I think this has been mentioned before but there was a guy in England who built a car with an Merlin engine. The one he used came from a tank. In 1973 he was showing it at the Hot Rod Show in Stockholm, drove it there in early March (winter and icy roads) on a record time.
When the show ended he fired it up and drove out of the hall and back to England. Unfortunatelly it caught fire on the return trip and was completely destroyed. I was there and saw it. As Charley says these engines start with rich fuel. After about five minutes on idle there was at least a two foot layer of black smoke in the halls ceiling. So you better stay outside if you start it.
I have another moment with those engines. When I went to tech-college we had one such engine in our lab. We had a project trying to start it up and we did it. What a sound. That one was a brand new spare that RAF had brought to Sweden after the WWII to fix stranded bombers that had made emergency landings. This engine was left over and donated to our school. It had been there for 30 years before it came to life. One memorable moment for sure.
Jan
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