Took Friday afternoon off to go and help Nick Meikle with the water scooter engine. The thing has loads of compression and practically no flywheel so Nick had been having trouble getting it over more than 'lump' with the comedy pull starter thoughtfully provided by Vincent.
Anyway, we strapped it to a heavy steel trestle and after much priming, pulling and sweating it was away - what a racket! The exhaust system consists of a approx pipe from each cylinder leading to a length of thicker pipe and then a narrow tail pipe, no baffles, packing or anything else to dull the effect. This may of course have all been part of the Water Scooter experience, but in a concrete walled back yard it was a bit much.
A length of flexy pipe and Burgess silencer reduced it to a bearable level, trouble is we could then hear the dreadful mechanical noise the thing was making. Two-strokes shouldn't sound like that - time for a bit more investigation, can't be too much wrong though as the engine appears virtually unused.
NHH