Getting a great pleasure from most things mechanical, I have just re-read an excellent book I have in by bookcase: NOT MUCH OF AN ENGINEER, author Sir Stanley Hooker, Airlife publishing.
The book is an autobiography, and ranges from the developement of the two stage Merlin supercharger through to the developement of the jet engine from WW2 to the modern fan engines of today.
Interestingly, the RR Vulture engine, originally developed for the twin engined Avro Manchester (later the four engined Merlin powered Lancaster) is briefly discussed. This unit was designed with 24 cylinders configured around its crank in an X. It clearly is not so far removed from the compact VAG W unit of today. RR must of had magnetos, spark plugs and HT leads everywhere!
Regards,
Julian Lindley
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Which begs the question, what is new in auto engineering today?
Eleanor
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The Napier Lion was also a W engine of sorts - twelve cylinders arranged in three rows of four on a common crankshaft. Many years ago someone fitted one to a vintage Bentley chassis - the car is still raced at VSCC events and sounds awesome. 24 litres and open exhaust stubs. A little too fast for the brakes and tyres, but it usually does well at Silverstone.
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I just remembered I have a photo of the beast.
bangernomics.tripod.com/photogal/1gal12.htm
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I came upon an interesting site called www.sixstroke.com with a 4 stroke engine with 2 stroke porting in the cylinder head. There is a download of what it looks like and sounds like. The have built one based on a ducati v twin.
Mike
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The RR Vulture engine was a complete dog, unreliable and prone to bursting into flames, therefore the Lancaster was born (same airframe as the Manchester but with four well proven Merlin engines).
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Honda came out with a 6 stroke engine in the early 70s I think, suck, squeeze, bang, squeeeez, (small bang), blow. I havnt got a clue what became of it, but it was reported in Motorcycle News as the next big thing.
Bill
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John,
The Deltics where an opposed piston 2 stroke with 3 crank shafts, as David Withers points out originally for marine use very powerful for the size. Napier, the designers also had something to do with a gas turbine-reciprocating engine for racing. Its capacity came from the reciprocating section which fed a gas turbine with a very rich fuel air mix which was burnt again in the turbine which at the same time sent some of its air to the engine (like a turbo) and the whole thing went on again. Its a very long time since I saw it and the explantion may be slightly off.
Bill
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Have you ever seen a Deltics engine - as used in the railway engines (no I'm not a train spotter). I saw a cutaway one in the railway musuem in York. Damned if I could see how anything could move without hitting something else. These engineers must have strange brains.
John
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If you want to see earlier references to this engine on this forum, enter the word Deltic in the search box. Just one thing to add here, this engine was originally a marine engine rated at an astonishing 2500 bhp and was derated to 1650 bhp for railway use to aid reliability (two engines per locomotive = 3300 bhp).
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Answer: Masses of timing gears. Imagine setting that lot back up after a rebuilt. Halfords would not stock the special tools.
rg
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I found some more stuff on Napier that makes fascinating reading (4-valves per cylinder in 1916!) on www.ptfnasty.com/ptfDelticHist1.htm
Aero engine design does make one wonder what car engine designers do for a living, although I guess they're contrained by accountants these days.
For more reading, see LJK Setright's 'Some Unusual Engines'. There's some weird and wonderful stuff out there...
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I've also read this brilliant book. As well as describing the development of various engines, it also gives a fascinating account 'from the horse's mouth' of the antics that can take place at director level in a company.
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Napier also designed some similarly ground breaking aircraft piston engines,starting with the extraordinary Sabre,which was hampered by lack of resources,and,it is whispered,industrial sabotage of a political kind by a competitor who was not Bristol.
The Nomad was the most efficient piston engine ever made anywhere,but sadly everyone thought they wanted great big compressed air blowpipes on their wings,so Napier failed.
Stanley Hooker was known as the man who put the power into the Merlin,and he did,his re-routing of the induction system may have been worth 30% in terms of output,but we must take into account the coevel introduction of 100 and subsequently 130/150 octane fuel.
Probably the greatest engine designer who never designed an engine that succeeded,his main achievent,as an engineer and as a manager,was pulling the RB211 out of the wood with literally hours to spare.
Without him RR aero engines would probably no longer exist as any sort of power in the world.
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