The changes carried through in the two 4-cylinder engines were not
major. The water-cooled area of the cylinder barrel was increased by
nearly ten percent but the head remained only partially cooled. In
hindsight, this consistent avoidance of complete cylinder-head cooling
presents the one most inexplicable of the more important design
decisions they made, as it does not appear logical. In the original
engine, where the factors of time and simplicity were of paramount
importance, this made sense, but now they were contemplating
considerably increased power requirements, knowing the effect of
temperature on both the cylinder and the weight of cylinder charge,
and knowing that valve failure was one of their most troublesome
service problems. Nor does it seem that they could have been avoiding
complete cylinder cooling through fear of the slightly increased
complexity or the difficulty of keeping the water connections and
joints tight, for they had faced a much more severe problem in their
first engine, where their basic design required that three joints be
kept tight with only two sets of threads, and had rather easily
mastered it; so there must have been some much more major but not
easily discernible factor which governed, for they still continued to
use the poorly cooled head, even carrying it over to their next engine
series. Very probably they did not know the effect on detonation of a
high-temperature fuel-charge.
One of the new engines was intended for use in their future
experimental flying and has become known as _No. 2._ It had a bore of
4-1/8 in., incorporated an oil pump, and at some time shortly after
its construction a fuel pump was added. The fuel pump was undoubtedly
intended to provide a metering system responsive to engine speed and
possibly also to eliminate the small inherent variation in flow of the
original gravity system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account