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Thrust Update 2003
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GenI Kioritz built John Deere Liquifire 440lc/23

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This is the John Deere 440 I got from Rob_Tilton. He sent me pics and made a video of him starting it before I bought it.

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This is my latest attempt at more thrust. It is a 440cc liquid cooled two stroke snowmobile engine capable of producing about 55hp with a redline of about 7000rpm. The fan is geared to turn at 3000rpm max. The engine has lots of compression. It only has a pull starter right now but if it proves itself to be a good engine, It will get an electric starter.

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The exhaust fit really well. It has lots of room for heat dissipation too. I have a 2" tailpipe on it that puts the exhaust gases out past the thrust duct.
The electric fuel pump is to help the lift engine. Both engines have mechanical fuel pumps.

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A pair of 34mm Mikuni carbs.
The radiator is from a motorcycle. I may put it beside the fan mount til I find out if it's enough to cool the engine.

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The drive belt is a Gates 4/3vx500. It is a 4 band common back that is 50" long. It will be covered by the engine hood to keep the water spray off of it.
The pulleys are built by Universal Hovercraft. The bottom one is aluminum and the top one is wooden, both are 5 groove.

I decided to go to a 2 stroke engine because of it's power to weight ratio. The 20hp Honda engine is a very efficient engine but just didn't have enough thrust because the craft is so heavy, especially if I needed that little extra to get out of trouble.