Smithsonian Motor-Works Review

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(More customer reviews)After reading the reviews, I ordered this with some trepidation, but I really wanted an educational model of an engine. I built it with my 8 year old son in a few hours, although I ended up doing more of the work. I found the pieces to be pretty good, and the process of screwing the screws into the plastic was a good compromise between ease of assembly and robustness of the resulting joins (but having a good-quality screwdriver of the right, small, size makes a big difference). The directions were adequate but a bit hard to follow at some points - it certainly helps if you have some idea how a real engine works so you can see what it's trying to do.
The puzzling part is that when we got it running, it was clear that the valve opening and spark firing made no sense. As reported elsewhere, it turned out we needed to resolder the wires to the electric motor in the opposite polarity to make the engine spin in the correct direction (fan spins clockwise when viewed from in front). That made the valve sequence more plausible, but I had to rotate the distributor cap far beyond the suggested range to make the spark plugs fire at close to the correct time. And after reversing the electric motor wires, the firing order became 1-2-4-3 (instead of the expected 1-3-4-2). However, this is a valid firing sequence, and it appears to be consistent with the cam assembly specified in the instructions. Perhaps the model was designed for a non-north-American firing order, but then someone decided to reverse the electric motor to get the "expected" firing order (at the cost of many other aspects)?
On balance, I still think the model is really good, and I probably learned more as a result of trying to puzzle out why it wasn't behaving the way I expected. However, I worry that kids all over the country will build it as specified, then spend ages trying to make sense of a model that, until modified, doesn't properly reflect 4-stroke operation.

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Build an authentic, working engine and learn the mechanics of how motors work. Valves rock, spark plugs fire and pistons drive the crankshaftInternal and external moving partsOver 100 working partsBattery-operated moving engine Includes screwdriver and instructionsReady, set, build your own engine!Safety warning: This product contains small parts that may present a choking hazard for young children.

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