"Stealth Pilot" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:38:56 +0000, jan olieslagers
wrote:

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who plans to power his single-seat
slow flyer with an engine from a Citroen Visa. I suppose this engine (a
linear descendant from the famous Citroen 2CV) is not well known in the
US, it is an air-cooled 2-cylinder boxer, in this particular application
it would produce some 45 HP.

My friend absolotely wants it in the plane as it is in the car, i.e.
with the clutch side rearward (the plane is a traditional "puller"), and
wants to take power from the clutch side. His idea is to have a belt
reduction "behind" the engine, then a transmission axle above the engine
to drive the prop. Now I'm sceptical 'cause I heard all kind of bad
things about transmission axles driving propellers, vibration not the
least. But he answers the axle needn't be long, as the engine is only a
2-cylinder.

Any thoughts / ideas / comments / experiences?
TIA,

if you hunt out the cd on the micro imp (there is a web site) you will
see pictures of molt taylor's effort to use one of these engines to
power the prototype micro imp. he gave up on it after extensive
tinkering failed to achieve anything like the published power figures.
( where have we heard that before :-) :-) )

if this is a much improved version of the motor you may have
success.(you may not)
molt taylor solved the vibration problem using his flexidyne drive
unit. you could make one of these from the drawing details on the cd.
all of his notes and photos of the project right up to his death are
on the cd. it's an interesting browse. almost all the details of his
engineered drive shaft are there in the drawings as well. from memory
some of his calculations are absent.

Stealth Pilot

If you are talking about the Flexidyne coupling, those were and still are
made by Dodge (now Baldor Dodge) which has a web site at:
http://www.dodge-pt.com

The Flexidyne coupling is a soft start device that acts as a centrifugal
clutch, rather than a dampener or soft drive system component; but is
reputed to solve some very low frequency (resonance on starting) problems
and appears to have a wealth of accessories and mounting methods available.
I have no personal experience whatsoever, but I do recall that the units
were a feature of more than one of Molt Taylor's designs--including both the
IMP series and the power pack system that merged a pair on engines to a
single propeller.

Peter