New Boxer Engine Pickup get 37 MPG
 

Watched this YouTube video of a new engine technology tested in a F150 Pickup, gets 37 gas and 42 diesel, Both use no spark plugs.

Amazing if true. But the Aramco Logo on the truck side makes me wonder if it will ever see mass production numbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxON...ature=youtu.be

Not boxer because is doesn't actually have opposed cylinders, it's actually an inline engine with opposed pistons just like those Fairbanks-Morse Model 38 engines.

But anyway, I'm not sure if the gasser version will be actually released, even though the Diesel seems in fact promising. Achates Power has some partnerships with Cummins and Fairbanks-Morse which may be a sign of the viability of their concept.

Well, I'd like to see how they would make it run on CNG and biomethane instead of gasoline, or maybe ethanol.

They "project" 37mpg? They have the dang thing in there...put your money where your moth is already. I doubt real world will reflect the same king of efficiency.

Achates and an unnamed truck manufacturer are getting $7 million (only part of total funding) from CARB to get a demonstration Class 8 truck on the road by 2019.

A quick review of articles on this engine has mostly revealed an atrociously low level of basic engineering understanding on the part of so-called journalists. The worst thing to happen to journalism has been journalism majors. It doesn't help that Achates blows a lot of smoke with their PR spokespeople, which is to be expected in that cutthroat industry. As more money is involved, useful information is harder to come by.

I hope they are able to get a demonstration truck working -- soon.

Opposed-piston engines have been around for a very long time. Chrysler killed the Rootes/Commer TS3 and TS4 opposed-piston engines when it purchased Rootes in 1968.

The rocker-lever design used by Rootes was not original to them. Sulzer, Olds, and the French manufacturer, MAP, built similar engines at least ten years earlier. These engines were compact and powerful. They had their quirks, but were generally held in high regard by their operators and the mechanics who kept/keep them going.

Sulzer built primarily stationary engines (ZG9). There are Swiss fortresses with Sulzer engines running generators.

Ransom Olds also built stationary and marine engines through the Hill Diesel Engine Company. I have seen reference that Hill built licensed Sulzer engines, but Olds held patents on a rocker-lever engine as early as 1937.

MAP ran a four cylinder version of their standard two-cylinder tractor engine (2H88) in Le Mans in the late 50's. In Italy, licensed MAP engines, built by Breda-Isotta Franschini (FB4R) were also put into Ansaldo Fossati tractors.

Watching the video, it looked like a modernized Commer/Rootes TS3... I wanna see it drive...

It's more similar to a Fairbanks-Morse Model 38 or those Junkers aircraft engines than to a Commer Knocker, since it has 2 crankshafts instead of a single one.


I'd love to drive it.

They are actually being very conservative.
 

The vehicle was chosen as an "example" of packaging ( the Ford F150 being ubiquitous ). Test trucks have real numbers that exceed what they expect from the EPA FTP75 tests and any emissions regulated equipment they may need.

Achates is local to me and I have spoken with their engineers enough to know that this is not a simple remake of the Junkers Aero Engines of the 30s. They are not using any hi-tech coatings at this time, but leveraging the basic designs characteristics, they have reduced thermal losses, increased mixture turbulence dramatically and thus increased flame speed and the inherent rapid pressure drop results in reduced NOx production.

They are not planning to build engines. They are hoping to license the technology to vehicle manufacturers. That is always a problem. The partnership with Cummins and the US Military is probably their best bet as both have real interests in the engine.

There is a patent, US2809614, assigned to Continental Motors (now owned by the Chinese government) that addressed stress issues with the rocker-arm (the term, rocker-lever, seemed a bit off, may have been a google translate thing) designs. They were looking at it for aviation use. Obviously, nothing came of it.

I think the rocker-arm designs may have made a more compact engine than the two-crankshaft designs -- or not. It may have had less friction than gear towers. I haven't read any comparisons.

There is a patent, US2134811, by H.D. Church that drives two sets of rocker-arms off of one crankshaft to two banks of cylinders. It was never produced, as far as I know.

R. Laraque describes improvements to his earlier rocker-arm designs for MAP in US2530884. The earliest patent I found for him was on Espacenet, FR812528 (A).

The Olds patent is US2099371A.

The oldest Sulzer patent I could locate can be found on Espacenet, GB449802 (A). This puts Laraque, Sulzer, Church and Olds putting patents out close to the same time ('34-'37), with the edge to Olds -- maybe. I am fairly certain there were rocker-arm designs that predate those four.

This subject has reminded me of promising engine designs that amounted to nothing. Perhaps the most recent was OPOC (another single crankshaft opposed-piston design, but not using rocker-arms), by Ecomotors. They were to have started production in China by 2014, then 2016. Their website is now dead and they auctioned off their intellectual property last year.

I have seen Achates around for some years. They are in a very risky point in their growth. The money needed to get to the next level is often the poison that kills the idea. Its hard to say if it is the money that kills, or that flaws in the design do not reveal themselves until it reaches the next level.

Back to Rootes/Commer, and a bit off-subject. You can see a video of the only working TS4 prototype in existence here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5xO...F092DF9FA6ADD2

For comparison, a TS3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrAoj5Cuu68

For general amusement, a stitched together Leyland sports car with a TS3 (purported to go 140 mph and get 30 mpg):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTmkO6D0OWI

Here you can see a MAP 2H88 in "working" order:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTZp8eeLB4k

Here is a website describing two Sulzer 4ZG9 powering a swiss fort, the first is a flash video (in German) and the second has photos, schematics and further details (also in German, but you can try google translate):

Festungsmuseum Heldsberg - CH-9430 St. Margrethen*-*Technik
Festungsmuseum Heldsberg - CH-9430 St. Margrethen*-*Notstrom-Dieselgeneratoren

Anybody count the number of sentences that guy started with the word "So"?
DRIVES ME NUTS!:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: