"Modat22" wrote in message
...

Dan

The generator head I'm looking at is designed for 1800 rpm and
requires a minimum 50 shaft horsepower. A car engine with a modified
cruise control (use as governor) will fill that bill easily.

I don't trust belts much.

I would bet money that your Ford Escort will not provide 50 HP @ 1800 RPM,
you will need to run the engine faster. Those small cubic inch four bangers
usually produced their HP at pretty high RPM's, 3600 RPM may get you there,
2/1 ratio with belts.

What size engine is that Escort engine?
For example Generac runs a 1.5 liter in their 25 KW standby generators. They
run them at 3600 to get enough HP to spin them. That same engine is run at
1800 RPM on a 15 KW generator.

They do make a 25 KW that runs a 2.5 liter I-4 that runs 1800 RPM.
On their 30 KW that runs at 1800 RPM the run a 3.0 liter V-6.
On their 40 KW that runs at 1800 RPM they run a 3.9 liter V-6

You may be able to run at 2400 RPM with a 1.33 ratio.

If all else fails you can run it at 1800 RPM, but it probably will stall the
engine if you try to load the generator 100%. You may be can load it to
15-20 KW.
Direct drive with a Love-Joy coupling would be the simplest.
Greg