FHS Supply, Inc. - Red Max Model Fuels
Recommendations on Model Lubricants for glow engines

1. We make oils for ALL types of engines, including model engines: boats, cars, planes, & helicopters; larger engines: racing kart and motorcycle engines; regular and worn automotive engines; 2-cycle, 4-cycle, diesel, ducted fan, methanol-powered, gas-powered, nitro-powered. The best oil that we have in every category is our own FHS synthetic oil.

2. We make oil for model boat fuels with 65% nitro and higher. These engines are turning incredibly high rpm and are exposed to water during operation. The FHS oil used by the NAMBA Boat National 1st place Winners and World Record Holders is totally synthetic FHS. It is also only about 14-15% of the mixture by volume. Rust prevention is not a problem.

3. We make oil for Jr. Dragsters. These are essentially 5 hp lawnmower motors that have been maxed out to 30+ hp. These cars perform at a comparable level with actual dragsters based on their weight. Needless to say, engine lifetimes are usually measured in days or weeks. We have racers using FHS synthetic oil that race the same engine for an entire year or more.

4. We made oil for karters in the Palmyra "Ultimate" Races. These were 16 hr long continuous, non-stop races. FHS synthetic oils took 1st place for the 3 consecutive years of these races. In 1996 we took 1st and 2nd: that was 3864 laps, 580 miles, with 1st place 290 laps ahead of 3rd. At the end of this race, they tore apart engines and see what was left. FHS synthetic showed minimal wear.

5. Kirk Gray, 1st place winner of  the 1996 AMA Nationals - FAI Pattern Event. Kirk used several gallons of FHS all synthetic in the same engine each week. His 1st place championship was won on a shoestring: one plane with one engine. Only our synthetic oil provided the wear protection and consistent performance to last through all the grueling hours of practice and competition.  We have made improvements since then to make the fuel even better.

6. Shelf life: Fuels based on Castor have a maximum shelf life of about a year, and that value has been decreasing for the last while. Our synthetic based fuels have no known limit on shelf life. In fact, we had a customer call recently to tell us that he had found some of our synthetic fuel, still in the sealed container, from 14 years ago in the garage. He ran it and it performed as if the fuel were from a fresh batch!

7. Rust prevention: We had another customer call that had lost a plane in the swamplands in Florida. He found the plane 15 months later. The outside of the engine was, of course, badly rusted. However, much to his surprise, he found no rust at all inside the engine. He was able to clean the engine and fly it again a few days later.

8. Film strength: We have customers who race without oil! That is, they run the oil in practice for a few minutes to coat the engine, and then drain all oil from the engine. The film strength of our oils remain long enough for these racers to qualify without engine damage. And, since they are no longer encountering the viscous drag of the oil, they qualify in the top ranks! Note, however, that we do not recommend this practice.

As stated before, we have always recommended our fully synthetic oils for all types of engines. After that, we were content to let the customers decide whether they wanted any castor oil in their fuel. However, changes in the last few years in the way that castor oil is produced have modified our position. In the past, castor oil was manually pressed from castor beans. Nowadays, castor oil is chemically extracted from castor beans. A by-product of this chemical process is a chemical residue that separates in methanol and that glow model engines are quite sensitive to. This will appear as anything from a thin whitish cloud that is difficult to see, to easily visible large (sand size) particles, white to grey. Later, cloudy grey and black formations appear near the bottom. We have found that it doesn't seem to cause any wear problems, but causes many kinds of throttle and idle response problems. Currently produced castor oil, which is exported from places such as India and Brazil, is made in this fashion. All attempts to date by us and by our suppliers to remove these impurities have failed. The problem is aggravated by increased nitro and methanol percentages, and also by cold weather and freezing. The problem is hidden temporarily, but not cured, by heating, mixing, and filtering. It will just fall back out in a few days.

You don't have to believe us, but this is an experiment that you can do yourself. Just take your sample of castor, and mix it about 20% Castor to 80% Methanol or Methanol/Nitro blend (a typical fuel mixture). Depending on the quality, it can go bad in anywhere from a few hours to about two weeks. Put it in a cooler or freezer to speed up the effect.

