no longer anodized black.

Around 1998 or later the engine lost the 'stunt-style' tank and moved to the regular 8cc plastic tank. Most of these featured the traditional black widow cylinder with the open exhaust, dual bypass and sub-induction. I believe that there were a few that were incorrectly packaged as black widows since they were basically a sure start with an aluminum spinner.

Regards, Matt

Oops a little late with my post!

EXModelEngines wrote:Oops a little late with my post!

No, your fine. Estes had to get rid of some of the good parts before they could cheap it up. So yeah, you'll find some original like black widows and other engines made after '96 but once the parts started to run out, your start to find mixed engines. I remember reading on RCU some time ago that someone bought a NIP black widow from the hobby shop, it had a plastic (non stunt) tank BUT it had a stunt backplate. Ho do you fuel it??? Either Estes had no idea on what they were doing or they just didn't care.

[quote="Admin"]


The pre 1996 engines have...

• black or silver aluminum stunt tank
• plastic (post '90) or metal backplate
• black crankcase
• hex drive snap starter or round (zero drag) with snap start cam or zero drag
• #1 or slit cylinder (early 80s)
• standard 325 head
• early engines came with red rubber spinner, mid-later came mostly with red aluminum spinner with the silver spinners every so often

That describes all my BW engines with only few exceptions. They are great performers in the C/L circle but I have not tryed them in R/C application and I doubt if I ever will. I have engines better suited for that purpose most notably a G-mark (Japanese).061 R/C with muffler.

!/2A inverted C/L flight requires a strong engine and the "right" airplane. My fav is a Carl Goldberg "Lil' Toot" bipe w/BW for power.

SuperDave

Admin wrote:

EXModelEngines wrote:Oops a little late with my post!

No, your fine. Estes had to get rid of some of the good parts before they could cheap it up. So yeah, you'll find some original like black widows and other engines made after '96 but once the parts started to run out, your start to find mixed engines. I remember reading on RCU some time ago that someone bought a NIP black widow from the hobby shop, it had a plastic (non stunt) tank BUT it had a stunt backplate. Ho do you fuel it??? Either Estes had no idea on what they were doing or they just didn't care.

They didn't care. The people over at Estes had/have no idea about the Cox line whatsoever. I pulled a Sure Start one time that had a beryllium copper reed that must have been laying forever in a mixed parts bin. Also another with a .051 piston literally shoved into the .049 cylinder.

Matt

EXModelEngines wrote:

Admin wrote:

EXModelEngines wrote:Oops a little late with my post!

No, your fine. Estes had to get rid of some of the good parts before they could cheap it up. So yeah, you'll find some original like black widows and other engines made after '96 but once the parts started to run out, your start to find mixed engines. I remember reading on RCU some time ago that someone bought a NIP black widow from the hobby shop, it had a plastic (non stunt) tank BUT it had a stunt backplate. Ho do you fuel it??? Either Estes had no idea on what they were doing or they just didn't care.

They didn't care. The people over at Estes had/have no idea about the Cox line whatsoever. I pulled a Sure Start one time that had a beryllium copper reed that must have been laying forever in a mixed parts bin. Also another with a .051 piston literally shoved into the .049 cylinder.

Matt

estes stuff is a bit TERRIBLE
i think we should have a thread for bashing estes

EXModelEngines wrote:Also another with a .051 piston literally shoved into the .049 cylinder.

Matt

I think that is the best Estes blunder yet! With the copper reed, the engine would still run. By switching out the plate on that black widow I noted earlier, it would run. But the .049 cylinder and the .051 piston, that is NOT going to run!


I have also started a thread on Estes Blunders since this could probably go on forever.