I was recently given an old 2 stroke Pope engine by a relative who had converted it to horizontal shaft with a Villiers cowl crudely fitted. Originally came off a mower. Not sure of model but it is the one which had the flat, oval fuel tank sitting behind which was fitted into three slots which were bent over a bit to hold it in place. They were a neat looking mower, rounded like a VW bug and looked a bit "space age" for the times. The base has long since gone to mower heaven, leaving only the engine. He'd been using it to belt drive an air compressor before retiring it to the back of his shed. It had been standing out for years in the weather. When I asked him about it he said it was just junk and he was going to throw it to the dump. He said it should still go as it was running perfectly before being replaced by a modern Honda engine. He could see I was interested in it and asked me if I wanted it. I wasn't going to say no and came home smiling from ear to ear.
Very rusty so I sprayed all the nuts and bolts with fish oil and left them a day or two. Pulled it down and find it has a Wico ignition system. Looks very similar to a Victa ignition system from the time. The coil tested good for its age. I have removed the points and condenser in hopes of installing a modern electronic ignition module. However the flywheel magnets are very weak and I've been told that if the magnets are weak on a Wiko I won't get the EI to work. As luck would have it there are hollow spaces behind the magnets which I have packed with rare earth magnets. So the magnets on the flywheel are now strong enough to hold a large screwdriver in place. The poor old air intake manifold had been jammed into another pipe to extend it for horizontal use, but I managed to cut it free only to find it has been threaded. I will fill the threads with JB weld and smooth it off so it can slot into the carby the way it should. I wish to return it to its original vertical format. I doubt there will be any Pope bases out there that might fit it as these are very rare, so in the meantime I will adapt it to fit an old H.G. Palmer base.
I have not been able to find anything about converting early Pope engines to EI on the internet. The setup looks so similar to a Victa that I am sure it must work, providing the magneto is up to it. I recently successfully installed an EI module on a 1970 Victa Mayfair, but of course Wiko and Pope were different so I am a bit concerned about the timing. I also wonder if replacing the Wico coil with a Victa coil could be the solution in the event that an EI fails to work. In my experience, so long as you have no more than 2 magnets, those EI modules are usually "intelligent" enough to detect the correct timing.
My question is, has anyone else ever tried an electronic ignition module on a Pope with Wico coil, or on anything with a Wico coil for that matter? Am I wasting my time even considering this, or is this a worthwhile exercise?
