two-stroke brain fart idea

[Kevin Percy]

The rotor for the starter/generator on the Villiers motor in the Penguin and Beaver is keyed onto the crankshaft so there is no bendix. I believe that golf carts used a belt driven starter generator, so again no bendix. If I remember correctly the way the ignition cam is ground on the golf cart the ignition timing is correct for reverse. Is the driven on the golf cart torque sensitive, with a helix ? I have a Snow Cruiser snowmobile with a speed sensitive driven clutch, it has no helix. The movable half of the driven slides on pins so it would not be affected by direction. It is a Salsbury unit if I recall correctly and this Snow Cruiser has no form of reverse.

[Canadian_Zuk]

I've owned several snowmobiles with electronic reverse. It is accomplished through electronic timing, when you engage reverse the spark is cut and on the final revolution the engine will fire back up in reverse rotation. I've had Polaris and Bombardier machines with this feature, the only "real" negative is you cannot stay in reverse for any length of time as the engines are starved for oil while running in reverse, the oil injection pumps only work in forward rotation. I guess if you wanted to premix your fuel this wouldn't be an issue any longer.

Trying to adapt an engine to reverse rotation would require a fair amount of work, settting it up to run well in both directions is a HUGE job.

[TheDog]

Any 2 stroke will run in reverse. Only major factor that comes into play is spark timing. You either need a coil set to the opposite timing or electronic ingnition to set the timing. This is a common issue in the Goped world.

[Jezzah]

I had a 1970 Mercury 250ER snowmobile that had reverse. You had to shut it down, hit a switch and restart it and it ran backwards. It was a real advancement back then and the coolest looking machine.