Vegas and other losers

Jim Davies jimd at vcc.bc.ca
Sat Feb 5 16:54:44 GMT 2000



On Sat, 5 Feb 2000, DIY_EFI Digest wrote:

> 
> Years ago in Vancouver a guy named Bill Philips was experimenting with camless
> engines. He used a rotary valve driven by a timing belt off the crank. I don't
> know if it
> worked out I think he could not get the rotary valves to seal. His application was
> on a
> blown alcohol hemi.
> 
If you check patent abstracts from 1900 to about 1950 or so you will find
any variation you can think of [and a lot you can't imagine] Most were
losers, some were winners that sidelined for various reasons. Some of
it still exists, if only for military reasons. One of my favorites is the
Junkers Torpedo 8, an  all aluminum, disc valve blown V8 that ran on
alky, O2 and 100% EGR. Designed by Felix Wankel.

----------------------------------------------
> the assembly together. The long head bolts on the Vega
> connected the stiff iron head to the main bearing
> saddles. The block was cast from a special high
> silicon (carbide?) content alloy. After machining, the
> bores had to be etched, revealing the hard crystalline
> wear surface of the silicon. 

The alloy was Alcoa 390 and honing wore away the aluminum, leaving
a silicone wear surface for the piston. This was done using standard
Sunnen honing equipment, although the stones and oil were different. 
It was a good process and worked well, although it was always blamed for
the engine problems Vegas had. 

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