Aussie Lockwood Rocks!!!

[Daz Man]

Hi folks, I have decided to start a new thread to carry on from "Aussie guys new jet". The engine assembly was completed at the end of that thread. This thread will now focus on all of the good stuff.........starting with an oustanding first test run completed a couple of hours ago. The engine roared into life at the first taste of propane vapour! You will see (in the attached video) the engine started with the tank upright then I tried rocking the tank side to side to see what a few blasts of liquid will do. As you can see the thing wants to take off! We ran the engine five times and the last section of the video shows a run with the augmentors on for the first time - starting on vapour then turning the bottle over....my god this thing shakes your inards and vibrates every part of your body! The sound changes with the augmentors on - a distinct roaring of air above the already outrageous noise from the engine.

Unfortunately my liitle digital cameras microphone is totally overloaded and therefore you dont get to really appreciate the sound but I can say the engine is VERY easy to start and runs real sweetly with what appears to be a very wide range of throttle available. As you can see my thrust measuring spring is inadequate - the engine just slams to the maximum travel and then lifts the whole front of the rig off the ground whilst running. I will be purchasing a spring scale with a rating of up to approx 100lb as soon as I can next get into town (I live 2 hours from Adelaide).

I will keep this thread updated with my thrust measurements and augmentor testing as they happen - but for now I am one happy camper.

[Mike Everman]

Fartastic, Daz! Nice build!

[Eric]

You should probably bolt that thing down! :D

Are you going to try to start it with the tank inverted now?

Eric

[Dang911]

What kind of injector are you using, and how did you make it? It looks like you are using the swizzle stick method, with great results!!!

[Mike Spike]

Cool!

[Daz Man]

I agree with the bolting down bit - it realy wants to get airbourne! One of the last runs we did was started with the tank upside down and the ball valve just opened a small amount- she starts brilliantly on liquid, just as easy as on vapour. The injector is a radial type with a twist. I will take some close ups of it tonight and post soon. The injector sprays in two radial arcs one at 90 degrees and one at about 45degrees, suffice to say it seems to be working perfectly. I made it out of my favourite injector material.....old pushrods - they are very strong with good ID and yet can be bent relatively easily and retain there shape. Back to work now...damm!

[larry cottrill]

Man, that is a couple of seriously nice runs - congratulations!

L Cottrill

[Daz Man]

Here are some pics of my injector........very basic really and easily made. The main circle of 8 holes blow radialy at 90 degrees and are positioned so that they are in the mid point of the inlet cone. The 4 smaller holes are drilled at approx 45 degrees and blow into the area at the end of the inlet tube / start of inlet cone. I basically decided to try this as my first injector and it seems to be just about right, I don't even see any need to run a vapouriser coil.

I can also report that I purchased a spring scale (0 to 50 lb) and checked its accuracy against a digital scale set - perfect. I then measured the force required to move my stand back to its maximum travel with the spring as used in the first run video. At maximum travel it takes 22lb of force, so I can be quite confident my engine is probably around the 55lb mark as when I ran it on liquid it slammed the engine to full travel and then lifts the front of the rig off the ground. More testing will occur next weekend.

[A.G.G.]

congratulations!

[Jonny69]

That looks vicious, I like it!!!

[Daz Man]

I have just completed some runs of the engine (in exactly the same setup as the video) with my 0 to 50lb scale attached to the thrust rig. Well the engine does live up to the 55lb claim. Running the engine (WITH NO AUGMENTORS) flat out on vapour (tank upright) with a fresh bottle of gas yeilds a dismal 12lb thrust, turn the tank over and my scale maxes out. What I did find is that the power declines after aboout 10 seconds on liquid and scales back to about 40lb - this is in direct correlation to the simultaneous decline in gas pressure as the bottle rapidly cools. This made repeated testing very difficult. I did have a second full bottle so I attached the augmentors in the same position as the video (fairly close to the engine) and repeated the same test. On vapour with augmentors the engine sounded smoother but was only yeilding 8lb thrust, turn the tank over and I was seeing around 40lb thrust. So I am a bit baffled - it seems from these very early tests that the augmentors are in fact reducing power even though the engine sounds louder (and smoother). The figures without augmentors are in my opinion quite good and even though my scale stops at 50 lb I can see that the dial was hovering in an unmarked area that would have been around the 55 / 60 lb mark. I am going to modify my augmentors mount system to allow for adjustments on the run.

Can anyone give me any ideas on how to deal with the bottle pressure dropping and corresponding reduction in thrust? I can tell you that the engine sounds much the same at 50lb or 30lb thrust. I have a 0 to 100lb scale on order.

[Eric]

If you have the injectors in the wrong place they will reduce performance, they would basically act as a thrust reverser on a plane if they are in the wrong position.

If you make your augmenter bracket adjustable on the fly, get the engine running at a stable level, and slide the augmenter forward and back, but hang on!

When you get it so that they start adding thrust they will want to push themselves forward ( if you are running at max thrust this can be quite a bit to hang on to and avoid the engine / fire at the same time), when you get too close to the intake/exhaust they will start to reduce in thrust increase.

If you just let them go they will likely push themselves forward so that they are overlapping the intake / exhaust which may cause the engine to flame out.

Eric

[James D]

You get extra kudos if you don't wear gloves.....

[Daz Man]

Hi James...how did your augmentor tesing go? That is quite a big one, did you achieve any worthwhile gains? Last night I modified my augmentor mounting rail to allow for a much greater range of positions that they can be set at. I am also going to install a vapouriser coil in the hope that it will reduce the problem of power drop off as the gas bottle rapidly cools. More testing should occur in 3 days.

[James D]

I'm getting about 80lbs with the augmented intake, I tried testing it in a few positions but ended up with a seven inch gap between the narrow part of the augmenter and the end of the intake flare.
The gap will probably depend on the size of your augmenter though, mine was 8.5" diameter and 14" long.

I will be interested to see what happens with your testing, I'd like to run mine more and do some fine tuning but the noise is a bit of an issue

http://www.pulse-jets.com/phpbb2/files/ ... ters02.jpg