Oddball engines and prototypes

[Ocean1]

"Battery packs don't produce a lot of heat because they're pretty efficient at turning chemical energy into electrical energy.

It's also instructive to ask where those batteries are getting all that clean energy from.

Varies from country to country of course, but given that you can imagine you'd plug your car in when you got home from work, (and then go turn the air conditioning/heat up and put dinner on to cook) it's likely a lot of that clean energy will be supplied by peak demand generation systems. Which is unlikely to quite match the environmentally friendly picture of solar panels and windmills, it'll far more likely be oil and coal.

[WilDun]

It's also instructive to ask where those batteries are getting all that clean energy from.
Varies from country to country ............ Which is unlikely to quite match the environmentally friendly picture of solar panels and windmills, it'll far more likely be oil and coal.

You can bet it will always be the cheapest solution available at the time, not the most sensible one!

[Ocean1]

You can bet it will always be the cheapest solution available at the time, not the most sensible one!

Unless you charge for environmental costs, yes.

I was simply pointing out that the environmentally friendly perception of electric cars isn't necessarily very accurate.

A factor in rather a lot of environmentally driven policy, I have to say.

[WilDun]

Unless you charge for environmental costs, yes.

I was simply pointing out that the environmentally friendly perception of electric cars isn't necessarily very accurate.

A factor in rather a lot of environmentally driven policy, I have to say.

Especially selling (sorry giving away) water to help the poor ailing water sellers!:msn

[Ocean1]

Especially selling (sorry giving away) water to help the poor ailing water sellers!:msn

No problem with not selling something that falls out of the sky in sometimes seriously inconvenient quantities at all.

Now, wrapping it in oil is another matter.

[WilDun]

No problem with not selling something that falls out of the sky in sometimes seriously inconvenient quantities at all.

Now, wrapping it in oil is another matter.

Ok, lets not give it away, just collect it and turn it into hydrogen and oxygen (using solar power) and all our problems are solved!

[WilDun]

I think that the future may be electric motors rather than gearboxes, but these (expensive maybe?) infinitely variable gearboxes may also be worth looking at.
Whether or not they actually work as claimed, we will no doubt eventually find out! but like the Ryger engine, they somehow manage to keep us all intrigued just the same!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3aXvt4CEo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNNr7OOd_aY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVkX3Zm9A4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6zE__J0YIU

[Pursang]

In case you want to extract the angle.area values from those older engines: don't; it will blurr your view.

Here is a Unusual port layout from an old Bultaco Cylinder (It is stamped M103 which is the code for a 1973 250cc MK6 Pursang).

It is not some dodgy hand-cut liner, its a properly machined one. (But O/S for a 250)
In the ducts are some gouges that look like milling tool over-cuts, these have the same symmetrical errors on both sides.

The lower transfer holes feed into the B port ducts. Probably still providing under piston head ventilation.

This may have been a factory test cylinder (Not Impossible) but Bultaco didn't continue with developing exhaust auxiliaries.
They stuck with big oval exhaust ports for the HP engines, to the end.

Later engines had a boost port fed from an obstruction in the inlet, and finally reed valves.

cheers, Daryl.

[WilDun]

Here is a Unusual port layout from an old Bultaco Cylinder (It is stamped M103 which is the code for a 1973 250cc MK6 Pursang).
It is not some dodgy hand-cut liner, its a properly machined one. (But O/S for a 250)
In the ducts are some gouges that look like milling tool over-cuts, these have the same symmetrical errors on both sides.

The lower transfer holes feed into the B port ducts. Probably still providing under piston head ventilation.

This may have been a factory test cylinder (Not Impossible) but Bultaco didn't continue with developing exhaust auxiliaries.
They stuck with big oval exhaust ports for the HP engines, to the end.

Later engines had a boost port fed from an obstruction in the inlet, and finally reed valves.

cheers, Daryl.

Daryl, I don't think anyone is home!
Is anybody there..... there..... there..... there..... there.....there.....there.....
Yes as I thought, just an empty space! - not even a ghostly Bultaco!

[husaberg]

Pretty sure i have posted this before
the FACECAM



Plus the happy clapper engine


The fuel/air inlet is at extreme right. The transfer port is visible behind the right piston.

The internals of the James engine. The prototype engine had a swept volume of 29.2 in3 (478.5 cc) and a compression ratio of 11:1. The pistons were 2.375 by 2.750 in, at the rectangular section, and had a 2-inch stroke. (measured at the outer radius?) The engine body was of aluminium alloy with a cast-iron cylinder liner. The water jacket was cast integrally with the main block. The connecting rods were of drop-forged H-section steel, the big end having a single-row roller bearing; the small-end bearing were of the needle-roller type.
The pistons were sealed by L-shaped piston "rings" of cast-iron, pressed against the cylinder walls by spring expanders.

[Pursang]

Plus the happy clapper engine


The fuel/air inlet is at extreme right. The transfer port is visible behind the right piston.

