Obviously keith71 has never seen or worked on one of the wonderful products fron India.

Good luck with that !

Gary

Yea, my DES already had a wrong piston, etching on one of the lifters, bent camshaft, used cylinder bore...and I haven't even assembled it yet....

I'm sure my list will grow but I will make it a good runner once its done...

I was taught crossing the boundary layer was a no no and one must keep the flow laminar. Now your telling me turbulence is ok at the boundary layer. I feel like I may have missed out by avoiding the port altogether..Oh well I'm married now and don't have to worry about getting turbulent in the port.

WOW 38ac, thats a pretty big difference is size. I'm starting to wonder if the original lister team was focusing on some modified atkinson cycle type gains with this motor. Less compression ratio(low intake volume) vs expansion ratio. Thats one thing I love about the motor is the RPM / HP vs Displacement. Leaves lots of time to absorb the energy and keeps the numbers high for such an old design.

You are right though, best way to get more power is to go with a twin. I'm picking up an 16/2 as soon as the budget allows for my gen head. Then I can use my 8/1 for my low RPM always on axial flux CHP. Who says you only need one motor? I missed that rule. I'll just tell the wife the other motor was getting lonely....

Here, what is called "steel wool" is hair fine fibers of steel, which actually burn and rust up real easy. 

Something from a boat yard called Brass Wool (for scrubbing finish and crud off boats without leaving iron bits to create rust streaks) wouldn't oxidize as fast, but may melt from heat.   Maybe stainless wool ?  or something like coarse stainless chips & spirals from a machine lathe

Mike,

I know you posted this a while ago but if your looking for a high temp wick, ceramic fibers work really well. The alcohol stove folks use it all the time.

Veggie, you have so many cool engines.

That water pump you have on there may have a longer life if you rotate it 90 degrees so the impeller/magnets ride on the ceramic shaft. Also, im curious what temps it see's with this setup. I've worked with many of those pumps. Is it a 2 phase or 3?

I love your builds

I was hoping for an easy fix for you. If the valves where hitting the pistons, you would see marks on top of the pistons. Have you gone over it with a stethoscope yet? I know sound can travel and magnify in bell shapes but I would give it a go if you have one. You might be able to isolate the noise to a location.  I use one daily working on cars all these years. Also, how about posting a video with it running? Maybe someone here can recognize it. Bottom end noises are usually a deeper noise then valve train. Piston pin issues usually have a double clatter type noise. Piston slap and rod bearings can change during load transition but you really cant float/tap the throttle on this motor.

One other thought i had is timing gear backlash. though I think that rock back noise happens at over lap and not before exhaust valve opening. I don't even know if this motor has over lap...I guess its worth a look if you run out of ideas. Might be worth a try to load your flywheels with a 2x4, but is sounds like you've checked them thoroughly. Also, if you feel comfortable with this, try pushing down on the rocker above the push rod and make sure the lifter isn't sticking up a bit and getting slapped by the cam. You could probably actually check it with the motor not running.

Keep up posted on progress,  I'm pretty curious to see what it is.

I tried that but he is gone, cleared out, disappeared, maybe the CIA got him.  I left him a PM on Microgen, but he hasn't replied or read it.  I too found his knowledge useful and easily overlooked his abrasiveness.  His insight into everything WMO/WVO is unequalled.  If you do happen to go past him, please PM me his details.  I know EdDee is also keen to contact him. Thanks, Peter

He had some really good ideas on drying WVO. I think he had a youtub channel, but I can't find it now. This forum seems to have issues with users disappearing and post vanishing.

gadget,

Sure, you can insulate the head.
Like this guy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2ehdeEJOok

You can also run it slower and add a thermostat to keep the combustion temperatures high.

You can also load the engine up to 85% of the HP it creates at that lower speed, ensuring that it's adequately loaded and making as much heat as possible.

Good luck with the project, and be sure to post pictures/videos

veggie

Wow, that video was just uploaded 2 days ago, talk about timing. Glad to see someone else using insulation, hope to here back how it works. I'm thinking some rockwool with a nice sheet metal cover, it does look pretty hideous like that.

If anyone gets a chance to read the PDFs Hwew posted I recommend it. Lots of good info in there. One thing mentioned is a very lightly loaded diesel could see as high as 500 to 1 air to fuel ratio. This is a big contributor to the stacking or coaking issues. Think about this, lowering the engine RPMs down to match a light load may actually be better in some circumstances vs running at full RPM with a light load. Veggie mentioned it and I agree, matching load to RPM is something to consider. But what about bearing "lugging"? I think in a diesel it would smoke profusely before and "lugging". Anyone have any thoughts on this? I don't think it would be a problem but thought I would ask anyway.

My motor is still disassembled in boxes at the moment. I started a new business and I don't have much free time. Right now, I'm building a new (larger) freeze dryer for the business and I don't know when I can get back to the motor. I will post pics/results once it gets going. Plus, its about 30F in my garage right now

If I do go the low RPM route, I would do a once a week full RPM / full load exercise combined with some water injection. The higher air volumes can do wonders to push out soot. We had a Mercedes diesel get stuck in full fuel once in a shop and it ran full RPM for about a minute. It left a pile of soot on the shop floor where the exhaust pointed down. The customer reported back no problems with the motor and that it ran better then it had for years. I'm not recommending anyone try this...lol