Marvin Story's Smoke System

Once again, we stole an idea from someone smarter than we are. After we saw Marvin smoking up a storm at the Columbia, MO Salute To Veteran's Air Show we "went to school" on his system and built our own. We all ended up using the windshield washer tank from a 92 Dodge Shadow since it has the pump built-in as a unit, but we think any type will work. We added a small garden tractor battery to the firewall to power the pump. That's the only electrical thing in our planes. The tank/pump combination MUST be mounted lower than the manifold or a siphon will form and drain the tank when you get into the air. (Been there, done that, finally figured it out.)

The manifold that distributes the smoke oil to the 4 exhaust manifolds can be made out of about anything. Dick Lemons made ours. The hose MUST be a plastic or nylon hose. The smoke oil eats rubber right up. (Been there, done that, finally figured it out too.)

The little nipples on the exhaust were silver-soldered in 1 1/4" inches from the head. (And NO, we don't know why we decided on that dimension. You can do anything you want with them.

You might want to buy several of the tanks if you can get them. If they've been out in the salvage yard in the sun for a long time, they get kinda brittle.

(click on the thumbnails below to get the larger image)