This is an authentic Working P&W R2800 Radial Engine. Everything here is real, and setup to show history. This particular engine was manufactured by Chevrolet in the 1943 time frame. Watch to find out more about it and hear it run!
Fantastic engine! It is heartwarming to know there are people who are skilled enough to work on these engines and get them up and running. What a great way to turn gasoline into noise (music!))
Very nice restoration project you have there. Think Pratt and Whitney called the R-2800 Double Wasp whereas the R-1830 was the Twin Wasp. I am an A&P mechanic by trade and a good friend of mine owned a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt fighter plane that I helped him maintain. Running up that old Pratt and Whitney R-2800 engine and feeling how powerful it is during mag checks never gets old. Taxiing the Thunderbolt around the airport to do engine runups was a lot of fun. Those were fun times. My father flew the Northrop P-61B Black Widow night fighter once to escape a snow storm in Seattle, Washington after delivering a B-29 Superfortress to a mod depot there in 1945. Only planes they had to fly out were 10 brand new P-61B Black Widows. A Captain checked him out in the P-61 and he was able to beat the snow storm. The Captain sat behind my dad in the gunners chair on the trip to the Boeing Factory to make sure he was flying the plane correctly. Dad met his co-pilot at the Boeing Factory in Wichita, Kansas so they could pick up a brand new B-29 Superfortress and fly it to MacDill Field in Tampa, Florida. When my father showed up at the Boeing Plant with that new P-61B, my dad's co-pilot was so jealous and he called him a showoff and said you just had to fly that Black Widow to meet me here didn't you? The Captain flew the P-61B back to Seattle by himself. My father and his co-pilot had interesting conversations about the Black Widow on the trip back to MacDill Field in their new B-29 Superfortress.
Grandfather flew an F4U and every time we talk about the r2800 a slight glint in his eye appears and a smirk. Like "yeah I controlled that beast and flew it well!". Amazing the stories behind those cylinders.
Im a survivor of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band plane crash in 1977, and we were on a Convair 240, with Pratt Whitney R 2800, We ran out of fuel at 8000 feet, and the NTSB said we should have had 170 gallons of fuel. I'm making this short, but I hope in the near future you will respond. We had a Torching in the right engine the night before at about 1500, feet and the pilot were flying ( auto rich ) both times. As we were running out of fuel on the day of the crash, I saw fuel coming out in a arch I assume being pushed by the fuel pumps. The short of a long story, what kind of problems can torching create. Input is welcome from all, and I can give you a lot more details of the event.
Nice!!! What a Beast!!! This engine design became a legend in several of the WW-2 planes., and was still used on several cargo/personnel and some attack / bomber planes in the Korean and South-East Asian conflicts...And it continues to power civilian cargo planes, fire-bombers and vintage aircraft... What an amazing machine!!! This man must have had a real good time restoring it !!! Great job!!! I wonder how much fuel it gulped down in that short run? Whatever it drank, it was worth every ounce of fuel, hearing it RUN !!!
He had a 10 gallon tank, but really only used about 3 or 4 gallons... I would have figured it would have been more, but really, he was not pulling that much power out of it. If he had really pulled the power, it would have probably sucked the tank dry!
Yes, I know that this sound is real and not substituted. Have a look to my engine, than you see and hear, what I mean. Radials are the best fuel to noise converter.
Sure, Turbojets were a big advancement, but they simply don't have the distinctive sound of the "bangers" ...and I ain't talkin' 'bout sausages! LOL! Fact is, both Turbo jets and Turbo fans sound like big vacuum clraners!!!😉
A PIECE OF WORK, MAN...They built 135,000 of them! The PW R-2800 is the most reliable piston engine ever built since the WW II...It was still getting built new in 1978 for the Canadair CL-215! I spent one summer in France-Marseille and watched them flying these at full throttle (balls actually stuck in the wall...REALLY!)and at 1000 hours, toss these engines out and put a new one and went away, again full throttle! I was throttle back as normally and these guy zoomed by me going 30 miles hour faster!(balls in the wall, of course!)
Running rich as hell but still sounds good. The exhaust system appears to be from a Convair 240. In 1965 I was a young mechanic for an airline operating the Convairs, and every night I got to open the cowling and discover broken and loose parts of the exhaust just waiting to be repaired. Broken pork chops, figure-eight clamps, loose exhaust studs all needed attention. The engine is older than the exhaust system. The model seen here has the earlier, high-tension ignition system, while the R-2800 CB16 engines on the 240 had the later, low-tension ignition. Glad he was able to find enough parts to get it running.
Yes, this one does have an electric starter. Note the video at 1:49. the item with the white wire connected to it is the starter. They basically had 3 types of starters. Early part of the War they had "centrifugal starters" which was a manual hand cranked fly wheel that spun up prior to engagement. 2nd was a "shot gun starter" which was a cartridge fired starter that us. 1 Cartridge, 1 Try and hopefully start. In the later part of the war they were almost if not all electric starters.
I've had a running argument with my brothers as to the elite fighter of WW2. Frankly, with this motor in both the F4U and Hellcat, you were covered on either side. OK, there are lots of P51 adherents, but the radial aspect of this engine(as opposed to the non-radial Merlin) made these aircraft able to not only take it in the air, but also conduct air-to-ground missions with much greater endurance.
Worked Northern Air Cargo a number of years ago when all they had were DC-6's and two C-82's. Did engine build up and have some experence running these engines. Normal shut down is cut the mixture, no fuel no fire and it coast's down. Then once it's stopped then cut the mag's. On start up (cold start) open the throttle up about the width of your thumb. These big motors need air to get them turning. Once it's up and running slowly bring the throttle back to whre it idles smoothly.
