About 15 years ago, a local FedEx pilot and competent builder built a 2/3 scale
Spitfire and used the 4 cyl Blanton / Ford engine/ Turbo and actually flew the airplane
two or three times. At about 2 hours total time, the engine had a destructive block
failure during taxi. The builder donated the airplane to a museum and went on to build
a full sized replica of a Bristol fighter, and recently completed a RV8.  His name is
Ed Storo and if you would like to get a testimony directly from him, I would be glad to
locate his phone #. I
personally think you would put your life at serious risk to fly this combo even one
time. You need to pick an engine that will give you much better odds. Please do not
take the comments on this forum as personally critical - it appears you have made a
decision based on some inaccurate information from someone.     Herb Sanders

Thanks for the support Bill and Herb. It is a fine line sometimes between information and
personal insults or personal attacks. Please AI don't take anything
I say as a personal attacks or insults.

Looks like Mr. Blanton's Voodoo engineering strikes again from the grave
no less :-)>  Will he ever RIP?  Scary!

Paul Lamar

Yes, I'd very much like to talk to him!

No, pure information is never personally derogatory.  I asked for you
guys input and thank you very much for it, positive or negative.
Because my conclusions may be incorrect doesn't mean I think I'm being
attacked.  I very much welcome the responses.  If I can find out why
these things break, or what methodology makes this unsound, I can make a
better informed opinion as to whether continue or switch engines now.
Money is a HUGE concern, but safety always has the overriding vote 8-).

Full load static ground engine tests (with the prop) should indicate
whether problems like Mr. Storo had will occur in this one quite early
in the game.

AI Nut

AI,
As you already know, most of us on this list have gone thru the same decision process that you are now performing and decided that conventional auto engines are a big risk.  My personal concerns were the exhaust valves and crankshaft.  I have serious doubts that exhaust valves that are not sodium filled will stand up to continuous 120 HP levels.  The valve stem is just too small to reject the heat.  Titanium valves might work, but have their own problems as Monty pointed out.  My concern with auto cranks is that they usually do not have an adequate (if any) radius on the crankshaft journals.  I think that the engine you are using does have a forged crank and you could examine the crank for this feature.  If not, you know that the crank will ultimately fail.  If you build this project, be sure to run the engine at high power on a test stand for several hours before flying.  Lastly, Bill Freeman, Monty Roberts and Paul Lamar are SERIOUS engineers who can actually go out to the machine shop 
and build what they design - take their council seriously for they know what they are talking about.
Ken Powell
kenpowell@aristotle.net

 
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