Flying Lines: The Nova 3.5

Since I was a kid, I’ve loved Italian engines. SuperTigre, Rossi, Nova Rossi, and now just plain Nova.

It’s been a while since I bought a factory new engine. In fact, the last time was probably when I flew Fast Combat and F2d!

My latest fascination has been the .21, or 3.5cc, engines. I have a raft of older Nova Rossi engines, I have even invested in expensive rework on some of them. Since I’m a motor-head, I do follow the RC car guys and some of the seeming ridiculous engine rework they go through. I say that with respect to the phrase “if it works, then it’s okay.” I cannot argue with some of the things I have seen them do to a crankshaft as long as it’s put back into balance with some tungsten inserts to the counterweight. There are a “number of port race” in that arena, and the winner is whoever has the greatest number of them -- I think it’s now up to 10 ports! There is NO speed advantage for more
than three intake ports. There may be some throttle transition advantage, but I go for all out speed.

Having said all that, I just purchased a Nova brand x3b three port engine. Nova, not too be confused with Nova Rossi, makes car engines, the x3b is a buggy engine so it runs on dirt. I do like many of the things they have been doing with their engines and that includes good bearings, ported backplates, smooth crankshaft fuel entry. I’m not entirely sold on the carved-up crankshaft, but it is balanced, so okay. The head I assume, is set as a mild racing design with a decent looking squish band.

I could not disassemble Luigi when he arrived. My Harbor Freight metric hex wrenches were not up to the task, so I purchased some bonded hex wrenches which fit properly and that did the trick. What is interesting is that I wrote the factory and asked what the machine screw sizes were, they wrote back but got the head bolts wrong, 2.5mm not 3mm. Don'tcha love it when you get to be right?

So, I have an almost Speed engine that I do NOT have to hop up! This is like buying from Henry Nelson. What I will need to do is to send dimensions to Dick Hart in Scotland so he can make the spinner portion for this plate of spaghetti. I hate to do it, but will need to break out the wheel o' death and cut off the long extension of the crank shaft. Sigh ... the things I do to fly Speed. Also will need to turn down the outside of the case so it fits into a cowl. When all this is accomplished, I’ll send another picture.

— Kenny-b

The cylinder head.

The liner.

Another view of the liner.

Piston and crankshaft.

Ported backplate.

Another view of the ported backplate.

A View from Broadway

Romancing the Nova

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