OT Possibly but interesting

Definitely interesting! Guess there must be some kind of sliding seal between the cylinders and outer ring - wonder how it fairs in the longevity stakes? I reckon it would make a nice cyclemotor engine built into a wheel a la Cyclemaster ;-)

What an unusual design! 10 out of 10 for originality.

IMO, there is no seal. That spark plug you see will have had the earth electrode removed and merely transfers the HT voltage to the 'real' spark plugs in each cylinder head via a small air gap. - like a rotor arm and dizzy cap (working inside out if you follow?) It's a 2-cycle engine I think, bits obviously pinched from model aircraft engines.

Julian.

"Julian" wrote (snip):-

What about the single exhaust port in the outer ring - I took it that this communicates with each cylinder in turn?

"Nick H" wrote

Further - looking at how squat the the engine is, it is hard to imagine that there is room for a conventional crank and con rod - some sort of scotch yoke arrangement perhaps? That would only make sense if it was a four rather than five and would also introduce the possibility that it is a four-stroke as the yokes could run on a cam, fitting each complete stroke into 90 degrees. Does anybody have more info?

True, I never really noticed that bit, I had the exhaust exiting the rear of each cylinder barrel like a 2-stroke. It's a very odd design, I wonder what his rationale behind the design was? Something like 'because I can' perhaps...

Julian.

Look here and you will see a drawing:-

A very interesting design. Main drawback would seem to be lubrication and perhaps sealing the ports.

I like the way there is only one port in the cylinder though which serves for induction, exhaust and ignition.

Would be quite a simple design to mass produce I would think.

Alan

"Algernon" wrote (snip):-

What a mouth-watering selection of models! Bit different to the toy shows which ME exhibitions in UK have largely become. Nice to see I wasn't too far off on the Hale rotary. I guess one might describe the bottom end as a cam driven rhombic linkage - all very cunning.