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Old 06-08-2016, 03:12 PM   #418 (permalink)
RustyLugNut
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The Mahle technology is not as new as the article implies. There are numerous accounts and patents of similar applications. To be exact, we were using an old 70s era Mercedes 240 D engine as our Xprize power source. The engine was modified to use less compression but retained the pre-chamber injector with the glow plug reamed out to accept a Ford long reach spark plug fired by some no name capacitive discharge ignition system. The engine could run on all the allowed fuels for the AutoXprize - diesel, gasoline, E85 or CNG , with some tuning changes. The pre-chamber fueling only represented a small fraction of the fuel flow as most of the fuel was introduced in the intake tract.

This Mahle application is very similar and I wonder how they obtained a patent for such a mechanism. Specifics of application could grant you a patent, but I really don't see this as being all that new.
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