Amit started his assembly at CC#24, also in Barnwell, one year before. He went home and finished the assembly, and later returned to CC#25 in Florida to observe/socialize (popular with completed engine guys and flyers). For CC#27, Amit decided that he would rather do his break in run on the stand than his airframe. His aircraft is complete except some small wiring, but it was a simple matter to pull the engine in an hour and pack it up for the 400 mile ride to CC#27.
The engine ran beautifully. The film shows the actual first start. Even after a few decades of doing this and several hundred engines, I still like watching a number of cold metal parts in close formation that have never run together start and run smoothly in 2 seconds of cranking.
Note that the engine is not primed other than the accelerator pump in the carb, and it is starting on the points side of the distributor. So much for the arm chair engineers still speculating that long intake tracts somehow don’t work. They will still be speaking about that when Amit is out flying the plane and engine he made with his own hands.
Amit is many things, from skilled IT guy through devoted family man, but a year ago “Motorhead” was not on his résumé. Often, when you learn a lot of information, but it comes in sequential bite sized chunks, as building a Corvair does, you loose perspective of how much you have learned. Often builders are given a new overview of their learning and achievement at the moment of first run. A moment well spent in the company of other ‘traditional homebuilders’ at a Corvair College. -ww
