ORIGINAL: Lifer
Steve,
Thanks for the reply. Sorry if I struck a nerve.... The reason I was asking was that some time ago, Henry told me that the 23 would have the ability to rotate the cylinder thusly placing the muffler to the rear of the engine. This would have made a narrow profile for a plane like the Mustang and eliminated the need to buy an aftermarket muffler.
I'm sorry you got burned. It seems that just about everybody has had this experience in this hobby to one degree or the other. Mine was with with a couple of magazines and one expensive arf. Sounds like you took a much bigger hit, though.
Again, thanks for the reply.
No worries mate - no nerve struck there at all, I just wanted to clarify the situation.
The 23cc that Henry referred to was the one I prototyped and got ready for production. The 23, the 32 and the 38/42 (same engine, different Bore) all had that feature for the reasons you list. However to do it right and to get the power levels we got, the cylinder casting tooling was expensive due to the need for 2 thrust faces to be built in to the cylinder wall profile so it is unlikely that you will see the feature properly done on any of the "Low cost mass market" engines.