While the friction in the valvetrain may not be particularly high, is it not insignificant. And even assuming a suitable motored rig can be developed, understanding the output data can bring considerable challenges. Indeed, my own attempts to measure the power to turn a simple direct-acting camshaft, although giving reliable and repeatable results, only served to underline the highly dynamic nature of the forces involved and the sensitivity of the final result to the many parameters in the...
We have discussed the use of thermal barrier coatings for many reasons in the past, including mitigating heat transfer to areas of the engine which cost performance, protecting electronic components which can suffer reliability problems when the melting point of the solder is reached, to the reduction of heat transfer to the transmission system from literally red-hot exhaust systems. These are all very important considerations. Ask any engineer who has worked with the very best cars and...
For a number of reasons metals are excellent materials from which to con rods. They are relatively cheap, and generally of excellent quality. You can make a mess of the rod’s manufacture but the material has every chance of being very good. Powder-reinforced metal matrix composites also come into this category – we take a good quality billet or forging and machine it. Fibre-reinforced composites are another matter entirely though. The raw material can be excellent, but the people...
When I was young (TV shows in black-and-white only, and so on) vehicle radiators were much taller than they were wide. Designed to make maximum use of a natural phenomenon called the ‘thermo-syphon effect’, when the coolant was introduced into the top of the radiator it proceeded to fall to the bottom as it cooled, only to be replaced by more hot fluid from the engine. The advantage of the tall radiator maximised this effect and at the same time, being raised above the engine,...
For anyone who hasn’t seen the Nissan DeltaWing car, you would do well to look it up, as there can have be few more adventurous car designs in recent times. This was no rolling concept car, but raced at Le Mans. Its ethos was very ambitious – to be competitive with existing LM P2 cars but with half the power output and using half the fuel. Its unusual form – extremely narrow and low – meant it had a much lower power requirement and could therefore use a much smaller...