This is an interesting thing if you have never seen the Hisso engine in some detail http://winfield.50megs.com/Adams/dragster.htm I was trying to determine who built the crankcase, as as far as I know the Hisso was a V8 in the airplanes of WW1 and 20's However, I have always wondered how you do the valves in the engine. trader jack
It might not be the same car but a few years back in national dragster in an artical on non auto engined dragsters there was a hisso special it was very simular triple carbs and 4-1 headers.It had a bit of history on the car I think it had c/a on the body and it went on to say that the ww1 H/S engine had been cut in half by First name i can't recall but the surname was Winfeild.Unreal bit of gear!
However, I have always wondered how you do the valves in the engine. At that time in the history of engines, sealing a head gasket was a real problem. Engines like this were designed to solve the gasket problem by eliminating it. The valves were put in from the bottom, then the pistons. Because airplane engines turn slow, the valve life was not a problem.
Even the R 2800 and 3350s that were in service when I started at the Airline were built that way. As were Offy race motors and lots of others. With the 2800s and 3350s the bore was so big it wasn't all that hard to get in there to get at the valves. Now on a 44 inch Crossley it must have been a bitch. PS If you never heard a blown 3350 cubic inch hemi making a dyno pull you missed something.
I'm still learnin' the protocol on this forum... I can't seem to tell when the details of a subject are common knowledge or when a comment might be helpful... So, here goes... Back in the day (before even I was born...) 'Hisso' was slang for Hispano-Suiza, a Spanish (Hispano) concern that that built all sorts of stuff from designs from a very talented Swiss (Suiza) engineer named Marc Birkigt. They made high-end luxury and sports cars, trucks, buses, airplane engines and even weapons! You folks may or may not be Wikipedia fans, but it does have a pretty good run-down on the company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispano-Suiza If you ever get to check out one of their cars up close, I think you'll find that the engineering and quality of production were both outstanding!
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