The internals of the James engine. The prototype engine had a swept volume of 29.2 in3 (478.5 cc) and a compression ratio of 11:1. The pistons were 2.375 by 2.750 in, at the rectangular section, and had a 2-inch stroke. (measured at the outer radius?) The engine body was of aluminium alloy with a cast-iron cylinder liner. The water jacket was cast integrally with the main block. The connecting rods were of drop-forged H-section steel, the big end having a single-row roller bearing; the small-end bearing were of the needle-roller type.
The pistons were sealed by L-shaped piston "rings" of cast-iron, pressed against the cylinder walls by spring expanders.

Some features I like:
Compact for displacement and should be able to balance well.

My proposed "improvements".

Round pistons in a curved tubular cylinder housing. Regular round rings. (Square, oval & similar have been too 'hard' to make work well & reliably).

Cross-flow. Exhaust on one side, transfers opposite.

But what with life's strange twists & turns, Now FOCUSING on OLD Bultaco's, and their ghosts, almost exclusively.

Cheers, Daryl.

[tjbw]

Some features I like:
Compact for displacement and should be able to balance well.

My proposed "improvements".

Round pistons in a curved tubular cylinder housing. Regular round rings. (Square, oval & similar have been too 'hard' to make work well & reliably).

Cross-flow. Exhaust on one side, transfers opposite.

But what with life's strange twists & turns, Now FOCUSING on OLD Bultaco's, and their ghosts, almost exclusively.

Cheers, Daryl.

I like uniflow, with transfer at one end, and exhaust at the other.

Many have tried to develop toroidal cylinders, there's lots of info about them on internet.

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/P...toroidalIC.htm

[guyhockley]

I'm hoping Frits might know a bit more about this one...
The pictures aren't that revealing and I'm guessing most of you don't speak Dutch, so, briefly, he's taken a Folan 1000cc V-twin four stroke and replaced the front cylinder with a KTM 250 top end. That's stuck in a KR1 chassis for testing purposes. There's some simplistic reasoning about power expectations in the article but I don't know of any further news.
Jerry van der Heiden has form in this sort of thing - he was part of the TZ 3 Cylinder team, he made a bunch of KTM V-twin 2 strokes and once built a 6 cylinder outboard using 3 TZ250 blocks, but nowadays he seems to have settled as an XS650 specialist.

[Frits Overmars]

I'm hoping Frits might know a bit more about this one... The pictures aren't that revealing and I'm guessing most of you don't speak Dutch, so, briefly, he's taken a Folan 1000cc V-twin four stroke and replaced the front cylinder with a KTM 250 top end. That's stuck in a KR1 chassis for testing purposes. There's some simplistic reasoning about power expectations in the article but I don't know of any further news. Jerry van der Heiden has form in this sort of thing - he was part of the TZ 3 Cylinder team, he made a bunch of KTM V-twin 2 strokes and once built a 6 cylinder outboard using 3 TZ250 blocks, but nowadays he seems to have settled as an XS650 specialist.

Basically, you've already summed up all the relevant facts. Jerry likes to think and tinker out of the box. The above Folan-KTM is just one example. It ran, and then it was shelved; on to the next project. Lately he seems to be concentrating on Yamaha XS650 engines for MX sidecars.
The TZ 350-triple was the most successful enterprise on tarmac. Jerry built it, together with Ferry Brouwer, for Yamaha works rider Takazumi Katayama, who became 350 cc world champion riding the contraption. It had a 50 mm stroke, a TZ250 twincylinder block plus one half of a second twincylinder block. The other half rests in my cabinet at home. The bike was called Sankito (Japanese for triple). It was rather heavy and on twisty circuits Katayama resorted to his twin, but the Sankito was unbeatable wherever there were long straights.

[WilDun]

Some features I like:
Compact for displacement and should be able to balance well.

My proposed "improvements".

Round pistons in a curved tubular cylinder housing. Regular round rings. (Square, oval & similar have been too 'hard' to make work well & reliably).

Cross-flow. Exhaust on one side, transfers opposite.

But what with life's strange twists & turns, Now FOCUSING on OLD Bultaco's, and their ghosts, almost exclusively.

Cheers, Daryl.

I agree with your ideas (can't beat the round pistons and rings) and the inlet and exhaust kept relatively seperated - very compact compared to an opposed piston design like the Junkers Jumo with the inlet at one end and exhaust at the other plus two crank assemblies - but it does still introduce some more complication of course.
It would need some specialised machining facilities for the cylinders, but not too complicated really and of course the rings might need slightly curved faces (not such good sealing maybe?) - again not impossible to sort out,

Simplicity is always the ideal, but there are limits to simplicity and to improve performance beyond this means tacking on more bits and pieces and electronic gadgetry!

That's only how I see it of course and I'm sure there are others who are much more knowledgeable on the subject than I am!

BTW Frits are you still in country "I"?