The single cylinder Dispro E1 copper jacket engine is now over 100 years old. A distinctive feature in Dispros of the 1920’s, this engine provides as much of the character of the boat as the hull does. In the hands of an experienced Dispro captain, they are reliable and simple to operate. For the novice, the levers and knobs are a mystery of complexity.
Anyone who has run a petrol-powered hand tool knows that every internal combustion engine depends on a few basics that boil down to the ratio of fuel and air to be ignited by a spark. An engine won’t start without fuel, but too much and it gets flooded and spoils the plug. At least in the E1 and similar single cylinder engines, you have only one cylinder with one spark plug to focus on. But controlling and understanding the optimum fuel to air mixture is where the excitement begins!
Fortunately, engines like the E1, are all easy because their operation boils down to simple fundamentals of spark, compression and gas. There is no computerization, nothing more than a battery and a buzz coil. Ian Dickson, an avid Dispro owner explains that the Dispro engines are very simple and straightforward to start and run.
The starting process, put the timing about half way plus, put a little gas in the primer cup, about half a cup when the air is room temperature. You can either pull the hand crank or spin the flywheel by hand. There is a starter mechanism that turns the flywheel. Turning the flywheel causes the buzz coil to send high voltage charge to the spark plug which ignites the gas. The buzz coil uses electricity from a small battery to create a high voltage, low current charge that becomes a spark between the terminals of the spark plug. And the engine shall run. Moving the spark advance lever causes the engine to speed up to match the speed of the spark.
By Tim Du Vernet
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