Once in a while an opportunity arises to shed some light on a question which has been raised in the past by others. Such an opportunity came my way recently during some focused research into Russian engines of the hard-line Iron Curtain era. I found an entry on the late Ron Chernich’s fabulous “Model Engine News” (MEN) website about a 1950’s Russian engine which had completely escaped my attention - the MKS-14 (MKC-14 in Russian script).  Ron commented that he had never run across so much as a reference to this engine in any modelling magazine. I wasn't even aware that such an engine ever existed!

Just for fun, I went to the trouble of translating the page that Ron attached to his brief article. This came from a 1958 book on model engines written (in Russian, naturally) by a well-known Russian competitor of the day named Oleg K. Gajevski. No wonder there are no references - it turns out that this was an experimental prototype designed by Gajevski of which only one example was ever constructed! It used the same cylinder and induction system as Gajevski’s prototype MK-12K high-performance diesel but was configured for mounting in a speed model having a minimal width for reduced drag. Gajevski claimed that it developed 0.35 BHP @ 16,000 rpm and attained speeds of up to 170 km/hr in a model.

So don’t bother looking for one of these units!  Your chances of finding one are somewhat less than the chance of finding the Rock of Gibraltar stashed in your carport!

Another very welcome piece of assistance with my research into Russian engines came from my valued friend Peter Valicek of the Netherlands. In addition to providing some very useful images, Peter was kind enough to send me a searchable pdf scan of the entire text of Oleg Gajevski's previouslty-mentioned 1958 Russian-language book. Although written in Russian, this book was easily rendered into intelligible English using Google Translate. It shed an enormous amount of light into the hitherto-obscure development of Russian engines from the late 1940's up to its time of writing. Many thanks indeed, Peter!  

As is so often the case, I received reader feedback on both of last month's feature articles. Maris Dislers wrote in with respect to the article on the twin-stack O.S. 29 sparker of 1948. In that article, I expressed some puzzlement regarding the seemingly strange screw threads used in the assembly of that engine. Maris has expressed the view that these are almost certainly examples of the old and long-outdated JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) metric series. I haven't been able to find a thread data chart for this series, which fell out of general use over 50 years ago, but Maris's suggestion appears to be entirely credible.

Maris has also drawn my attention to the existence of a personal relationship between Japanese industrialists Shigeo Ogawa, Sochiro Honda and Kenichi Mabuchi. This apparently arose from the shared WW2 experiences of the three men.  It seems that Sochiro Honda may have made the excellent crankcase dies used to manufacture the early post-war O.S. engines. I've added Maris's input to the article, with my very sincere thanks.

I was also delighted to hear from none other than Gordon Cornell with respect to my write-up on his outstanding TR 247 team race diesel of 1960. Gordon was able to set me straight on a few of the details covered in the article, including a few chronological errors. I've incorporated Gordon's comments into the article, with my sincere thanks.

Gordon also expressed the view that the fuel which I used when conducting my test of the engine had compromised its performance unduly. Readers will recall that I used my standard test fuel of 40% kerosene, 30% ether, 28% castor oil and 2% ignition accelerator. Gordon suggested that I should have used a mix containing 50% kerosene, 30% ether and 20% oil, to which no more than 2% accelerator should be added. He stated that his own tests on the engine had found far higher levels of pertformance than those which I reported. 

I agree completely with Gordon that the use of a fuel such as that which he suggests would almost certainly result in an improvement in performance - I said as much in the article. However, I have to say that I very much doubt that such a fuel change would result in the kind of performance increase that would be necessary to match Gordon's figures. I can't suggest a plausible explanation for this discrepancy other than to suggest that Gordon may have used a skinnier spraybar than the rather conservative "range bar" component that was fitted to the engine as received. I  suppose that we'll just have to leave it there. I still maintain that the level of performance which I measured even with my "slow" fuel was an outstanding result for a 1960 team race diesel fitted with a range bar carburettor setup.

Sometimes a reader's response to a given article comes years after its initial publication. A case in point was my 2014 piece on a remarkable example of the Rivers Silver Streak Mk. I which I acquired in 2013. Over five years after the original publication of this article, Alex Phin of Redfin Engines read it and contacted me with a few suggestions regarding the possible identities of the originators of this engine.

Between us, we ended up contacting surviving early 1960's Northern team race experts such as Derek Heaton, Malcolm Ross, Norm Kirton and Bernie Langworth. Norm Kirton confirmed that he used a tuned Silver Streak, but he was quite definite that this was not his engine.  He also believed that he was the only top-flight team race competitor from "oop in't North" to use a tuned Rivers.

Happily, Malcolm Ross was able to provide a quite credible suggestion. He offered some persuasive evidence to suggest that the originator of this outstanding motor may have been Tom Pasco, a well-known member of the Thornaby club who was partnered with Bill Healy in team racing. The pair were primarily Class B racers, but they dabbled in FAI just for fun, quite successfully on occasion. Malcolm’s comments on this possibility have been added to the article, with my sincere thanks.