Taipan Series 66 Diesel
| Name | Taipan Series 66 Diesel | Designer | Gordon Burford |
| Type | Two stroke, compression ignition | Capacity | 1.5cc |
| Production run | unknown | Country of Origin | Ahstralia |
| Photo by | RC | Year of manufacture | 1966 |
Notes:
The Series 66 Taipan 1.5 Diesel is a totally delightfull example of Gordon Burford's engines and to my mind, represents the pinacle of his development program. It is a powerfull, easy starting engine with not a gram more weight than needed, yet rugged enough to withstand the rigours of a beginners attempts (both at starting, and learning to fly). It follows the well developed Taipan design philosophy: steel shaft with a splined prop-driver, riding in a cast iron bushing pressed into an aluminum die cast case fitted with a screw-in backplate. The hardened steel liner screws into the case and has three peripheral exhaust ports cut into a flange that seats the liner. Transfer ports are cut, angling up into the three posts between the exhaust ports giving exhaust/transfer overlap. Poston and contra-piston are cast iron; the con rod is aluminum and an aluminum cooling muff screws onto the liner. One departure from previous designs is the needle and spraybar assembly. Instead of a steel needle in a brass thimble, the Series 66 uses an externally threaded steel needle screwing into an internally threaded brass spraybar--maybe Gordon's haberdasher had at last run out of those #15 steel darning needles that he liked so much!
There is a resemblence of the case to the later Series 67 Glow, with the latter being left shiney, while the 66 is blasted to an attractive matt grey finish. However a close, detailed examination will show that the 66 case has a web between venturi and cylinder mount that is absent on the glow. There is also a small, mysterious flat on the front of the series 66 cylinder mount; again absent on the glow. This engine came to me the long way: via two trips over the Pacific Ocean, as can be seen by the stamp on the instruction leaflette.
