I'm going to be following this thread along because partly it's an interesting engine being a radial sleeve valve engine, partly because undoubtably I will learn a lot (already found how to make spark plugs!) and partly because it's really quite an ambitious project build, so there will be some interesting techniques to witness and admire! So I wish you the best of success and very much hope it comes to fruition and runs well.
Now, I know this maybe will seem like teaching granny to suck eggs, but beware of excessive clearances especially sleeve to liner. I have built a small bore (0.7875") single cylinder sleeve valve engine which hasn't run yet. Part of the problem is acute lack of compression. The cylinder has an aluminium barrel, with a cast iron liner, a hard steel sleeve and an aluminium piston with cast iron rings, and a junk head with a 'piston' ring type seal. The head seals to the liner top well.no leaks. The liner is a tight sliding fit in the barrel. The sleeve bore was honed so as the piston was a fairly neat sliding fit too, plus the piston has two rings to correct clearances. But I neglected the sleeve to liner clearance. Must have got sloppy in the measuring or just had a senior moment. Or both probably. Measured them after getting no compression and found sleeve to liner had a clearance of about 0.005", not much but enough to loose all compression straight back out the ports. Currently remaking a liner which will be a lapped fit with the sleeve - I hope that will do the trick!
Chris
