Radial engine car

aeronca65t wrote: Just FYI: If that motor runs (or even turns), it's worth a fair amount in the aviation area. I'd put it up for sale in Trade-A-Plane and buy a regular engine with the profit.

In the thread he answered a similar comment that it was bought it off the open market for cheap. It's apparently not actually worth anything.

mad_machine wrote: I just want to know how he is going to keep those lower cylinders cool..

^ This. Even big scoops on the sides may not be enough. Than again, how fast did the original planes fly, 60-90 mph or so?

He says something about ducting and big electric fans and oh my. I think, if it were me, I'd put the biggest engine driven fan I could on the part of the engine crank which faces the rear of the car, then make ducting from the cylinders to the fan. That way it would 'pull' air across the cylinders and still be able to take advantage of whatever ram effect there would be from the car's forward motion. There was something about cylinder head temps needing to be under 550 deg F.

According to him, those engines originally had just one carb and the ignition advance was done manually. He has mentioned both a megasquirt type EFI setup and using 5 big motorcycle carbs along with a crank trigger type electronic ignition. Whichever way he goes it should be interesting to see just what happens.

I would love to see the video of it just starting.

Somebody on that thread it is on brought up another radial.. the ones where the crank is solidly mounted and the cylinders spin.. how does one fuel something like that do throttle changes?

There is no throttle. Full on. Full off. Later engines could cut out cylinders. Total loss oil system running on castor oil. Bad enough that the fumes would give pilots the e36 m3s.

http://www.animatedengines.com/gnome.shtml

just what you need when flying...

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Gnome's carb was mounted on the crank, which was of course hollow. That meant the carb was right in front of the pilot, not a good place to be during a backfire. The vacuum operated valves in the head of the piston and the cylinder head weren't exactly timed well, either.

The guy building the LeMons car mentioned some serious oil consumption, like 2.5 quarts an hour. I guess it's a premix/total loss system? I know nothing about radial aircraft engines other than they look damn cool.