Nieuport Project Page 14

The engines are perhaps the most important single parts of our Nieuport 11s. Paraphrasing some words from that famous baseball movie "if we wait long enough . . . they will come." We researched to see what others have been successful with and also which engine each one of us was most familiar with and then looked around, and waited, until we had what we were comfortable with and at a price that was very reasonable.

John is farthest ahead with his engine -- he has all the parts and it's about "good to go" but he is behind the others in the wing construction.


This is Ray's BMW motorcycle engine. He rides a BMW motorcycle and has BMW engine parts and extra engines. Others have used BMW engines for experimental aircraft and have written about their conversions. The advantage of the BMW engine is that it already has a small generator and starter motor built-in. Ray has to make some necessary modifications including a reduction gear -- either belt driven or a Rotax 503 "C" redrive.		The VW engine has been used very successfully for aircraft over the years. John waited, and waited. Finally, this beauty, a 1915 cc with Vertex Magneto, became available for only $1000! It was removed five months earlier from a gyroplane whose owner wanted a different engine (a Subaru). It has only about 100 hours on it since remanufacture (everything re-done for aircraft use). Besides the Vertex magneto and Weber carburetur it also has carb heat with in-cockpit temperature probe. John was able to purchase a 60x30 prop from a sale by the RFA (Replica Fighters of America) which he belongs to.


Ralph is going with a tried and true "real" aircraft engine (even though we told him it has 1930s technology). The dual ignition was his main reason. This is a Lycoming 65 (O-145). He has at least one of these and a lot of extra parts. This is his engine on a cart just underneath the firewall portion of his Nieuport.		John used eBay to buy this nice add-on VW engine sump at less than half the store-bought price. Note the oil pump extension. Regular Type 1 VWS often blink their oil lights going up/down hills because of the low capacity of the stock oil sump just under the crankshaft.


This is a side view of the add-on oil sump for the VW engine. Note that the top of it fits on the bottom "ring" where the oil drain/screen is. This sump will add about 1.5 quart oil capacity to the engine in addition to the extra half quart added by the external oil cooler.		The engine gauges John bought from both J.C. Whitney and Airparts. He purposely bought electric-sending tach, oil pressure, and oil temperature gauges to prevent any problems with vibration breaking oil lines or temperature sending lines. The tach is a bit large, but it is for a max of 4000 rpm rather than the usual 0-6,000 or 8,000 RPM which would put the actual engine cruising speed (around 2700 RPM) in the left corner of the gauge. The Westach dual CHT and EGT gauges have add-on lights in case John is still flying as it gets dark! The bottom gauge, the fuel pressure gauge, was won on eBay. If this seems like a lot of engine gauges, at least John should know why his engine stopped, causing him to go down!

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