durabol wrote:
For the last few years I have toyed with the idea of building a
homemade two-stroke engine for UL use.

Underwriter's Laboratories?

What keyed my interest was
reading about homemade model aircraft engines and reading and watching
a re-enactment of the Wright brother's first flight with a replica
engine (not a two-stroke engine).

Has anyone made a 2-stroke engine from scratch? One may need to cast
aluminium, may need a lathe and milling machine with boring head and
hone or perhaps the boring and honing of the cylinder and bearing
journals could be farmed out. A commercial carburetor and piston could
be used. Two-stroke engines seem simple enough that home construction
may be possible, if not practical.

Certainly not practical in the "it saves you money" sense, but who cares?

A direct drive engine will be that much heavier when you take into
account the weight of the drive reduction system. I have calculated
the weight of an 80x80mm bore and stroke 2 cylinder opposed engine and
it was a bit under 40lbs which should give about 1hp/lbs. I used 10mm
cylinder and crankcase wall thickness and a 1.25" dia crank.

I have got some idea of port-time-area from the freeware computer
program called "BiMotion". I'm not sure how good the data is for
lowish speed engines but I guess it is a start. I have also worked up
a spreadsheet for similar information.

I don't think a reed valve system is needed for this engine since it
is only going to operate at a fairly narrow rpm range and the port
timing isn't critical. Piston ported valves offer similar performance
to other induction types but only over a narrow rpm range which is
what I have planned for the engine.

Piston porting isn't optimum at any speed -- crank-timed or reed valve
induction is much better.

But piston porting is certainly easier.

I plan to build an engine with a
restrictive exhaust to ensure no fuel escapes. I have heard that
piston ported engines can spit some fuel out of the carb at idle but
this doesn't seem like a major problem. Rotary valves via crank shaft
induction (disk or drum valves as well) is an interesting idea but I
don't think I need the critical timing they provide.

I was planning on using the largest two-stroke piston (not a diesel
piston) I could find and using the largest stoke that was reasonable,
something like 90x105mm

I'm still a home-built engine wannabe, but I'm working on it. Here are
some resources:

http://www.lindsaybks.com/prod/sub/engines.html
http://www.modelenginenews.org/

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com