How to design an engine

[editor123]

Can i use water pipe as cylinder liner?

There is so much work that goes into a running engine that using junk metal is not a good idea.

 

[pushrod_38-]

I have been designing and building my own 4 stroke aero engines since 1997 They are of the single crank type with overhead valves (open rockers) and cam gears driven off the crankshaft at rear. My book is not free; but the E version is fairly cheap. 'designing and building a miniature aero engine' Crowood Press. You can get it on Amazon and other places. I have made a lot of mistakes over the years, but my engines fly all my model aircraft and my book may cut some corners for anyone starting out.

 

[Tim Wescott]

A water pipe would be a poor choice for a cylinder lining, because it's soft and poor quality steel. I suggest that before you design an engine, you build a few from plans, as a walk before you run kind of thing. If you don't, then when your first own-design engine doesn't work, you won't know if it's from machining errors or design errors. The next step would be to do what most self-respecting engineers do -- shamelessly copy something that you like, with tweaks here and there that you think will make it better. Or do a shameless mash-up of design features you've seen in all of the plans that you've studied but haven't built, and see if it'll run. Note the key word that's repeated there .

 

[caribconsult]

A two stroke is a much simpler engine to start with. Below is an engine I built in high school. It was patterned after a racing engine of the time (1950s) and taught me most of what I know about machining. You don't need castings. This is a post on a very simple design and this is a plan book on several very successful, simple designs.

Lohring Miller

View attachment 95434

Looks a little like an old Dooling. Remember those?