Chorus Gull Motor Swap

Having gained a new lease of life as a result of the float conversion, I was a bit disappointed when, after a few months of flying off water, the motor quit on me, resulting in a rather hurried dead stick splashdown. After waiting a while, everything came back to life and I was able to taxi the Gull back to the shore. However, the motor and ESC were both pretty hot, and I was forced to the conclusion that the combination of the additional weight and drag of the floats and a bit of extra power from the new 4s LiPo used on that day had just pushed this powerplant over the edge. Given that it was a cool dank day in the middle of the so-called Summer of 2012, the message was clear - if I wanted to enjoy reliable flying with this model in anything other than the depths of Winter, a change in motor was called for.

	As it happened, I was getting increasingly frustrated at the cramped battery location in the Capiche. A self-inflicted problem which resulted from the use of a heavier than necessary motor which had just happened to be available when the rather overworked EMCG 3720 pulled itself apart. The Chorus Gull already has a load of lead in the cowl so the plan was hatched to move the heavyweight C5055/06 - 580 motor into the Gull and buy a more appropriately sized motor for the Capiche. As you can see, the mounting arrangements for the geared Aveox inrunner were rather complex, and at first the prospects for the conversion didn't look good. Fortunately though, the basswood bearers you can see in the heading picture were not glued in position, and so, once they were out of the way, a bit of building up of the firewall enabled the outrunner to be screwed in place.
Unfortunately the new motor was just a shade on the long side so it was necessary to build up the nose ring to avoid an unsightly gap behind the spinner.

The last little difficulty concerned the adapter nut for fitting the spinner cone. I didn't have an adapter nut which would fit the 10mm thread on the prop driver. This problem was solved rather crudely by drilling and tapping the rather nice alloy spinner nut which came with the motor, although this has subsequently been replaced by a custom made adapter nut - thanks Robert!

	Finally the nose job is complete. Any doubts about whether all the effort was worthwhile were dispelled on the first flight. The Chorus Gull now has power in reserve so take off runs can be much shorter and, more importantly, aerobatics are much more enjoyable for knowing that the power is there to get out of trouble. Now I just have to fit that new motor into the Capiche. . .