I don’t remember the rotary engine but I saw one cut apart in an aircraft museum so you could see the guts. The “camshaft” was a shaft but more of a disc with lobes. It was interesting to see.
Some of these old engine designs are neat and accounted for limitations present at the time. There appear to be at least a couple monoblocks on that list.
I was mistaken. Bentley is using a W engine in the new Bentayga producing 600bhp and 664lb/ft. It’s an enhanced design of the W engine they were using in their other flagship cars. There’s an article about the Bentayga in the October issue of CAR magazine. That’s where I learned of it.
I get Bentley and RR confused often. Years ago they were joined at the hip. I guess I never got over their divorce.
Louis Bleriot did the first flight across the English Channel with a plane that used an Anzani W-3 engine also referred to as a “fan” engine.
This is Mister Anzani with a fan engine powered motorcycle.
Jim Feuling also built custom three cylinder Harley Davidsons similar to the Anzani engine.
@B.L.E. I’ll bet that 3-popper Harley sounds weird! Does it fire all 3 in one rotation like Harley’s fire their 3 in one rotation?
That list of odd engines made me think of something else that might work better in terms of performance and efficiency. There was one listed that only had ONE VALVE per cylinder. I was thinking this might be more efficient since you could have one LARGE valve instead of 2, 3, 4 or more. I could see the spark plug having to be in an odd location. Maybe again that would counteract any gains from this. Also, I could see it being harder to separate the intake and exhaust similar to what happens on a 2 stroke. I am sure there would be ways to improve upon that much like a 2 stroke but… Then there might be the issue with the intake mixture igniting on the hot valve and such right after an exhaust stroke.
I could see this type of valve being operated by a camshaft and pushrods similar to what we use now. There would be some more complexity in this area of course.
Obviously there are some drawbacks otherwise it would be used like a monoblock. What are they if I didn’t state them above?
The first Le Rhone rotary engine actually had 2 valves per cylinder - one in the head, one in the piston (see the link on the previous post). The redesigned one had intake ports at the base of the cylinder. So more like a two stroke in that air/fuel/oil was introduced into the crankcase, but made it into the combustion chamber through a valve in the piston or through the ports at the base, but not through the exhaust valve.
Another aspect of those rotary engines - the entire engine spun, unlike the similar-looking radial engine. Resulted in huge gyroscopic effects that made takeoffs ‘interesting’…
@B.L.E. I'll bet that 3-popper Harley sounds weird! Does it fire all 3 in one rotation like Harley's fire their 3 in one rotation?
I’m not sure what firing order Jim Feuling used on those engines, however, Harley engines do not fire both cylinders in one revolution. They fire on alternate revolutions resulting in a 405-315 degree firing interval.
I think the three jug Harley engine uses firing intervals as staggered as possible. If they all fired on one revolution, it would sound like a one cylinder engine except instead of a pop-pop-pop noise, it would be a blat-blat-blat type of noise, sort of like a John Deere two cylinder tractor which has a 180-540 firing interval. The two pops follow so close together that to the ear it sounds like a “blat” then there’s a 540 degree coast through before the two cylinders repeat the close succession of firings.
In this video, you can actually hear the individual pops, at normal speeds, those two quick pops sound like a single blat.
I was thinking this might be more efficient since you could have one LARGE valve instead of 2, 3, 4 or more
Nah, there’s a reason they have multiple valves per cylinder on engines today even in light of the added cost to do so.
A single valve engine would likely work ok on a diesel engine, but you couldn’t have an exhaust stack, the port would have to be open to the air or else you would just suck exhaust back into the cylinder
The rotary engines had no exhaust stacks, the port was open to the air and so the same valve could release the exhaust and then let in fresh air. The only problem is that there is no good way to throttle such a design, the engine is either on or off. And pilots did control the power of those engines by hitting the kill switch intermittently while landing or taxiing.
Not how it worked.
I figured the main limitation would be separating the exhaust from the intake and it sounds like this would be hard to solve. I also didn’t think about the difficulty in throttling such an engine.
I figured that the fact this had never been done on a modern engine meant it wasn’t practical.
And last but not least, a two-stroke rotary engine:
@insightful, thank you for posting that. It’s a fantastic little piece of homebrew engineering and I love that kind of stuff.
Starts right up too… 
I know this is an old thread but found something of interest recently. I have a couple push mowers with the Honda GCV 160 vertical shaft engine. I had always wondered why they had that odd 45 degree mating surface between the block and the pan until recently.
One of these mowers had been given to me. The guy neglected it until it would no longer run. I got it running and it worked OK but with some quirks until it quit among a clatter of metallic bangs and backfires. I decided to take it apart and see what part had let go.
Anyway, one of the valve faces separated from the stem and banged around inside the cylinder. What was interesting about this engine is that it is essentially a monoblock design. As for servicing the valves, it is a TERRIBLE design. As for eliminating a head gasket in an engine that is air-cooled and likely to be run at high temps, that isn’t a bad idea, especially considering how most people use and care for lawn equipment these days. Servicing the valves isn’t likely much of a concern for most.
The odd angle allows for the bearings/journals to be fully integral to the casting. The pan slides off the crankshaft and then you have access to the connecting rod. You remove this and the crank slides right out.
The engine is overhead cam and uses a tiny little timing belt. This is all contained within the oil so the belt must be resilient to the oil. I just thought this setup was interesting as it is quite common from what I have seen. I never understood why it was done this way until I took one apart.
Crosley’s engine had an integrated block and head.
And Crosley also had the “COBRA” (Copper BRAzed) engine, assembled from sheet metal parts. Corrosion did it in, replaced with a more standard (but still one piece) iron block (CIBA) engine.
http://crosleyautoclub.com/EngineTree/Crosley_Eng_Tree-1.html
It will be way more expensive. A lot less reliable. Others try it and fail. Way more maintenance time and expense. It will limit the size and power of the engine. Other than this it will work just peachy keen.
Many older motorcycle engines were air cooled. Many Harley are still air cooled. My older bikes use a oil tank that helps cool the engine. It works just fine until you get stuck in standstill traffic. The air cooled engine needs air moving in order for it to cool.
The Miller-Offenhauser- Meyer engines probably won more racing events than any other engine in history. They were all 4 cylinder, dual overhead cam engines with no removable heads and ranged in size from 90 to 270 ci.
They won the vast majority of midget, sprint car and Indy races fron the 20s through the early to mid 60s.
