It was certainly a kit. It had or has many of the issues commonly described, like sand/slag/iron in the case, and in my instance a big chunk of that stuff that was partially blocking the sump. Looked like a paper wasp nest but was mostly iron and sand. I ended up melting most of it out with a torch as it was not responsive to pounding or prying. Most of the bearings looked pretty good, I did pull a shim from a rod big end. I'm not certain that all of the alignment is absolutely correct as far as the main and cam bearings, but everything feels good by my poking. I've felt far worse in running equipment. I didn't strip it and hot tank it, rather spent a day poking, brushing, washing along with some disassembly of the already assembled base. I probably missed something someplace but I feel that I got most of it. It's on its 3rd oil change with less than 3 hours of run time as well...Had a few minor bent or missing parts with the kit, one of the water manifolds had a hole drilled out of alignment, I simply enlarged the hole and it fit. Dieselgman was super helpful in hunting down a missing 9" stud from the kit and mailing it down. Also had a bottom oil ring and spring that was just loose in the cylinder instead of on the pistons like all the other rings, it probably was popped off when they packed it. I used it, it didn't quite sit flat on the table the whole ring was a slight spiral, but looked ok otherwise and when put into the ring groove it looked ok, so we took a chance on it. On the bright side the cylinders both had a nice cross hatch and felt consistent when pulling the pistons through by hand so that part at least looked fairly well done. The idler gears felt pretty good by my hand as well, time will tell if they settle in properly or start to self destruct.
The cart is built purposely over heavy and wide to help with stability. Probably 500lbs of steel in it. Running it on the cart is ok after almost 3 lbs of lead weights. without them it was a jumper and a wiggler. Interestingly, most of the hopping seemed to be on only one side. with the weights the cart remains in place with out any movement of the wheels on concrete. This is at rated engine speed, as well as most speeds down to off. I would not call it vibration free, but at least I can read the thermometer now lol.
The PTO shaft was designed to match up with some equipment we have as well as a couple of fans that we use around the shop or in the case of the larger one, the yard. It also makes a convenient way to power the radiator fan. I also will have a 12" flat belt pulley on the crankshaft as well for power take off. PTO runs at 325 rpm.
The shop fan is a 60" propeller fan that has been adapted to accept either electric power or shaft drive power. Here it is on shaft drive:
The yard fan is an airfoil blower that has been mounted to a cart and accepts power via flat belt drive or shaft drive from either end. this also can function as a pass through, as seen above. This fan also has oscillating louvres I fabricated to sweep the airflow. This allows the fan to cover a much larger area. With the fan running by PTO it delivers enough wind to cover several thousand square feet of yard on a calm day, sweeping cycle is three times per minute. Uses about 4hp at that speed, and isn't noisy. The fan is well under rated speed at this figure and if turned at rated speed (3625 rpm) it would sap nearly 70 BHP not counting driveline loss. I think at that speed it would thrust itself halfway to the moon if all it was tied to was the little cart.
We use it while working on something out in the open or have set it up on one end of the yard for an event and cooled 100 people. (don't worry it gets fenced to help keep 'em out of the works)