Sound proof/ Deadening Enclosures.

[glort]

Been thinking about this for a while but a post today prompted me to start a thread to ask.

I live in Suburbia and while I haven't had neighbours in the houses either side of me for a while, The racket of my own engines means I don't run them as long as I would like. In order for me to put them to some real use, I'm going to have to shut the damn things up.

I have a variety of engines from Horizontal and Vertical China Diesels, a German Hatz Diesel, some Various petrol engines and the roid.
I'd like to start off with making an enclosure for the little Horizontal or vertical china engines that would be portable.
By portable I don't mean put it in the back of the car and take it to a picnic but I have a couple of Rolling frames around the place they would fit into and I'd like to enclose them.

Being they are aircooled is where I am a bit uncertain. Easy enough to put the exhaust out and put an inlet pickup from the outside but what are effective ways of ventilating the enclosure for the engine heat?
The greatest racket from these engines is mechanical Clatter so openings in the enclosure need to stop too much noise escaping.

For the walls of the enclosure proper I was thinking of using some plywood with insulation bats Glued/ secured  to the inside of it.  For venting I was thinking of a fan at the front and a hole at the back with a cover over them which was spaced say 4" out and ran down a foot so there was no direct path for the air/ sound to the outside of the enclosure. Again I would line the ducts with insulation material to hopefully suppress the sound.

I am concerned If I use an electric fan if something trips out and the ventilation stops and on that score, I was wondering about having the vents in the floor of the enclosure and at the top to allow for some draft to occur. How the air movement off the engine would affect this i'm not sure.

I would be interested to hear  and hopefully see some pics how other people have sound suppressed their engines Including Listers.
I'm not going to do mine yet as the house is on the market and no point ATM but I do want to set it up wherever I go to be able to provide power if ever I need it.
Being a water cooled engine will make the job a lot easier and I might also put it with my mercedes engine If I have room to build a large enough enclosure.

What have people found the best ways to silence their engines?

[highwater]

I have a couple of metal clad insulated walk in doors that I took of the garage.
they were rusted out at the bottom.
I was thinking about cutting off the rusted bottom portion and using them for some part of the enclosure somehow.
just a thought

Randall

[Tom Reed]

This is hard to do with most small air cooled engines. If you look at the designs of RV generators you'll find ducted air outlets and louvered intakes.