"It won't work" Chuck Miller show car Kaehni ignition

There was a picture posted of Chuck Miller's Buick powered T show car a while back but can't seem to find it, I think blue with it's bright red and controversial ignition system with the typical WTF is going on here. I studied it over and over and nobody seemed to be able to come up with any solid info. After mulling through my buddies stash of old mags last night I came upon this.

Boils down to a constant spark with the plugs contained in a pre-combustion chamber that ignites the main charge under pressure. Compression initiates firing like a diesel though it's the spark not heat that lights it off.

From Hot Rod, APR. 1966

 

I've posted several times looking for information. No luck. There was picture of the engine in CarCraft in mid-late '60's,maybe an article on the car but no explanation.

 

Found this in an old HR mag. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic...don't have a scanner.

 

It's a modern version of the hot tube ignition used on early gas engines, before electric ignition.

There is a coil of the type used on oil furnaces that produces a continuous, buzzing spark. The spark plugs are located up a tube connected to the combustion chamber. The intake mixture is drawn in the intake valve in the usual way. It does not burn or explode because it is too far away from the spark. Until the piston comes up on compression, forcing the gas mixture up the pipe and into contact with the spark. Then you get ignition.

The only way to adjust the "timing" is to make the pipe longer or shorter.

It will work as a novelty. I don't know how well, or how high RPM's it will handle but evidently it ran well enought for a show car to move around under its own power.

PS I wrote this before I read the article above. Now that I have read it I don't think I will change anything except, the system seems to have worked better than I expected.

 

Rusty>>>It will work as a novelty. I don't know how well, or how high RPM's it will handle >>>

It does work and works good. I first heard about, and was intrigued by, this sorta diesel glowplug approach to firing a gasoline engine in the late 50s. After the HR article came out in the mid 60s, I finally decided to try it on a 265 only using copper (for superior heat conduction) screw-in inserts for the plug ante-chambers to try to avoid modifying the heads by welding in iron ante-chambers to keep them cool. It worked right away without even having to play around with the timing by varying the distance of the plug from the main cylinder with washers. When warm, the engine would often re-start without having turn the ignition switch all the way to start --- no starter motor needed. The main drawbacks at the time were the expense of a high frequency oscillator/coil combo(on the order of 2 kHz or better) , fast electrode deterioration, and corrosion inside the antechamber.

Jack E/NJ

 

Thanks, that's the pic. I think it was a color spread of some big car show.

 

Yup, a kinda big one: the 17th Oakland show.

 

Can you tell us how it worked for HP, performance, and gas mileage compared to a stock ignition? Did you do any tests or just seat of the pants impressions? How long did you use it?

 

Rusty---Mainly seat of the pants. I did the experiment while still in grad school during my holiday breaks back to my hometown Rochester where the car was garaged. Performance *felt* as good as or better than a tuneup with a fresh set of points & condenser. Didn't run it much till the late 70s after I moved to NJ. That's when I found that the electrode burning problem was a significant PITA, not too mention the radio buzz interference the system produced even on FM. Coulda been due to my homemade oscillator/coil delivering too much current to the plugs --- I'm a chemist not an EE. 8^) However, I think the continuous 2 kHz arc is gonna be a problem for the electrodes no matter how well engineered the system is. At any rate, I then switched back to a distributor since by that time the plug-friendlier magnetic & photoelectronic breakerless guts were widely (and cheaply) available and seemed to work just as well.

Jack E/NJ

 

It does not burn or explode because it is too far away from the spark.

 

The auto recycling industry uses such a device (occilator) for starting engines in wrecked cars/pickups. No keys,damaged electrical system . Car thieves love them .

 

I wonder if this is the ignition system used on Smokey Yunick's hot vapor engine?

 

So what happened to it? At least two people (Chuck Miller & Jack E/NJ) had it working on multiple engines (Jack's 265 and Miller's '56 Pontiac, the '65 Buick, the 289 Chevy and his featured T) and it got a significant write-up in HRM from no less that E Rick Man. Did the patent holders chop Miller's efforts down at the knees with a cease-and-desist? Was it too expensive to do all the modifications to the heads to be practical? Inquiring minds want to know...