Interesting and unusual engines

Earlier I was reading about the Rootes TS3 (two-stroke 3 cylinder) engine, used in Commer trucks.

The engine has three cylinders situated above and across the plane of the crankshaft. Each cylinder contains two pistons with the crown facing inwards. On each side the pistons are linked to the crankshaft via a short connecting rod, a substantial rocker arm and a secondary connecting rod. Unlike a petrol engine, a two stroke diesel cannot use crankcase pressure to boost the air supply, because it would tend to combust any oil that was entrapped in the air. A Roots blower is situated on the front of the engine and supplies the combustion air. The total displacement is only 3.25 litres, but the engine develops 90 B.H.P. Contemporary four stroke engines produced this kind of power from 8 litres.

http://www.sa.hillman.org.au/TS3.htm

Best of all is the sound it makes - raspy and gruff, but in a good way: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0sLp7wvq60

What are some other unconventional engines that made it into cars/trucks/boats? The Wankel is an obvious one, but they're relatively common and still in production.

Ford GAA 1100 cid DOHC V8 all aluminum Sherman Tank engine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1E_OBPpEVs&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_GAA_engine

Cool... Huh.....

Greg

BRM attempted an H-16 (over and under flat 8s)Formula 1 engine in the mid-'60s It won one race, but couldn't compete with the Ford DFV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_engine

GMC 702 cid "Twin Six" V12:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfBkcZN4EQo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fkmfcnt1SM&NR=1

Greg

the Jaguar v12... for all intents and purposes two of their twin overhead cam straight sixes

Napier Deltic FTW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic

Shawn

Wankle, as someone on here called it magic spinning triangles.

OH! I just remembered anotherone. There was a radial aircraft engine that the cylinder jugs rotated instead of the crank shaft. Unfortunately I dont remember what it was called.

how about this? a 1000cc 4 cylinder designed by Ferrari. Found in the ASA 1000 GT it featured sequential cylinder firing instead of a staggered order

I always thought "W" motors were pretty interesting. Especially VW ones, I mean meshing TWO VW engines into one! Holy unreliable!

porksboy wrote: OH! I just remembered anotherone. There was a radial aircraft engine that the cylinder jugs rotated instead of the crank shaft. Unfortunately I dont remember what it was called.

At least one WWI era aircraft powerplant did that. That is a true rotary.(Stationary crankshaft, propellor attached to crankcase, whole assembly rotates) I believe it might have been Rhone. It's in a couple of the stock footage shots used on something like the History Channel.

Found it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine

The Megola motorcycle, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megola

"The Megola had a unique design: it boasted a Monosoupape rotary engine mounted within the front wheel. The engine contained five cylinders with side-mounted valves and it displaced 640 cc (39 cu in), a total size equivalent to many modern bikes. The crankshaft was the front axle, which remained stationary while the cylinders rotated with the wheel. A hand-controlled butterfly valve was located in the hollow crankshaft to regulate throttle. Power output was a meagre 14 bhp (10 kW) but was applied directly to the wheel. This arrangement produced a very low centre of gravity and provided for excellent handling.

"The 5 cylinder star-engine was mounted in the front wheel, and the wheel turned around six times slower than the crankshaft did."

The engine was very flexible, lacking both a clutch and a transmission. Starting it required a person to either spin the front wheel while the bike was on its stand, or to push-start. The cylinders could be disassembled without having to remove the wheel spokes in order to service the engine. The tires were tubed with the front inner-tube being a circular sausage shape rather than a complete doughnut so that it could be changed without removing the wheel and engine. The box section frame contained the main fuel tank which fed by gravity a smaller tank mounted on the axle. The front suspension was comprised of semi-elliptical springs.

The top speed was 85 km/h (52 mph) resulting in a win at the German Championship in 1924, while later, sportier models were said to be capable of 140 km/h (88 mph). A total of 2000 Megolas were built and only 10 rideable examples remain, with one existing in the Guggenheim Museum in New York, USA."

