Saving Old Seagulls

Guys this thread is dynamic now, from talking about how to take an old engine and get it to run in other threads, here we are making a more indepth project. I'm now realising the ideas I had for my engines and my boat design, are nothing short of basic. I'm now going back to the drawing board. First I'm going to use one of my Forty+ engines to try and get the best performance, once I get the understanding of doing so. Then I'm going to scrap my plans for a 10 1/2ft boat design, maybe add another 1 1/2 ft at least.

Will contact you about this once I'm more read up on the subject.

Gerard

As Charles uk has put some books on the thread, go back a couple of posts and H-A has given a link for the Jennings book. It's good I think, but I'm going to get a more basic knowledge first before reading this as I'm just learning mechanics as I go along here and some of the reading is a bit above me.

Jennings is the ideal first two-stroke tuning book, I don't think the copyright holders will be too impressed with that link, buying a copy might prove very difficult & expensive.

Bells book is current printed by Haynes & available & very good but they all concentrate on motorcycles.

I don't know who wrote the stuff in that long post, I thought I knew everybody who played seriously at Seagull racing, but if he wants to issue a challenge I'm more than willing "his rules".

Does anyone have the specifications or accurate measurements of the conrod centre-to-centre distances for the century and featherweight please? The two conrods I have are marked "Seagull 1" and "Seagull 2" respectively and measuring them in-situ is not quite accurate enough for my port timing calculations (more of which later if anyone is interested). Featherweights are SJM555R6 and F1777G2, Century is LLS735H6.

All Seagull conrods have the same center to center distance, 76mm!

Many thanks. That falls nicely in my range of 75.8 - 77.5mm as measured! Now to digitise the port outlines from the tracing paper.

Modifying a seagull allows you to make reasonable offerings to the god of speed with out destroying your bank balance. Best to create your shrine to her before you start. It has to be a she, as a modified seagull out board or any engine that has been modified for that matter, is as unpredictable as the wife. Making offerings is always a good excuse to attend swap meets surf the internet and waste many hours in the man cave without any other excuse.

Alas, for the world, whatever we humans touch, we eventually stuff it completely.

The desire to win, and especially the desire to win no matter the cost stems from an *evolutionary* trait learned and ingrained, hard-wired into the human psyche a hundred thousand years ago (give or take a week).

The trick is to prevent a 'pastime' becoming a sport, and the only way that can work succssfully is if there is nothing riding on the outcome.

Look at so-called 'professional' sports these days. No matter what anyone attempts to state to the contrary, it's all about the money, my friends. Sure, they still have to have a 'game' - also known as a set of prescribed and predictable manouvres.

Motor racing is a case in point. Even though the cars are mere silhouettes, WRC is still the most entertaining and interesting form of motor racing, because their is still that 'oh shit' element. Anything could and does happen. UNlike F1 which is a boring parade of very fast and very expensive petrol-powered advertising billboards.

Guarantee, Bernie Ecclestone will be long gone and forgotten, but in some quiet backwater of the world somewhere, a little Seagull will be quietly chugging along on it's regular business.

Buzzook

The trick is to prevent a 'pastime' becoming a sport, and the only way that can work succssfully is if there is nothing riding on the outcome.

There's an important point somewhere in there.

Rex