olzed said:

I could bolt an extra flywheel to the existing one, and that would not effect the starter operation.

Brian.

Dang you are full of great ideas! Nice one! ...and so simple.

Very impressive. Nice work!

Really cool! Nice work!

This is so awesome, great job!

You said you were going to do it and you did. GOOD JOB

You could use a 100 pound Olympic weight to slow it down.

If you are trying to slow the motor using added flywheel mass you need to do one of two things;

1) mount the mass using a clutch so you can turn the motor off without the weight in play.

OR

2) install compression releases to allow the motor to freewheel once you are done running.

Also keep in mind that having all that rotating mass can make a small problem into a big mess if something goes amiss.

I would look at dropping a cylinder once the motor is up and running, that should slow things up a bit, try pulling the plug wires one at a time and see what that does.

I look forward to seeing the finished project as well!

Thanks for the ideas. I have tried removing spark plugs 2 and 3 and it will run, sort of, on two cylinders, but not happy on one.

Maybe the drag of the piston rings is holding it back.

I have a spare flywheel that I will bolt on and carfully give it a go. This thing only needs to idle, but a runaway flywheel even at idle

would not be a good thing. We have a club show early Feb. and we want this to be running for that, so I don't want to experiment any further at this stage.

Brian.

I've been away from my computer... sorry. Sounds like you're on the right track.

FAIW, the big, one-cylinder marine engines that were used by watermen around here were all started by hand. They would simply turn the engine's huge flywheel to a sweet spot just past TDC, power up the ignition coil, and bang -- it would start running. If you convert to fewer cylinders, don't forget to block off their intake ports -- at least the #2 and #3.

You know, i didn't think of blocking off the unused intake ports . Doh!!

Thanks for that Sarah.

When our shows are finished I will do a bit of experimenting with two flywheels.

I'm not following the logic of the blocked off ports and removed plugs, isn't the idea here to use the drag of a working, but not firing cylinder, to slow the RPM while still being able to start up reliably on three? I must admit I haven't been following this thread that close. So if I'm off base just tell me to shut the heck up.

That is very cool.