This places our customers in a sticky position. Many of the model engine manufacturers (wrongly in our opinion) recommend all castor or castor-synthetic blends for their engines. We recommend FHS all-synthetic oil. How can the customer decide? One way to understand the situation from a historical viewpoint. In the distant past, only castor oil was used in model engines. It provided a certain level of performance that could be counted on. Then, many different types of synthetic oils came on the market. Many of these were much cheaper than castor oil for similar or almost as good lubrication properties. Fuel makers also found that they could drop the oil percentages instead of adding more expensive nitro to give a perceived increase in power. However, these engines then started burning out due to the reduced and poor quality lubrication and engine makers started to give engine warranties only for high percentages of castor oil. A few of the more expensive synthetic oils, however, gave performance totally superior to castor. One of these was our FHS synthetic oil. However, the damage had been done; the really bad synthetics had given all synthetics a bad name.

However, let me again point out that there are many different types of synthetics on the market. Some of you may recall one of the Toledo Model shows many years ago when FHS gave demonstrations of its FHS synthetic oil. The demo was a load bearing/extreme pressure test. Using pure castor, the maximum value was about 5 ft-lbs of  torque before locking up the mechanism, with the castor smoking heavily and burning away (it was a great demo too! - it made a horrible screaching and attracted lots of onlookers!). High quality motor oils gave better ratings, like 10-15 ft-lbs before lock-up. Using pure FHS synthetic oil, the value was around 200 ft-lbs, about 40 times the film strength of castor, and even then the machine never totally locked up. Since that time we have made even more improvements.

So, the current situation is this: our FHS synthetic oil is superior to other types, including castor. The currently available castor is not up to our minimum standards, and we get as high a quality of castor (Baker AA-Pale Pressed-equivalent) as any other fuel manufacturer. We recommend all synthetic FHS oil for all model engines, with a full guarantee for our synthetic fuel or your money back. If the customer still requires castor, we would recommend a syn-cas blend with maximum of 2% castor and the rest FHS synthetic oil. This at least minimizes the effect of the castor impurities that we have seen..

Compared to castor oil, FHS synthetic oil has better film strength, higher viscosity index, higher and lower temperature range, better wear prevention, better anti-friction characteristics, similar rust prevention, better throttle and idle response, does not leave a sticky brown residue, and does not need after-run oils.

Note: added 8/8/97
We have gotten a number of calls from people who have displayed outright hostility concerning the above information, calling it anything from misleading to outright lying.  They say that they have called castor oil manufacturers who claim castor is as good as ever.  For any other people of this inclination, please read this:  If we could get good castor oil, we would.  No questions.  It costs us less than our synthetic oils - we would make a better profit.  We have lots of people who ask for it - we could better serve our customers.  We use castor in some other applications - it would help us. However, we too have called suppliers, and they have sent us samples of the best castor oil that they have.  None of them have passed the test!  
For those of you who think that we are lying, don't believe us; perform the experiment described above for yourself!  We please ask you to withhold the anger until you have seen the results with your own eyes.

Also, some friendlier customers have noted the following:  If the castor fuel is filtered just before flight, it seems to run OK.  However, they observed as we did, that the residue would fall out again by the next weekend.  If you insist on running castor fuels, make sure to filter them before each flight!

Note: added 4/29/98
Our recent batches of supplied castor are somewhat better than those during late 96 through 97.  However, until we get consistent positive results with castor, we are still only going to guarantee fuel that is all FHS synthetic or a maximum of 2% castor blend.  Disclaimer: Due to recent articles in the model magazines and on the Internet, I would like to clarify a point. We are making no comments about the fuels made by other fuel manufacturers, we are only commenting on the quality of castor oil that is made available to FHS by our suppliers.

Note: added 3/6/04
The 2% castor blend has been pretty successful during the years since this problem arose.  This level gives all of the rust prevention and nostalgic smell of the castor oil along with the incredible protection of our FHS synthetic oils.  We recommend that the people who want castor stick with this blend for maximum performance.  Of course, we still recommend our fully synthetic as the best oil for the most situations.

FHS Supply, Inc. 244 Bethel Hill Rd. PO Box 9 Clover, SC 29710-0009 USA		Sales: (800) 742-8484 Tech: (803) 222-7488 24hr Fax: (803) 222-7285		Website: http://members.aol.com/FHSoil Google/Search KeyWords: FHS Supply E-Mail: FHSoil@aol.com Online Order: FHS Internet Order Form Road Directions: [Map to FHS]
Walk-In/Pick-Up/Delivery Hours: Mon-Fri, 9a-5p (other times by appointment/closed on holidays) Shipping: UPS and motorfreight/oceanline - All over the USA and around the world