It has been said that more types of aircraft in WW2 were powered by the R2800 than any other. I read a technical paper on the development of this masterpiece. The biggest problem was preventing crankshaft failure do to torque vibrations in the center main bearing. Curtis Wright solved the problem, but Pratt Whitney had to bypass their patents. They did so and made a very long lived engine family. I heard that Pratt Whitney stopped production in 1963.
Also until the motor has warmed up don't expect it to idle on the idle stop! There is a LOT of iron in them and they don't run well till they are hot. You have spent a great deal of time an effort on this project so one last suggestion try not to feater or snap the throttle like a motocycle or big block V-8. If my boss caught me doing that he would break my fingers.
Lol. Who needs a Merlin when you got a big A** Pratt & Whitney. Yep the orchestra has more than one instrument hahaha love the sound of good motors. Merlin's included.
What is the HP without turbo super charging ? Can these engines still be purchased for powering personal aircraft ? What does a REbuilt engine like this cost ?
I may take you up on that! Question: Does it use an electric starter? I've noticed that the prop on an R2800 turns as it's starting, whereas some other radials (such as the FW190) make a growling noise, followed by a quick, high pitched whirl, then the engine coughs to life. I think that's an inertia starter, but I'm not sure.
Hi, engine is started with a direct cranking 28,5 Volt electrical starter with very high torque. I have a Curtiss-Wright R-3350-engine, started the same way. Some engines are started with a flywheel starter, that means, a heavy metal wheel is accelerated to high RPM with help of an electric motor and wth a clutch the kinetic energy is tranfered to the crankshaft. This makes the whiny noice you will hear during this procedere. Hope I could help. Regards Andre from Germany
Very cool! Do you always run the prop in feathered/semi-feathered condition or do you actually increase your prop to normal operating condition? Even though it's a small prop for such a large radial engine, I'd think that if you increased prop to full, it'd push your truck around like a tonka toy...lol. Also, do you have plans on installing the engine into an aircraft for actual flying use, or is it no longer airworthy? Thanks for posting this video! :)
4000- to five thousand at 2700 rpm, and it varies with altitude and options as turbo and mw50. The last models were 3400hp probably at higher speed so torque falls off due to the equation
Was this filmed at the Eagle's Nest, in Waynesboro Virginia..? I live here(there) and use to go there to watch the planes land and take off...a 2000 foot runway...I know Andy (a pilot) that use to take me up...and let me fly the plane for awhile that...I love that place...I know like in LONG ISLAND NY...I MISS THAT PLACE.........
Those were unintentional and the cause was from a piece of trash in the Carburetor! but it did get some attention.... Hearing protectors certainly help
Sparkie, looks like you have a "Ham Stan" on the prop. You really should have used a "club". And looking at the stern of R2800, Wasn't a very good vid, but I would swear that I only saw 1 mag. Well, I don't do much with round engines. =Stefan=
the R2800 is the Double Wasp. Here's the P&W Wasp Family Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp Pratt & Whitney R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior Pratt & Whitney R-2000 Twin Wasp Pratt & Whitney R-2180-E Twin Wasp E Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major
@@sparkie951 the only reason i can think of is that he did not want it blowing at himself while running the engine. I am sure the engine is never run for very long to over heat it.
WOW! Question... In the video you can see what looks like a flame shooting out from something on the right side of the engine... It doesn't look like it's coming from where it should be... Explanation?
You are exactly correct... A piece of trash got into the carburetor mixture which resulted in the Back Firing of the engine.... The Flames you saw are from the Carb mounted on the back of the engine.
WTF??? Chevy was making P&W engines? I had no idea! Oh well, I guess it's no different from Packard making Merlins! Q: Did Ford ever make monster engines like this??? This Guy here should build some kind of crazy car or big go cart with this engine! That would be AWESOME!!#
Yes, During the war, Chevy as well as other manufacturing plants made lots of WWII Supplies... More than just Chevy and Pratt made that engine, others did as well, but cannot remember the names.
@@sparkie951 During WWII, Chevrolet built 4282 2800's, Nash built 18,163, Ford Motor Co. Built 57,637. Ford built more 2800's in 5 years (1941-45) than P&W did from 1939-1960 (54,620).
Who knew Chevrolet made these? I knew Dodge made most of the engines for the B29's . It was great that America's industrial giants stepped up & made stuff that won us the war.
The prop is only there for a load. You cannot run the engine with out a load because of overspeed issues, and without a load it will shutdown unexpectedly on you, Hence why your car has a Flywheel before the Transmission. No Load, No Run.
it should be turned off by lean mixture not by rich- rise rpm and lean mixture and when it start to stall put full throttle and it will stop very soon with no flame and bangs
It was not known at the time, but the carburetor had a piece of something in the Carburetor that prevented it from Shutting down correctly. that was not the usual way it worked.... However, due to an incident with an Elderly lady rear ending it, it was unable to be repaired.
It was not a timing issue.... It turned out to be a carburetor issue. Three was a piece of trash in there even though you would have thought it would have blown it out. A rebuild of the carb fixed the issue.
If a living person is dumb enough to get near it when it's singing they deserve what the outcome is going to be. It would be sad thou to waa a great machine on a idiot😂
Weird, I lost all interest in my airplane engines as soon as I got them home. Still sitting where I parked them in my shop, and I have 4 of them... lost interest in the airframes too. I found a better way to fly that doesn't require me being in any cockpit.... and after that, i never looked back.
