After many years, which included some unfortunate mechanical setbacks, Russell Sutton has his nine cylinder radial running with a 300 horsepower Sensenich propeller mounted, generating 800 pounds of thrust. For those of you who have come in late, this is an engine, designed from scratch, cases milled from aluminum with nine cylinders from Honda XR600 motorcycle engines. And if you did come in late, you should check our many previous articles, it’s quite a story.

As the photo above shows, he mounted a supercharger to be sure he had sufficient power for the 300 horsepower prop, but the engine easily ran through the prop’s rpm limit without any assistance. Russell figures it could spin a 350 horsepower prop without trouble. Not bad for a home brew engine, don’t you think?

In the video below, with the engine in a trailer, Russell takes us on a short walk around before firing it up. It sounds absolutely smooth and obviously powerful. After all of the work on this project, it’s great to see it all come together. What an amazing engine!

The next two videos show the engine, still in the trailer, but hooked to a Toyota truck. The only power moving the truck is the push from the propeller. He says they had an easy 40 mph on the dirt and 60 mph on asphalt.

From our first look in May of 2008, when he was already several years into the project, until now, it’s hard to appreciate the time, effort and perseverence needed to bring this project to the end. Really great work Russell!