Bill Reichart's Engines

[RobWilson]

Hi all , I am thinking of starting a new engine project and among my collection of plans i have a few by Bill Reichart's, Panther,Bee and
Epicyclic, has any one built any of these engines?
Rob

 

[RonGinger]

I built a version of the Panther Pup. I suggest you do not build it. There are many flaws with the engine, and there are many much better plans around for similar size engines.

Among the problems I see are these- even Bill could never run his for more than a minute without overheating. Mostly I think that was because it was brass and air cooled.

It has no oil seals on the crank or camshaft, so it throws oil all over. It also has no oil pump, just counts on splash in the crankcase.

The rocker arm is a very poor design- he has it as a tall T shape, pivoted at the base of the T. Than means it does more wobbling side to side than pushing down on the valve.

There are better designs around, Seal, Sealion, Mastif some of the Wall engines, the Holt and some of Dale Dietrich (sp?) designs come to mind. Jerry Howell has a neat V4, as does Bob Shores. You will put a lot of work into any multi cylinder engine, start with a well designed plan.

 

[RobWilson]

Hi Ron, Cheers for the advice, he dose say at the start of the books that the engines are not designed to run for along time, i was thinking of doing some mods to the panther, but from your experience it seams it would need a fare bit,i have plans for all the engines you mentioned ,bar the v4 by Jerry howell, I was just looking for an engine that's a bit differant
i have been solid modeling the BEE Engine and have found a fault with the inlet port as it is covered by the crankcase. ???
Started modelling The epicyclic engine today and all seams to fit so far.
Have you solved any of the panther engine faults? would a fan flywheel like Dale Dietrich fit help with cooling ?
Rob