flame gulper Pop Mechanics 1938

A vacuum engine built according to an old article " A candle runs this engine", (no author name) published in Popular Mechanics Vol. 70, p. 927-928, Dec 1938 issue. It was republished in a French translation in "Le Bricoleur" (1959) vol 5, n°4 p. 87. Editions Mécanique populaire.
This is just an overhaul of an engine I have built years ago, a good runner, from which I only had old and hardly visible videos.
This engine runs, clearly, but not with a candle alas, as it should according to the title of the original paper...
At the beginning of the video, the tiny motive power is visible as a kickback while setting the cam for the valve. It runs at about 250-280 rpm when hot air admission closes around 30° before BDC, not a key setting in fact.
Recently, I modelled the operation of a flame gulper engine with an Excel spreadsheet downloadable here : http://ti1ca.com/lxe91jcy-model-of-va...