Ardun Minature Flathead Engine

Have you ever seen a Mini Ardun Flathead?? Ron Bement of Denver, CO has built an Offy, a Flathead, and is currently working on this Ardun. The engine measures about 7" long and all components have been made on his CNC machines. Ron is progressing very well on this miniature Ardun Ford flathead mill. He's finished the heads, water pumps, oil pump, and most of the other internal pieces. He expects to have the block finished in a few weeks. It's hard to imagine what is involved in building one of these engines from scratch. Ron thinks this will make 28 hp on methanol when it's finished!! That's a lot of hp out of such a tiny engine. It will have a Hillborn injection on it... like the one on his miniature Offy. Ron machined copies of the famous Hillborn injectors. These are the smallest known copies in the world and have greatly increased throttle response on the Offy engine over the previous 4 carbs. These are exactly like the originals... only a whole lot smaller. To understand just how small these are...... The pill (which is what the jet is called) was a real problem. Finding something to make the jet out of was very difficult. There wasn't any way he knew of to drill a hole small enough... he'd have to use something which already a hole and insert it in the tiny brass pill. At first he tried using a needle diabetics use.... the size of the hole was 31 gauge, or less than 0.002" in diameter. It was way too big!!! He needed a hole less than half that size! He eventually found what he needed..... in Sweden. The Ardun will run their own Hillborns since the Offy is a smaller scale. It's drilled for water and oil. One picture has one of the heads laying on top of the mill. Another has the deck of the block laying next to it... this holds and accurately locates the top of the cylinder liners. Just thought you might be interested.