"durabol" wrote

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.

A direct drive engine will be that much heavier when you take into
account the weight of the drive reduction system.

I am assuming you meant to write "will _(not)_ be that much heavier",
right?

If so, when is the last time you saw a direct drive 2 stroke aircraft
engine? Not me. Closest I can think of is a model airplane engine, and
that is only practical because of the small prop sizes. If you put a large
enough prop on a 2 stroke to soak up 50 hp, you will have to keep rpm's way
down to keep from having a real noisy, inefficient prop. You keep the RPM's
that low, and you now have a real inefficient 2 stroke engine. That is why
all 2 stroke engines have gearboxes or belt drives to reduce prop speed.

You might do well to consider a 2 stroke supercharged diesel engine. You
make one of those, and make it scaleable by adding more banks of cylinders,
and the flying world will beat a path to your doorstep.
--
Jim in NC