Years ago my father attended a business meeting along with auto engineers from Sealed Power (A Michigan auto corp) to see Edward La Force’s engines. The engineers did testing and found that the engine not only had improved MPG but ran so clean you could breathe the fumes. It worked, my father actually drove in a stock american motors V6 but it felt like a full V8, getting the high 40s MPG. The auto industry had just thrown everything behind the catalytic converter and didn’t wish to pursue it.
La Force said his patents left out key information and duplicating the patent wouldn’t get any results.
So I’m wondering if any auto history buff happens to know where one of these engines ended up? I can’t believe they would have been scrapped.
You actually buy into this?
According to the inventors they simply modified stock cams and timing (go figure, that’s nothing new) and their process involved burning all of the
“heavy gasoline molecules”.
It was suppressed by the government of course; along with dozens of its kinfolk.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/supressed_inventions/suppressed_inventions43.htm
I also note that the La Force brothers “survived on the contributions of several thousand people who believe in them”; which is more often the case than not.
Here’s the listing for the report the EPA did on a LaForce modified Hornet: http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=7334720
The report showed that all LaForce was doing was effectively de-tuning the engine, which resulted in better mileage but worse power. For equal horsepower applications the LaForce engine was no more efficient than a regular engine, and polluted far worse, to boot.
Of course, LaForce claimed that these tests were rigged by the car makers and the oil companies in cahoots with sinister government bureaucrats. This was along with a number of other “suppressed technology” conspiracy theories that were popular for a time, and seem to be making a bit of a comeback.
In hindsight, though, the basic narrative of Detroit ignoring a technology that could drastically improve economy and performance was absolutely true. The technology wasn’t the vague tinkerings of some crank in their garage, though, it was a technology being refined by European and Japanese car makers, but practically ignored by Detroit called electronic fuel injection.
Sometimes our memories can play tricks on us. For instance, American Motors never had a V-6. Just as this recollection is wrong, isn’t it possible that your memory of some of the other details is also incorrect?
It’s amazing how high gas prices bring out a flood of junk science, outright fraud, marketing gimmicks, etc. to make people feel good about something hopeful.
My wife says there are an equal number of wacky claims in the medical and nutrition fields. The health food industry has at least as many fake products and ineffective products.
I guess the US constitution guarantees freedom of speech and dissemination of nonsense. A good thing it draws the line at outright fraudulant products.