American Educational Plastic Gasoline Engine Model, 13" Length x 8" Width

Good for older kids. This explains and shows the way an engine works. My son pointed out that the product is hand painted in places....meaning that it is not machine perfect, but everyone thought that it was an excellent working model.

My wife works as an inventory analyst for a company that manufactures equipment that uses gasoline engines. Although she is fairly mechanically inclined, she had no education regarding gasoline engines. I purchased it so I could show her how pistons, valves, camshafts, flywheel, sparkplugs, manifolds, etc. all work together to produce a rotating gasoline engine. She found it very helpful and has it on her desk at work. She recently asked me for a link to where I purchased the product because several people at her work also wanted the product. For those that say the quality is poor they are somewhat correct in that it is not a robust product that can be miss-handled. You can't abuse the product but it you are reasonably careful it makes an excellent teaching tool for anyone that doesn't understand the basic concept of a gasoline engine.

Despite my low rating, I actually like this little model. It does a good job of illustrating the basic function of an OHV four-stroke engine. I'm a trades teacher, and I bought this thinking I could use it as an illustration in my small engines and automotive classes. It cycles through the four strokes basically properly (valve timing isn't perfect, but it's close enough and it looks like you can adjust the lobe positioning with a screwdriver if you want to be picky), and the lights were a cool feature while they worked. And that brings me to the list of problems with this unit.First, all three lights (there are lights on the intake and exhaust ports as well as the spark plug) burnt out within a hundred cycles of the hand crank. The spark plug light (which for the record, lit up during the entire compression stroke, not just at the detonation) burnt out first. Initially I thought maybe I was to blame because I let it sit on the compression stroke for about 30 seconds while I inspected it, which was when it burnt out. But I never did that with either of the other two strokes, and those bulbs burnt out fairly quickly as well. By the time all three bulbs were burnt out I hadn't had the box open for an hour. I used two standard AA batteries in the battery box mounted on the bottom of the model.Poor product quality was also found in the paint on the model. It looks very sloppily hand painted. The paint is splotchy and inconsistent. Also, the chromed "flywheel" and gears (besides the screws and pushrods, there is no real metal to be found on this model) are inconsistently sprayed and leave many spaces with poor or no finish.Lastly, the model is very lightweight. You have to hold it down with one hand while you crank it. This is an inconvenience as a teaching tool, especially if you're a teacher who talks with your hands.In the end, I like the clarity of the model, but the build quality isn't the best. I think I'll try to exchange mine to see if the lights are a fluke, and if not I will probably keep the replacement and make some modifications to it to serve my purposes. There is a much more well constructed four stroke model on Amazon for a little more than 3 times the price of thus model, so I may try that model as well and I'll update this as needed.

You must have experience and knowledge of how a 4 stroke works before buying this because the timing of everything is way off. Like it is more confusing the helpful if you don't tune it to properly function and open up like a 4 stroke does. Mine was acting like a weird 2 stroke but with the adjuster screws and was able to move things around and getting it function more like normal.

If I could give it less stars I would. I needed a display for a career day presentation I’m doing at my wife’s school. First of all the lights worked for about 2 minutes and as I was rotating it, they all 3 burned out. Next the timing was off. Ya I know they’re kids they probably don’t care but I do. The timing was off that the exhaust valve opened immediately after the intake did on the compression stroke. I had to take the main gear off and retime it so it was right.

Very cool

Good concept but one of the lights went out after demonstrating it a couple of times!! Sad it was not showing the sequence it was supposed to for the students.

it says you can hook it up to 6 volts, put in 2 aa batteries (3 volts) all three light bulbs burnt out in just a few minutes, 1 wire fell off one of the bulbs, and one of the screws that hold one of the cams was stripped out, don't waste your money on this garbage,it was, at best, a disappointment, and as you might have guessed due to poor quality it was, of course, made in china..