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Old 07-27-2009, 03:31 PM   #37 (permalink)
Frank Lee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Brillig View Post
I wonder what might be on the inside of the oil pan - perhaps a 1 gallon or so metal gas tank, set to evaporate in the heated up engine oil, the gas would evacuate through that funny 'air intake' and would probably break the test. Dumping gas in the oil would have the same effect of course. Excuse my skepticism.

Where is the intake air going in to the engine coming from, by the way, it is unclear from the picture.
I doubt there's a hidden gas tank in the sump. It is evident to me they burned volatiles from the crankcase "oil", which could be regular motor oil spiked with gas or two-stroke mix.

It's funny, I've seen pics of this thing for decades and yet yesterday was the first time I really looked at the engine pic to see what was going on. Then it became clear. That insulated funnel coming off the radiator is the combustion air intake. It goes straight to the crankcase. The carb inlet is fed by that large rubber hose going to the valve cover. To heat the air going through the sump in order to stir up the volatiles from the oil and combust them is partly (mostly?) why they went to such lengths to insulate it.

Another funny thing... there has to be a million stories about this thing online, and I've read many, many of them, but NOT ONCE has anyone commented on it's crankcase fume burning system... and the effect that would have on fe. Hell, I laid it out here and it didn't generate much response either!

Of all the techno stuff I laid out earlier, "outsidethebox" only talks about that stupid lab heat exchanger.
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