Wildest automotive engine concept?

My grandpa was telling me he owned a flathead ford motor with a set up that way, it came with the mechanical drawings and some of the molds for the castings, he said it couldn't ever get it to run so he sold it and it ended up in a museum in Tennessee.

 

Not vintage, but I'm liking the cyclone radial steam engine.

http://www.cyclonepower.com/


I have no financial interest in that company, but I'd like to.

 

While the car was extremely fast and did set the lap record [faster than the F-1 cars] it did not lap the field by 2 laps, Hobbs finished 2nd in a Mclaren less than 1/2 lap behind. The second place qualifier was only a couple of seconds off. The rest of what you said is true, an amazing car to say the least.

 

Here is info on the 1905 Adams-Farwell engine from my original hardcover manual.

 

Now that's pretty cool..

 

Likewise. Missed this one the first time.

 

..... definitely an unusual engine. It was done not so much because it was a good idea as it was to take advantage of racing class rules.

 

The Studebaker 4 cam Indy v-8 from the early 50's always intrigued me, although I have only seen one picture, and little info on it.

 

I know this is a old post, I don't know it's the same motor, but I had a Smokey Yunick book that mentioned a Hemi Chevy sitting in a corner of his shop gathering dust. When questioned about the motor, Smokey replied (not a quote) as something he worked with GM that never materialized.
The book never had a pic of it, I would have loved seeing it.

 

Not hamb friendly the ecomotors 2 cylinder 4 piston motor.

 

OMG, speak of the Mutha f'n devil...it does exist! Only one in existence I guess.

 

I guess I just have to ask: What's "WILD" about a stock Cadillac passenger car engine that was used from 1936 thru 1948 and just happened to be "consripted" for wartiime use in a tank?

 

... http://racingstudebakers.com/holy_grail!.htm

 

Search the Gnome Radial, used in aircraft and automobiles years ago.

It had a fixed crankshaft with rotating cylinders.

 

little help here... if you can find it please post ?/?
Bruce Crowers F.I. port direct between the Exhaust.

 

Gnomes were Rotary not radial engines.
Here is a rare radial engine in an old sprint car. (If you look close at side of the cowl of the sprint car, you can see the name of the car was "RADIAL EXPRESS.") It was a six cylinder, two-cycle radial, each cyl/rod had its own throw, with the m being staggered from fron to back. * so it was actually a "spiral" rather than a radial..This shop was also filled with all sizes of Offys, at the time.. Engine photos are from our collection , after we purchased engine from the famous Joe Gemsa, back in the 70's.

 

couple of my favorites , gobron brille from the teens , 6 cylinder with twelve pistons acting opposite each other compressing in the middle of the cylinder bore , spark plug in the middle of the block . or maybe the doble steam car , gets up to temp in about 1-2 minutes using a flame thrower to heat the steam tubes [ it injects gas under pressure through a venturi , then ignites it with a spark plug ] providing steam to a 4 cylinder compound steam motor [ power on every stroke - up and down ] this gives max torque at 1 rpm . maybe packards experimental straight twelve would qualify too

 

It's not an automotive engine, but how about the Napier-Deltic?

Sixteen cylinders, thirty-two pistons, three crankshafts and zero cylinder heads.



According to that page, there was even a version that mounted a turbine stage in between the cylinders, powered by the exhaust gasses. All combined, they were hoping for 6,000 shaft horsepower, but a connecting rod let go at 5,600.

Doc.

 

Yes it did run, and even made it down the track a few times. Here's some pics.

 

What is this?
It's gorgeous whatever it is.

 

Great thread.A little trivia here on the rotary engines from WW1 aircraft.They had no throttle control.There was a "blip switch"on the stick to cut out the ignition for engine speed control.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Matra-Simca U8:



An attempt at a relatively low-cost 8-cylinder engine by effectively sticking two fours together.

 

Here's one from Alex Tremulis' collection of oddities, about 1936:















Apparently Szekely was one outstanding mechanical engineer. In 1929 he built a 3 cylinder radial for an airplane, built in Holland Michigan. I only found this patent after years of trying to figure out what was in the photos. Still, nobody's ever heard of the car. Anyone?

 

If that is intended to be a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive installation, I think the handling would be atrocious. The trailing arms would gain positive camber equal to the roll angle, and very nasty oversteer would result. This would be especially true if the front end were conventional, be it wishbone ifs or a solid axle.

There is reason to suspect that the intention might have been for front wheel drive with rear wheel steering, considering the vogue for that arrangement in weird experimental stuff at the time. Compare Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxions. The radiator position is suggestive in this regard.

 

Mickey Thompson's 427 Ford FE Hemi with articulated pushrods. They even stuffed one into a Thunderbolt. I recall seeing it for sale on e-Bay at one stage, serious $$$$
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/...y_thompsons_427_ford_hemi_engine/viewall.html
http://www.woodyg.com/fairlane/mt64tbolt/

 

In spite of the wonderful claims made, and ignoring higher cost, all the sleeve and rotary valve options have some combination of performance, wear, friction, lubrication, heat, or durability problems that standard poppet valves don't have. Poppet valves seem to be a bad alternative, but it turns out they aren't. Consider that manufacturers have evaluated, and in some cases even tried, these alternatives and rejected them. In race classes where they would be permitted, and cost is not a major factor, no one in modern times has successfully used a rotary or sleeve valve. Instead, the best option has proven to be making poppet valves work as well as possible.

 

The Knight double sleeve valve system was used by some thirty different manufacturers prior to c.1940, mainly in upmarket products where silent operation was more important than oil consumption. Tuning potential seemed to be quite limited. Voisin nevertheless stuck with the system in the way eccentric geniuses often do.

More interesting to my mind is the Burt-McCollum single sleeve valve system, as used on many British aero engines. Sir Harry Ricardo thought very highly of them, and built a number of extremely efficient prototypes using the system. It was only used in a small number of automotive engines around 1910, including its originator Argyll. I seem to recall Vauxhall marketing a sleeve-valve engine of this type in the late '20s.

I once went to the trouble of plotting Burt-McCollum port exposure events graphically and comparing them to poppet-based equivalents with various cam profiles. If memory serves the possibilities were definitely in the hairy range.

It was not so much that the Burt-McCollum engines worked badly as that they became redundant as fuels improved. Given higher-octane fuels the practical simplicity of poppet valves just makes better sense.

 

Heres an odd one from the world of model aircraft!

Why not rotate the cylinder to to open & close intake & exhaust ports?

Neat Vid! http://youtu.be/K5aDE8daT1Q

 

Air cooled magnesium Ford flathead;



In my dreams I'd love to fit it in my O/T trike;

 

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it's a good idea. Why not do that, trust me, plenty of reasons.

Most of the "interesting'; alternatives were tried and discarded decades ago. In the '60s Ford built quite a few engines with alternative designs and features. That exercise only confirmed why those ideas weren't already in use.