I think there are some new 1l superbike engines that are going sequential on the firing as well- instead of a 180 crank they are spaced at 90 degree intervals for smoother power on corner exit. It was featured in Cycle world sometime in the last year.

I always thought those coventry climax engines were neat. They were designed I believe for fire pumps on trucks, but made the BMC a-series look pretty bad. They were SOHC and small displacement. Nothing particularly ground breaking about them, but they're fairly rare here so...

Not really an engine but the turbonique drag axle system of the '60s was pretty sick. Some one should restart making those. One car used one on the road.

How about the superbike from the late 80's that was a 4 cylinder with oval pistons and cylinder walls like two cylinders siamesed together. The piston rings were the tricky part. This was to get around the max 4 cylinder regs.

Unfortunately my mind is full and things like the names of manufacturers gets deleted and the recycle bin emptied to make room for more useless things.

Then there is the Ranger aircraft engine. It was an inverted cylinder block. Crank on top, cylinders on the bottom. It allowed the propeller to be higher off the tarmac.

Or the fairbanks-morse two stroke vertically opposed 12 cylinder diesel (24 pistons- a crank on the bottom and the top connected by a large jackshaft), twin-charged, aftercooled and intercooled. We had a pair of them on our ship.

Oh and to porksboy- some kitplanes use an inverted gm v8 to get the crank plane higher up.

porksboy wrote: How about the superbike from the late 80's that was a 4 cylinder with oval pistons and cylinder walls like two cylinders siamesed together. The piston rings were the tricky part. This was to get around the max 4 cylinder regs. Unfortunately my mind is full and things like the names of manufacturers gets deleted and the recycle bin emptied to make room for more useless things.

That was the Honda NR500. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NR500 They busted their butts to build that engine to get around engine restrictions current at the time. A valiant effort but ultimately a failure.

Imagine honing a cylinder shaped like this:

The 12 cylinder Fairbanks Morse 38D-8-1/8 engine was an extremely powerful prime mover at the time of its introduction, typically rated at 2400 horsepower in the Roots blower version. The same engine with series turbocharging was rated at up to 3600 horsepower

it had a vertical shaft that tied the two cranks together.

Used in a lot of subs in ww2 as well as tug boats

also used in subtenders and LSTs.. my father will tell a story of a new engineer who overpressurised the upper crankcase with oil before firing her up.. resulting in an uncontrolled engine that eventually blew because they could not shut it down...

He referred to them as "rock crushers"

Motoczysz bike engine they show on DiscoveryHD. Mounted longitudinally and two cylinders rotate in the opposite direction from the other two to minimize gyroscopic effects. It's supposed to be racing super bike; never heard anything about it other than the show.

RossD wrote: Motoczysz bike engine they show on DiscoveryHD. Mounted longitudinally and two cylinders rotate in the opposite direction from the other two to minimize gyroscopic effects. It's supposed to be racing super bike; never heard anything about it other than the show.

like this?

http://www.motorcyclecruiser.com/roadtests/neander_1400_turbo_diesel_motorcycle/index.html

That's the one. Leaks oil like a seive too!

Toyman01 wrote: The 12 cylinder Fairbanks Morse 38D-8-1/8 engine was an extremely powerful prime mover at the time of its introduction, typically rated at 2400 horsepower in the Roots blower version. The same engine with series turbocharging was rated at up to 3600 horsepower it had a vertical shaft that tied the two cranks together. Used in a lot of subs in ww2 as well as tug boats

Im not sure if its kept to only one company/model...in fact Im sure its not, but I read somewhere about sportbikes using 1 cylinder to supercharge the other...one piston compresses only air, and then charges it into the next cylinder under pressure...got them around the "NA" rules of whatever sanctioning body was ruling the races because the rules only stated no external forced induction was allowed...so the engineers said "well, they never said anything about internally boosting it"

thats IIRC of course...YMMV

The Crosley Stamped steel engine: http://crosleyautoclub.com/Mighty_Tin.html